Barack Obama and Donald Trump won’t be on the ballot in Virginia this year, but they could shape what’s looking like 2017’s only big competitive general election.

Just across the river and with voters who include many Republican and Democratic operatives working in Washington, the Virginia gubernatorial race will be the first test both of how much interest Trump has in getting involved in a campaign on behalf of another Republican, and potentially, how much this political appeal transfers.


It also will be Obama’s first chance after leaving the White House to get directly involved in a campaign — in a race that may very well be defined by issues like Obamacare and illegal immigration, setting up a direct contrast between the 44th and 45th presidents.

And Obama may be doing it with a friend in the race going into November: Former Rep. Tom Perriello jumped into the Democratic primary on Thursday, and White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Thursday said his one term in the House from 2009 to 2010 was “all too short in the president’s view.”

By falling right after the presidential election in a competitive state, the Virginia governor’s race is traditionally seen as a barometer for feelings about the incumbent White House. With Trump, that’s expected to be accentuated, as most continue trying to sort out how much his win was a dynamic shift and how much a fluke. Trump lost Virginia to Hillary Clinton in November by a solid margin — 44 percent to 50 percent, respectively.

“Regardless of what he does in my race, people are going to see my performance as a reflection on how other Trump-like Republicans are going to do in 2018,” said Corey Stewart, a Republican candidate who’s hoping that the incoming president will endorse him.

That seems unlikely: though Stewart talks up his similarities and connections to Trump, he was kicked off the campaign in the fall after taking part in a protest outside the Republican National Committee warning the party against abandoning Trump.

But the front-runner GOP candidate, Ed Gillespie, has his own distance from Trump. He’s been a top member of the Republican establishment, and he never appeared next to Trump during the 2016 campaign (he did, however, speak about the importance of electing Trump, and introduced Vice President-elect Mike Pence at a rally).

There’s a sense among Virginia Republicans that if Trump did get involved in the primary, it would be for Gillespie, who has a good relationship with incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus, as both have served as RNC chairs. But there’s so far been no commitment from the president-elect’s team about the primary or the general.

In a statement, Gillespie hewed close to Trump, calling himself “optimistic” that the incoming White House will emphasize national security and more transportation dollars for the state, while scaling back on Obamacare and “the assault on our coal sector.”

The Trump administration's policies “will be helpful to Virginia after eight years of policies that have been very harmful to us. It would be nice to have a tailwind coming out of Washington instead of a full-force gale in our face,” Gillespie said.

A spokesman for Trump didn’t return a request for comment about the race. The primaries are in June.

Perriello, meanwhile, is playing up his Obama connection, throwing a photo of the outgoing president campaigning with him — during a special stop Obama made to Charlottesville in the last campaign weekend of 2010 in an effort to save his seat — amid family snapshots featured in his kickoff video out Thursday.

But Perriello is going up against Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, who is backed by Virginia Democrats including Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Sen. Tim Kaine, notably another friend of Obama’s in addition to having been Clinton’s running mate. Kaine is working out details of how to reaffirm his endorsement, according to a Virginia Democrat familiar with the matter.

The chances that Obama would endorse in a primary appear close to zero, though Obamaworld is buzzing with excitement about Perriello’s entry, and the possibility that if he wins the nomination, he’d get a boost from a president who really likes him.

“In vote after vote, in 2009 and 2010, he was a real profile in courage — a lot of people in the administration or close to the administration admire him for that,” said Mitch Stewart, Obama’s former battleground states director, who worked alongside Perriello when he was running Virginia for the president in 2008.

Earnest said he didn’t know if an endorsement is coming. But he didn’t rule it out.

“Maybe in his role as a former president of the United States, he’ll have more time to consider these kinds of decisions,” Earnest said.

Perriello said he’d love to have the help.

“I’m a big fan of President Obama’s. I think, together, we were able to come in to a moment when the country was facing the worst economic depression since the Great Depression and we were able to stop that,” the former congressman said after his campaign kickoff in Charlottesville on Thursday afternoon. “He’s busy being president, and I’m sure after that, he’s busy being an ex-president, so I won’t speak for him.”

Thursday afternoon, Perriello retweeted a clip of Earnest making the comments about him, which included noting that in the State Department post he held after losing his reelection race in 2010, he “served this administration with distinction.”

Northam has his own set of connections to the president, having endorsed Obama in 2008 ahead of the Virginia primary, chaired the state’s Veterans for Obama committee and, while in the state Senate, sponsored the Obamacare-related bills to create a state health care exchange and expand Medicaid.

Democrats are eager to make the race about Trump, who lost Virginia despite racking up wins in nearly every other battleground state against Clinton.

“It’ll be difficult for Republicans to win in the Trump era given Virginia’s history,” said Democratic Governors Association communications director Jared Leopold. “Every Republican in Virginia, no matter who gets chosen, is going to have to answer for everything that President Trump does. That’s going to create a difficult dynamic in Virginia.”

Kevin Robillard contributed to this report from Charlottesville, Va.