“Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates,’’ Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull said.
However, state law prohibits such campaigns, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at University of Richmond.
Tobias said Gingrich may have had trouble meeting a requirement that he must submit 400 signatures from each of Virginia’s 11 congressional districts.
Obama and the Republicans set aside talk of legislative and partisan battles in their weekly radio addresses yesterday, which both focused on the holidays and remembrances of US troops serving around the world.
The setback for Gingrich comes days before the Jan. 3 caucuses in Iowa, the leadoff contest in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Gingrich began rising in polls in early December, renewing his hopes of competing late into the primary season with chief rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.
He has tried to use the surge in popularity to make up for a late start in organizing his campaign. That Gingrich and Perry failed to get on Virginia’s ballot underscored the difficulty that first-time national candidates have in preparing for the long haul of the campaign.
It also illustrates the advantage held by Romney. He has essentially been running for president for five years, and his team, smaller than in 2008 but larger than those of most of his 2012 opponents, has paid close attention to filing requirements in each state. He will appear on the Virginia ballot, along with Texas Representative Ron Paul, who also has run a national campaign before.
Gingrich had a slight lead over Romney in a Quinnipiac poll of Virginia Republicans released earlier in the week.
Virginia’s Democrats said President Obama’s reelection campaign gathered enough signatures to get him on the state’s primary ballot, though he was the only candidate who qualified.
Obama flew to Hawaii to join Michelle Obama, who has been there with their daughters for a week. The president delayed his departure while Congress worked out an agreement on the expiring payroll tax cuts. He will return to Washington shortly after New Year’s Day.
Failure to compete in Virginia would be a huge blow to any contender who had not locked up the nomination by then.
Virginia GOP spokesman Garren Shipley said in a prepared statement that volunteers spent Friday validating petitions that the four candidates submitted by the 5 p.m. Thursday deadline to the State Board of Elections, but did not respond to telephone calls seeking comment.
