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Virginia: Fimian Tops Connolly in Own Campaign Poll

The Republican who lost to Rep. Gerry Connolly (D) in 2008 is brandishing a campaign poll that shows him ahead in a hypothetical rematch.

The survey that McLaughlin & Associates conducted on Feb. 28 and March 1 for Keith Fimian, a home inspection company founder, had him ahead of Connolly 40 percent to 35 percent in the 11th district, which includes suburbs of Washington, D.C.

When they ran against each other two years ago, Connolly beat Fimian 55 percent to 43 percent.

Fimian is vying with Fairfax County supervisor Pat Herrity for the district’s Republican nomination.

Foe’s Appeal for Cash Blasts Rigell as ‘RINO’

Scott Taylor, a former Navy SEAL and one of six Republicans challenging Rep. Glenn Nye (D), is trying to raise money by drawing attention to a donation the leading GOP candidate once made to Barack Obama.

“Send a Navy SEAL, not a RINO,” Taylor’s campaign said in a Wednesday e-mail to supporters.

In Taylor’s eyes, the race’s “Republican in name only” is Scott Rigell, an automotive executive and GOP activist who gave $1,000 to Obama in March 2008 as he was battling Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“Scott Taylor’s opponent in this race is a big money donor and has self-funded a large portion of his campaign. This is the two year anniversary of our opponent’s endorsement of Barack Obama’s policies with a $1,000.00 donation,” Taylor’s campaign wrote.

Rigell has said he made the donation to stop Clinton, not aid Obama.

Rigell’s allies have noted that he’s been active in GOP politics for years and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the party’s candidates and committees.

Ben Loyola, an engineering firm owner, also is seeking the GOP nomination and has criticized Rigell’s donation to Obama.

The other candidates seeking the Republican nomination in the June 8 primary are Ed Maulbeck, a former Navy SEAL; Bert Mizusawa, a brigadier general in the Army Reserve; and Kenny Golden, a 31-year Navy veteran who formerly headed the Republican organization in Virginia Beach.

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