RICHMOND, Va. (CN) — It’s more difficult to find photos or videos of a majority of Virginia’s 2020 Republican congressional candidates out on the campaign trail wearing masks than not. Speaking to gatherings full of supporters — often packed with elderly citizens and with poor social distancing, one even at a buffet-style dinner — they hope to overcome the state’s history as the “home of the blue wave” despite guidelines from health officials as Virginia battles the coronavirus.
Delegate Nick Freitas, R-Culpepper, is among the most high profile GOP candidates in the once-bright red state. He’s running to unseat incumbent Democrat Abigail Spanberger for Virginia’s 7th District. In a phone interview, he told Courthouse News his campaign had been following CDC guidelines, but footage of him attending a late September rally for President Donald Trump in Newport News showed the candidate giving maskless fist pumps to supporters waiting outside.
. @NickForVA marching In to the Trump rally in Newport News pic.twitter.com/iibYo8Sbbf
— JaVonni Brustow. ? (@JaVonniBrustow) September 25, 2020
“I’m not sure where you’re referencing,” said Freitas when asked about the video, before clarifying the “vast majority of the time I was wearing the mask.”
Other photos do show him wearing a mask, and he denied any concerns among his campaign staff about catching the virus. The president – who has long downplayed the outbreak, has publicly disparaged facial coverings and had shared a stage with Freitas during that Newport News rally – was diagnosed with coronavirus a little over a week later.
“Republican politicians compete to be the most pro-Trump candidate and one of the ways to show loyalty is to minimize the use of masks in public,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington. “You see that at the president’s rallies and at Republican events around the commonwealth.”
State health officials told Courthouse News they have not linked any infections to Trump’s Virginia rally.
Questions about mask wearing among Republican candidates come as the state reports over 167,000 cases and about 3,500 deaths. In a recent Roanoke College poll, about 17% of Virginians are most worried about the virus, with the economy — invariably linked to the nation’s virus response — at first at 23%.
And while the number of cases, deaths and hospitalizations looks to be on an upswing nationwide going into the colder winter months, a recent New York Times report put Virginia among a handful of states where the outbreak was better under control.
“There are ebbs and flows in those case trends and I think some of that has to do with human behavior,” said Laurie Forlano, Deputy Commissioner for Population Health at the Virginia Department of Health. “ It’s hard to maintain some behaviors that are foreign for us: wearing a mask, keeping away from the people we love.”
Forlano said Virginia, like other states around the country, have seen peaks and plateaus as the virus spread. She pointed to particularly bad outbreaks along the coast in July, but said local leadership, along with Democratic Governor Ralph Northam’s mask mandate, helped stem the tide.
Northam, the country’s only governor with a past as a medical doctor, continues to get praise for his response with a recent Washington Post poll showing two out of three Virginians approve of his response.
Back on the campaign trail Spanberger, now in her first campaign for reelection, said adjusting to campaigning in a pandemic has been as challenging as one can imagine.
“Good old fashioned parades and events, festivals — showing up places and talking to people,” she said in a phone interview, listing the usual outreach methods she misses most.
“While we’ve been successful at Zoom events and online forums, there’s less interest to come to those things,” she added.