Race to Replace Connolly in VA-11 Ends with Little Surprise

AKA: You Really Shouldn't Claim a Race is Rigged When Everyone Likes Your Opponent...

In a much ballyhooed firehouse primary to replace Gerry Connolly in VA-11 after the long time Congressman’s passing from Throat Cancer in May, what was expected to happen happened.

James Walkinshaw, Connolly’s former chief of staff and current Fairfax County supervisor from the Braddock district, romped to victory with 59% of the vote in the 10 person field. It was a dominating win for Walkinshaw, who now has a clear path to Congress in this very safe for Democrats seat in Northern Virginia.

Walkinshaw had the full backing of the Connolly machine and he put it to good use to get the win.

Below I suggest a couple of winners and losers from this primary race.

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Winners

• The Connolly Machine: To understand why this exists we have to back to 2008. While we were about to be in the midst of the strongest Democratic wave of the past 40 plus years, Gerry Connolly was about to give Virginia’s 11th District, then made up of parts of Fairfax and Prince William County, it’s first Democrat representative in 14 years. After narrowly surviving reelection in 2010 by less than 1000 votes, Connolly was packed into a much safer district after redistricting. He then began using his influence to build Fairfax from the slight Democrat powerhouse it was, into the overwhelming Democrat vote getter it is today. The machine has backed many a candidate to success the last decade plus, and it flexed its strength to get Walkinshaw this dominating win.

• Irene Shin: I agree it’s weird to put someone who didn’t even get 15% of the vote in the winners category, but I’m inclined to put Shin here. Shin, the current delegate from the 8th District in Virginia’s House of Delegates, came into this race relatively late, only narrowly making the cut off. She focused her message on bringing in a new generation to Congress and progressive polices, and finishing second over State Senator Stella Pekarsky is a genuine accomplishment for Shin. While I don’t know if her future takes her past her current position, I think she at least showed she’s got some juice. Whether that turns into anything… we’ll see.

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Losers

• Stella Pekarsky: When you take a risk as a first term state senator to run for congress against the candidate who was long rumored to be the eventual replacement for a congressman, you’d hope to put up at least a decent performance. Pekarsky did not do that. Instead what she got was a messy campaign, where operatives routinely claimed fraud where there was none and a third place finish that can only be described as disappointing. I’ve also had multiple individuals connected to this race tell me that Pekarsky herself threatened current school board members with primaries if they endorsed Walkinshaw. Many did anyways and after that performance, Pekarsky likely doesn’t have the pull to primary these individuals and her own political career is teetering a bit.

• David Hogg: Again, I will admit, it’s a little strange to put Hogg in the losers category while I put the candidate he backed into the winner’s category. But Hogg being a loser is because he got in this race late and tried to suggest that Shin could be a winner here. That inability to control expectations makes Hogg a loser and suggests his plans to try and primary many an older Dem may not go well if he keeps throwing out the endorsement of his group so willy nilly.

• Minor Candidates: Sometimes in primaries like these, a minor candidate who doesn’t raise a whole lot of money and doesn’t have a whole lot of name recognition pulls out 4-5% of the vote. That didn’t happen. The top four vote getters all were either elected officials or raised well over $500,000 for this race (and some did both). The best performing minor candidate was Dan Lee, who got 1.9% of the vote. None of the other 5 candidates in the race were able to get close to even 1.5% of the vote. They weren’t going to have much of an effect anyways, but they’re all still losers here.

• Pekarsky Campaign Managers: I already mentioned it in my portion about Pekarsky herself, but an even bigger lose than her might be the people who ran her campaign. Ben Tribbett in particular has garnered a lot of criticism for the way he acted online during the process, and his multiple claims of rigging during the process and then seemingly claiming outright fraud on multiple occasions when voting was occurring. Multiple people connected to NOVA democratic politics tell me that Tribbett burned a lot of bridges this race and he’ll have to do some repairs with some relationships to hold some sway among candidates again. We’ve all been part of losing campaigns before, but the way you react to losing can become a major issue- it has for the people running Pekarsky’s campaign.