On Thursday, Virginia state Del. Nick Freitas announced that he was ending his re-election campaign because of a paperwork error, and it remains unclear if the state party will be able to put him back on the November ballot, or even have any candidate on the ballot. The GOP is defending their narrow 51-49 majority this fall, and the last thing they’ll want to do is wage an expensive write-in campaign to protect Freitas’ normally safely red seat from Democrat Ann Ridgeway.

The consequences of Freitas’ problems could also impact the contest to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger next year in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District. Back in March, the anti-tax Club for Growth said they were trying to recruit Freitas and predicted that if he ran they would "invest more money there than any House race in the history of the club." They may be rethinking that investment decision now.

So, what exactly happened here? As the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Graham Moomaw explains, Freitas turned in multiple important forms to the State Board of Elections well after the deadline, including one document that was supposed to be filled out by the candidate himself.

The Board was to meet Friday to decide how to proceed, and Moomaw writes that, by dropping out just before he could be officially disqualified, Freitas was trying to give his party the ability to put a new candidate, perhaps even himself, on the ballot. State law allows parties to pick someone new if “the nominee dies, withdraws, or nomination is set aside,” but not if the nominee is “disqualified for failing to meet the filing requirements.” The Board did indeed meet as planned on Friday, but they adjourned without doing anything to resolve this situation.

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