This article originally appeared here, at wcyb.com

The race for Virginia’s lieutenant governor is between republican John Reid and democrat Ghazala Hashmi.

Reid is a conservative radio host and former director of communications for the US Senate.

Reid has not run for office previously but told News 5 his reason for running was in response to riots in 2020, governmental overreach during the COVID-19 pandemic and growing liberal trends.

“I’ve given up a lot to run for office because I want to be the person in those rooms to say, ‘calm down let’s come up with a solution that works for Virginians,’ not try to extend the problem to the next cycle so that we can run and try to win an election. We’ve got to solve problems now,” Reid said.

Reid told News 5 one of his biggest goals is to continue the work of the previous administration by attracting more and more businesses into the state.

He says he would work as an ambassador for Virginia to bring in more jobs.

“We’ve got to have people in Richmond at the top offices all the way through the general assembly who are working to bring jobs to Virginia so that Southwest Virginia and Southside Virginia have the same economic opportunities that people in Virginia Beach and Richmond, where I live, and in Northern Virginia, that they have,” Reid said.

Reid also spoke on what he called a culture war between democrats and republicans over topics like diversity equity and inclusion (DEI), critical race theory (CRT) and trans-ideology.

“We must have a society that based on meritocracy, not on the color of someone’s skin, good or bad, not based on some sort of external issue. Everybody’s got to work, everybody’s got to show that they’re willing to get up early in the morning like people in Southwest Virginia do and put in a good days work and advance that way, not because of their skin color,” Reid said.

You can see Reid’s full interview below.