VA-GOV: Amanda Chase (R), self-described 'Trump in heels,' files for Virginia governor
RICHMOND — Former state senator Amanda F. Chase, a MAGA provocateur who bills herself as “Trump in heels,” entered the GOP primary for Virginia governor Thursday, one day after another ex-legislator jumped in, further scrambling Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears’s prospects for winning the nod.
Earle-Sears faced only token opposition from a political unknown before former delegate Dave LaRock and Chase declared their candidacies in back-to-back announcements this week. Both raised questions about the lieutenant governor’s allegiance to President Donald Trump.
Chase, like LaRock, vowed to replicate Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service by forming a “Virginia DOGE” to slash state spending. Earle-Sears has spoken in favor of Musk’s DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, as a way to root out wasteful spending in Washington, expressing confidence that displaced federal workers can find new employment in the private sector. But she has not proposed a Virginia equivalent.
“If you like what President Trump and DOGE is doing, you’ll love Amanda Chase because I plan to do the same thing here in Virginia,” Chase said in an interview with The Washington Post on Thursday, when she officially filed papers for the race. “Trump supporters have been calling me, saying, ‘We want a Trump candidate in Virginia.’”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/02/27/virginia-amanda-chase-run-governor/
= new reply since forum marked as read
https://virginiamercury.com/2022/01/21/outcast-republican-senator-is-earning-some-gop-support-for-covid-19-bills/
Chesterfield Sen. Amanda Chase has been kicked out of her local Republican party, left the chamber’s Republican Caucus and faced formal censure for baseless claims of election fraud, a vote that saw Republican colleagues openly criticize her on the Senate floor.
That hasn’t stopped many of them from supporting her bills to roll back COVID-19 protective measures. On Wednesday, Republicans on the Senate’s General Laws Committee unanimously supported Chase-sponsored legislation that would have classified mask mandates and vaccine requirements as illegal discrimination. On Thursday, all six Republicans on the Senate Education and Health committee supported a bill that would have banned the Virginia Board of Health from disciplining doctors who prescribed hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to patients with COVID-19.
Democrats, who still hold a slim majority in the chamber, ultimately voted down both bills. But the wide support they’ve enjoyed from Republicans underscore the hyperpartisanship that’s largely come to define the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Steve Newman, R-Bedford, once suggested that Chase’s behavior indicated “a bit of a call for help.” But on Thursday, he seemed receptive to the idea that doctors could use more flexibility in prescribing drugs for “off-label” use, a term that generally refers to using a medication for a condition it’s not approved to treat.
“I think the issue is even broader than this,” said Newman, who once served as chair of the Education and Health committee, making an unsuccessful motion to incorporate the legislation into a wider bill aimed at off-label prescribing more generally. “We should not be restricting physicians at all — three to four years ago, when I was involved, it was never done.”
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They had to put her in a plexiglass box because she refused to wear a mask in the VA Senate chamber:
Sen. Amanda Chase goes mask-free during special session
https://www.wric.com/news/politics/sen-amanda-chase-goes-without-a-mask-during-the-special-session/