Gillespie won by landslide over Hill at 2014 Virginia Republican Convention

Ed Gillespie at 2014 Virginia GOP State Convention. Photo by Lynn R. Mitchell.

By Lynn R. Mitchell

At the 2014 Virginia Republican State Convention in Roanoke, Ed Gillespie soundly defeated Shak Hill for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, and then went on to come within a whisker of toppling incumbent senator Mark Warner. Final results were Warner 49.2 percent; Gillespie 48.4 percent; Sarvis 2.5 percent (see How Gillespie nearly slayed Warner).

Monday after Ed Gillespie’s name began circulating for governor after Mark Obenshain announced he was not running, radio host John Fredericks wrote the following false comment on his Facebook page:

Gillespie barely beat back a woefully underfunded convention challenge for U.S. Senate in Roanoke in 2014 by Shack Hill — who raised a little over $20,000 and ran what amounted to a Mail-Chimp campaign.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Here are the facts with the numbers to back them up. Ed Gillespie won by a landslide over Shak Hill (and the other two candidates), as noted at the time by blogger Justin Higgins who attended the convention and asked, “Just how badly did Gillespie beat Hill?”

Politifact rates Warner statement on Gillespie ‘False’ … should have been ‘Pants On Fire’

By Lynn R. Mitchell

When Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) made the comment during the Greenbrier Virginia Bar Association debate that Ed Gillespie had supported a personhood bill, Gillespie told him right then he was making it up.

Now Politifact has agreed that Warner was wrong but they simply rated the accusation as “False.

Should have been “Pants On Fire.”