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Tom Steyer, the former hedge fund manager turned climate activist and big-spending political player, already has one notch in his belt, helping elect Massachusetts’ Ed Markey to the US Senate earlier this year. Now he’s aiming for notch No. 2: pummeling Republican Ken Cuccinelli and electing Cuccinelli’s opponent, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, Virginia’s next governor.

Politico reports that Steyer’s super-PAC, NextGen Climate Action, will run its first wave of TV ads in Virginia this week. NextGen and its consultants are also laying the groundwork for a statewide get-out-the-vote effort this fall targeting Virginians who care about the climate. GOTV efforts are especially important in this year’s Virginia gubernatorial race because it is an off-year election and the year after a presidential race. Voters are following politics less closely, and turnout is expected to be low.

That Steyer would choose the Cuccinelli-McAuliffe race as his next target is no surprise. Cuccinelli, who is currently the state attorney general, is one of the loudest members of the GOP’s chorus of climate change deniers. He has frequently attacked the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to curb greenhouse gases, and he led a witch hunt into the research of prominent climate scientist Michael Mann, a professor at Penn State University.

If Steyer’s goal is to use his wealth and today’s lax campaign finance rules to force candidates to discuss climate change and to oust those candidates who don’t take it seriously, then attacking Cuccinelli is a no-brainer. “I would say there’s a very clear choice on this topic between these two candidates, and I think the citizens of Virginia deserve to understand both what the truth is and what the implications of that are,” Steyer told Politico.

Here’s more on Steyer’s big Virginia blitz: