Republican Party of Virginia

The Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) is the Virginia chapter of the Republican Party. It is based at the Richard D. Obenshain Center in Richmond. As of May 2024, it controls all three statewide elected offices, 5 out of 11 U.S. House seats, and the governor's seat within the state.

Five Virginians (George Rye, John H. Atkinson, James Farley, Joseph Farley, and Mr. Ashley) attended the first national organizing convention of the Republican Party in Pittsburgh. John Curtiss Underwood, Rye, and H. Carpenter were the state's delegates to the 1856 Republican National Convention. They wanted to cast forty-five votes, three per congressional district and six at-large, but the convention only allotted them nine votes. They refused to vote in protest on both ballots. The delegation initially supported David Wilmot for the vice-presidential nomination, but later supported William L. Dayton.

Underwood formed the party's newspaper in Wheeling, the first in any of the border states using financial aid from William H. Seward. Underwood also received backing from Horace Greeley and Eli Thayer to form a colony for northern workers in Ceredo.

The first state convention was held on September 18, 1856, while Underwood was in another state due to threats of violence. William E. Stevenson, a future governor of West Virginia, was indicted for distributing an anti-slavery pamphlet. John C. Frémont received 291 votes in the state with 280 from the northwest.

Republicans, such as Cassius Marcellus Clay and Underwood, viewed John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry as damaging to the party. Almost all of Abraham Lincoln's support in the 1860 election came from around Wheeling. The Republicans supported Francis Harrison Pierpont's unionist Virginia government during the Civil War.

In June 1865, the Radical Republicans, which included many of the party's founders, held a convention in Alexandria which supported black suffrage. A rival Republican convention opposed to Pierpont was held in May 1866, by former Whigs under the leadership of John Botts, and formed the Union Republican Party. The convention passed resolutions criticizing Pierpont's government, supporting disenfranchising Confederates, and supporting qualified black suffrage. James W. Hunnicutt, who found most of his support among black people and the Union League, also vied for leadership of the party.

Senator Henry Wilson, at the request of Botts, had the Second Reconstruction Act conduct voting by ballot, which Botts believed would increase white support for Republicans. Wilson unsuccessfully attempted to have the act structured to result in Pierpont administering the constitutional convention election rather than the military commander. Hunnicutt's supporters initially controlled the 1868 constitutional convention and called for property confiscations. The Pierpont and Botts factions, and Horace Greeley feared that Hunnicutt's faction would ruin the electoral chances of the party.

Edward McPherson granted printing contracts to Hunnicutt's Richmond New Nation, but Hunnicutt complained that a majority of the contracts were given to the Alexandria Virginia State Journal.