Bruce Tyler suspended his mayoral campaign Sept. 27, 2016.
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Bruce Tyler talks with Richmond Metro Libertarians at the Robin Inn. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Bruce Tyler talks with Richmond Metro Libertarians at the Robin Inn. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Bruce Tyler talks with Richmond Metro Libertarians at the Robin Inn. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of Friday profiles on the eight candidates in the Richmond mayoral race.
It was the kind of small-scale event that candidates tell you can sustain a campaign for local office, especially in the dog days of August, when few voters are paying attention and the general election may as well be an eon away. But the gathering was also indicative of Bruce Tyler’s biggest challenge. His candidacy for Richmond mayor has confounded many in the city’s political class, who question where his airspace is in a field of eight candidates vying for a citywide office when his home district cast him aside four years ago.
Convinced he still has something to offer, Tyler sought oxygen on a sweltering Tuesday evening at the Robin Inn, with an audience captive for as long as it took to finish eating a hamburger or a plate of pasta. There, the lone Republican running for mayor in a Democrat-dominated city stumped at a Richmond Metro Libertarians supper club meeting.
Tyler, 63, showed up to the Fan District mainstay wearing two "Bruce Tyler for Mayor" stickers – one on the lapel of his sport coat, one on his button-down shirt – and holding a stack of "Bruce Tyler for Mayor" pamphlets. The handouts listed his top three priorities if elected: restore accountability to City Hall; invest in public schools; perform routine maintenance on city roads, sidewalks and green spaces. Nuts and bolts. He passed the pamphlets out to the five people who gathered to listen – all men, all white – before beginning his pitch.
Speaking in his throaty Southern drawl, he shifted between his personal backstory, record on Richmond City Council and policy goals. One of the men took notes. Another ate french fries with his fork. A third, wearing a "Gary Johnson for President" T-shirt, appeared to be playing a game on his phone at one point.
“I personally believe the city treats a lot of people like a commodity,” Tyler says, arousing attention. “We should treat you like a customer.” Heads nodded.
After finishing his remarks and taking questions, Tyler headed to his car to retrieve yard signs. The group’s president, Joe Enroughty, said he was impressed with Tyler’s business acumen and plans to vote for him. “He knows what it’s like to run something and keep it going and keep it on budget, which is something I look for in candidates,” he says. “You have some candidates who run, and they don’t know how to balance their family budget.”
Tyler spent 17 years as president of Baskervill, a Shockoe Bottom-based architectural engineering and interior design firm he retired from at the end of June. He was instrumental in growing the firm’s staff, client base and geographic reach, says Brent Farmer, its chairman. Farmer, a friend and colleague of Tyler’s since 1981, says he is a thick-skinned leader whose calling card is his willingness to face adversity.
“He does the hard things around here that make me go, ‘I don’t want to mess with that,’ ” Farmer says. “He’ll just take it by the horns and face it down. That’s why he’s good in politics.”
Tyler represented the West End on council from 2007 through 2012. He says he was a “voice of reason” on the body during his stint, during which he led the city effort to merge the Richmond Port Authority with the Virginia Port Authority, saving $1 million annually. He also voted for the construction of the Washington Redskins’ Training Camp facility, a deal he has since said is bad for the city.
Marty Jewell, who served on council during Tyler’s tenure, credits him for asking tough questions of the administration during budget deliberations and keeping his promises.
“The one thing I can say with absolute certainty, when he makes a commitment to you, you don’t have to look over your shoulder and wonder where he’s coming from, or whether he’s going to flip flop on you. He’s true to his word – very reliable,” Jewell says.
In 2012, then-newcomer and current mayoral candidate Jon Baliles upended Tyler. After a recount, 20 votes separated the two. The deciding factor? A “Taj Mahal” alley that city workers built behind Tyler’s home, as Baliles called it. Tyler’s opponent spread the word, charging the incumbent with putting his needs before those of the district’s residents. Tyler refuted the accusation, saying he did not lobby for the project, but the damage was done.
Since the defeat, his political career has been stuck in neutral. He publicly advocated for Mayor Dwight C. Jones’ plan to build a minor league baseball stadium in Shockoe Bottom, but backtracked after concerns were raised about memorializing the Bottom’s slave-trading history. In 2015, he briefly threw his name in the hat to succeed Virginia Sen. John Watkins, but withdrew from consideration a few weeks later.
Now running for mayor, Tyler says that City Hall must contribute to, not hinder, Richmond’s momentum. “We need a government that’s going to support the business community and support the schools so that we can have families stay here,” he says in an interview. “I’m running because I know we can do it.”
Tyler does not think any candidate will win five of nine districts, so he is campaigning in hopes of making it to a runoff. The so-called second round would pit the top two vote getters against one another in an election held Dec. 20. The strategy could work – if he finds a foothold with the 25 percent of city voters who are Republicans, says Bob Holsworth, a veteran political consultant and longtime observer of local politics.
“There’s a rhyme and reason to the strategy; it’s just a question of whether he can be successful, or you wind up with a divided vote in the districts where he’s strongest,” Holsworth says.
Richard Meagher, a political science professor at Randolph-Macon College, questions what district or demographic Tyler can count on to vote for him. “I feel like [Tyler’s] voters are already spoken for elsewhere,” he says, pointing to former Venture Richmond executive Jack Berry and Baliles.
Berry has out-fundraised Tyler by more than 4-to-1, and by 10-to-1 if you don’t count the $27,500 in personal loans Tyler has made to his campaign as of the mid-July finance reporting deadline. Baliles has more cash, too, and is likely to find favor with more voters in the West End than his council predecessor, Meagher adds.
Tyler is confident the city he has called home for the last four decades will recognize he still has something left in the tank. “As I tell people, this is my last job interview. I want to be mayor. I don’t have to be mayor.”
