RICHMOND — The race to succeed Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-11th, began before his death two weeks ago, but it intensified on Tuesday when Gov. Glenn Youngkin set a Sept. 9 special election for the 11th Congressional District seat.
Candidates must file by July 11 to run for the seat, and the field already includes 10 people — seven Democrats, two Republicans and one political independent.
Del. Irene Shin, D-Fairfax, jumped into the race Tuesday, shortly after Youngkin set the date for the special election. Shin, a Korean American who lives in Herndon, won her first election to the House of Delegates in 2021 and then reelection in 2023.
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"I'm running because this moment requires generational change," Shin, 37, said in her announcement on Facebook on Tuesday.
The race is beginning to resemble the scramble of candidates last year who hoped to succeed Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-10th, when she said she would step down because of her battle with a severe form of Parkinson's disease. In that contest, the Democratic primary alone featured 12 candidates, with Republicans choosing from among four candidates.
Wexton's endorsement proved decisive, with then-Sen. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Loudoun, winning the Democratic nomination after getting the congresswoman's backing and then defeating Republican Mike Clancy in November.
Connolly set the table in the 11th District by announcing on April 28 that he would not run for reelection to a 10th term next year because of the return of esophageal cancer. He quickly endorsed his former chief of staff, James Walkinshaw, a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, to succeed him.
Connolly died on May 21, forcing a special election to complete the term he won in November. Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Government and Policy at George Mason University, called Connolly "perhaps the most important leader of his generation in Fairfax County."
"I think Connolly's endorsement is incredibly powerful in this case," Rozell said.
Walkinshaw also has received endorsements from former House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, who was one of the candidates in the Democratic primary race in the 10th District last year, and Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax.
Rozell expects the Democratic Party to conduct a firehouse primary to pick a nominee for the special election a week after Labor Day, when voters are just beginning to pay attention to the races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the House of Delegates in November. Voter turnout is likely to be low.
"Someone is going to win with a plurality, and it might not be a very large one," he said.
Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-4th, won with nearly 85% of the vote in a Democratic firehouse primary in late 2022, after the death of Rep. Donald McEachin, D-4th. Turnout set a record with 27,900 votes cast, but McClellan was matched against then-Sen. Joe Morrissey, D-Richmond, who had been a political lightning rod throughout his career, in a four-way race. She went on to win a special election two months later over Republican nominee Leon Benjamin.
State Sen. Stella Pekarsky, D-Fairfax, already had jumped into the race for the 11th District seat next year. Pekarsky, in her first term after unseating longtime Sen. George Barker, D-Fairfax, has picked up a series of high-profile endorsements from Senate Democrats, including Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, and Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax.
Fairfax County planning commissioner Candice Bennett joined the race for the Democratic nomination two days before Connolly's death.
Last week, Vienna attorney Amy Roma, who touts her experience in law, energy and national security, announced her candidacy. So did Leo Martinez Nucete, a McLean lawyer and former member of the Venezuelan Congress, and Joshua Aisen, a former U.S. Navy officer and owner of a Springfield consulting firm that specializes in space and defense systems.
"At a time when trust in our institutions is strained and families are working harder than ever to make ends meet, voters deserve better," Roma said Tuesday after Youngkin set the special election. "They deserve to have someone who has spent their entire career delivering real solutions in moments of crisis."
For Republicans, former congressional nominee Mike Van Meter, who lost to Connolly by a 2-to-1 ratio margin last year, is running again in the heavily Democratic district. He is opposed by Nathan Headrick, director of a global real estate investment firm.
Chandra Tamirisa, an Oakton resident who describes himself as "a thought leader for global sustainability," is running as a political independent.
