Former VA Governor McAuliffe Files Paperwork To Run Again

VIRGINIA — Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe filed paperwork with the State Board of Elections Thursday to seek the governorship in 2021 but has not made a decision yet whether he will actually run for office.

In the paperwork, McAuliffe listed himself as a Democratic candidate for governor. His spokesman Brennan Bilberry told the AP that McAuliffe will not make an official decision to run until after the November election.

In his successful campaign for governor in 2013, McAuliffe narrowly defeated Republican Ken Cuccinelli, who was attorney general of Virginia at the time.

The state paperwork filed Wednesday converts McAuliffe’s existing political action committee, Common Good Virginia, into a candidate committee called Virginians for Common Good.

During his time as governor, McAuliffe was known as a business-friendly governor. He left office popular among fellow Democrats with no scandals attached to him.

McAuliffe, who previously served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has led a successful career as a major political fundraiser. Before becoming governor, he was for years a top fundraiser and political adviser to former President Bill Clinton and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

McAuliffe served as Virginia's governor from 2014 to 2018. Virginia law prohibits the sitting governor from running for reelection. His successor, Gov. Ralph Northam (D), is set to leave office at the start of 2022.

Other announced Democratic candidates for governor include state Sen. Jennifer McClellan and Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, either of whom would be the nation’s first African American woman to lead a state.

Carroll Foy criticized McAuliffe as too cozy with corporate interests after his filing was made public.

“The politics of the past are not the change we need, and the politicians of the past won’t save us. Virginians are calling for change in the streets," Carroll Foy said Thursday in a statement. "They want someone who understands their problems as I do — I’ve lived them. They want a governor who will never put corporate interests over the people's interest."

“This is the moment where the politics of yesterday won’t do," she said. "We must decide: are we content reliving the past? Or are we ready to build a better Virginia?”