To push back against the notion that the cash- and labor-intensive write-in effort will drain resources from other GOP races in more competitive districts, Freitas said he would not accept any money from the Republican caucus.

The Freitas campaign has said it has secured $500,000 for a write-in campaign. The details of his July fundraising have not yet been disclosed through official campaign finance reports. Freitas said he has brought on several consultants who were involved in U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s successful 2010 write-in campaign in Alaska.

The last successful write-in campaign in Virginia was in 1989, when Jackie Stump, the head of the Virginia arm of United Mine Workers, used union organizing to defeat Democratic Del. Donald McGlothin Jr. in Southwest Virginia amid an uproar over a labor strike.

In the run-up to Election Day on Nov. 5, the Freitas campaign will have to educate Republican voters on the different process they’ll have to follow when they go the polls. Instead of being able to check a box for the Republican, they’ll have to write out Freitas’ name and get the spelling close enough that vote-counters will be able to understand the choice.