{"id":30019,"date":"2020-02-16T15:55:26","date_gmt":"2020-02-16T15:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/?p=30019"},"modified":"2020-02-18T20:21:16","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T20:21:16","slug":"how-virginia-was-bought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/?p=30019","title":{"rendered":"How Virginia Was Bought"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:5149,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.nytimes.com\\\/interactive\\\/2020\\\/02\\\/15\\\/us\\\/politics\\\/michael-bloomberg-spending.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:5150,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.pagunblog.com\\\/2013\\\/11\\\/18\\\/elections-have-consequences-2&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>If you wondered how Virginia went from a red state to a purple state to a blue state, here is part of the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michael Bloomberg played the long game, made many strategic campaign contributions over the years, and made Virginia his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2020\/02\/15\/us\/politics\/michael-bloomberg-spending.html\" class=\"rank-math-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">According to the New York Times<\/a> it started a lot sooner than the last couple of elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Soon enough, Mr. Bloomberg ramped up his spending on politics beyond New York. Frustrated at the flow of firearms from Virginia, a state with lax gun laws, Mr. Bloomberg tried to buoy candidates in the state\u2019s 2011 elections who shared his views.<\/p><p>Then, in 2013, he received a visitor in New York: Mr. McAuliffe, by then a candidate for governor of Virginia. He proposed to Mr. Bloomberg that he make the state a decade-long priority, with an eye toward empowering Democratic supporters of gun regulation.<\/p><p>\u201cI walked out with a multimillion-dollar commitment that day,\u201d Mr. McAuliffe recalled.<\/p><p>Mr. Bloomberg spent more than $3 million in Virginia that year through his super PAC, helping propel Mr. McAuliffe to the governorship and electing a Democratic attorney general supportive of gun control, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. He has plowed millions more into the state since then, culminating last fall with a takeover of the state legislature by Democrats who are now seeking to pass a series of tougher gun laws.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It started with <a href=\"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/2013\/11\/07\/in-other-election-news.html\" class=\"rank-math-link\">Terry <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pagunblog.com\/2013\/11\/18\/elections-have-consequences-2\/\" class=\"rank-math-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">McAuliffe<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/2015\/12\/28\/evidently-money-talks-in-virginia.html\" class=\"rank-math-link\">continued with Attorney General Mark Herring<\/a>, and then down into state legislative races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know what happened in 2019 (corrected) &#8211; Democrats took both houses of the General Assembly. <\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you wondered how Virginia went from a red state to a purple state to a blue state, here&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[396,1971,45,2023,203,1370,2024],"class_list":["post-30019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-democrats","tag-gov-terry-mcauliffe","tag-gun-control","tag-independence-usa-pac","tag-michael-bloomberg","tag-va-ag-mark-herring","tag-virginia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30019"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30032,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30019\/revisions\/30032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}