Chase joins a field that includes Dave LaRock, a right-wing former Virginia delegate, further scrambling Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears’s prospects for winning the GOP nomination.

Cuts to the federal workforce under President Trump are threatening to roil Virginia’s off-year elections this November as Democrats seek to make them a political liability in the battle for control of the governor’s mansion and the House of Delegates.

All federal agencies must review contracts and grants for "waste, fraud and abuse," and work with DOGE employees to review and terminate all "unnecessary" contracts, according to a copy of a fact sheet provided by a White House official.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order giving more power to DOGE to review and slash federal spending. The order tasks federal agencies to work with DOGE officials to build “a centralized technological system” to record all payments made to covered contracts and grants and a written justification for each payment