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To the Editor: 

Hermie Sadler’s recent comments reported in the Richmond Times-Dispatch proclaims that Gov. Glenn Youngkin and other Republican Senate/House leaders are favoring Emily Brewer over himself. He’s disappointed! 

It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that his campaign is one of self-enrichment? His lawsuit over gaming machines for his truck stops isn’t a self-enrichment endeavor? I’m waiting for some reason to respect his crusade for office. While he espouses that he thinks of himself as a good guy, that’s really not a platform. It certainly is not sufficient reason for discerning voters to elect him. 

Why run as a Republican when he advertises that he dislikes the elected leadership in Richmond, from Youngkin on down? With such contempt for Republican leadership and a seemingly close relationship with other Richmond politicians, why isn’t he running as a Democrat or independent?

Did Hermie ever walk neighborhoods, knocking on doors for Trump in 2016 or 2020, for Youngkin in 2021 or U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans in 2022? Emily did! I walked and knocked doors with her. She is the only true conservative Republican candidate running in this primary. 

Hermie is spending a small fortune on advertising, taking Emily’s decade-old comments out of context along with photoshopped pictures to negatively campaign. But where does he talk about the things he wants to get done for us? 

And if Emily is the bad, left-wing person he lists in his ads, why is she being endorsed by Congresswoman Kiggans, Gov. Youngkin, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors Chair William McCarty, Isle of Wight School Board Chair John Collick, the NRA, Virginia Citizen Defense League-PAC, VA Police Benevolent Association, Virginia Professional Fire Fighters, Virginia Hunting Dog Alliance, Virginia Society for Human Life, Americans for Prosperity and John Fredericks, 2016 and 2020 Virginia Trump campaign Chair? Are they all wrong and inept as Hermie would have you think?  

She has a three-term House of Representatives voting record that has earned those folks’ endorsement, while Hermie has no elected public service at all.  However, unlike Del. Brewer, he did have a $17,000 bar tab from a “nightclub” in Las Vegas to publicly brag about.

Dick Grice

Smithfield