State Sen. Mark Obenshain nominated for Virginia attorney general by GOP

State Sen. Mark Obenshain has won the Republican nomination for attorney general in Virginia 35 years after his father won the party's U.S. Senate nomination.

Obenshain was nominated by acclamation on a voice vote after his rival, Del. Rob Bell, conceded defeat after the first ballot at the Virginia Republican Convention on Saturday.

Obenshain's father, Richard Obenshain, won the party's U.S. Senate nomination in the same building in 1978, but was killed in August of that year when a small plane carrying him home from a campaign event crashed when Mark Obenshain was 16. John W. Warner took his place on the ballot and won the first of five U.S. Senate terms.

Onstage with Obenshain when he accepted the nomination was his mother and Richard Obenshain's widow, Helen Obenshain.