The Republican Party’s last-minute support — to a renegade member who in the past has repeatedly alienated party leaders — could reflect concern about losing a key foothold in Northern Virginia as Democrats try to gain ground in the Republican-held General Assembly, said Stephen J. Farnsworth, a ¬political science professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg.
“One of the best ways to know what races a party is concerned about is to look for big donations in late October,” Farnsworth said. “The money that’s come into Marshall these past few weeks suggests that there is a good deal of concern and that this race is uncomfortably close from the Republican perspective.”
