The “Winners/Losers” list for the VA11 Democratic firehouse primary will be somewhat abbreviated, for one big reason: I have no particular desire to name a bunch of individual Democrats – many of whom I think are good people, but in this case sometimes showed not-great judgment, let’s just say – as “Losers.” However, there are a bunch of “Winners” who deserve recognition, and as for the “Losers,” I’ll mostly just categorize more generically…but you can fill in the blanks.
Winners
- James Walkinshaw and his team: Obviously, James Walkinshaw is a huge winner this morning – getting nearly 60% of the vote yesterday in a 10-person field, including some serious/well-funded opponents, is impressive by any metric. But also a major shoutout to Walkinshaw’s entire campaign team – Campaign Manager Donald Brownlee, Comms Director Brian Garcia, and many many more (who probably prefer to remain anonymous anyway…). Nice job; really impressive!!
- The VA11 Democratic Committee: They took a LOT of “incoming” from a LOT of candidates, campaigns, etc., but in the end, they pulled off an extremely successful firehouse primary in just a few weeks, with all-time-record turnout (by far), generally a very professional and well-staffed process, etc. So major kudos to folks like Laura Stokes, Aaron Yohai, etc. – they are volunteers, by the way, devoting untold hours of their time and tremendous energy to do this stuff. So THANK YOU and NICE JOB!
- Former Rep. Gerry Connolly and the Connolly family: Before he died, Rep. Connolly strongly endorsed his former Chief of Staff and boosted him; Connolly’s widow Smitty and his family then campaigned hard for Walkinshaw during the campaign. And it worked, with many voters specifically stating that they were voting for Walkinshaw because they loved and respected Gerry Connolly, wanted to honor him, etc.
- The internal poll released by the Walkinshaw campaign back on June 11 had Walkinshaw winning in a landslide (which he did!), followed by Pekarsky and Shin waaaay behind (which is what happened), then everyone else as a non-factor (again, accurate). Nice job, particularly as many write off “internals” even when they’re by excellent polling outfits (in this case, Lake Research) and when they make perfect sense, as this one did. (Note: I actually had a $100 bet on Walkinshaw getting >50% of the vote…because it wasn’t at all a question to me, from the beginning, that Walkinshaw would win, the only question was how big)
- Walkinshaw’s Field/Door Knocking: From what I’m hearing, “field” really mattered for the Walkinshaw campaign – they had a ton of ID’d supporters, could target their efforts, persuaded folks on the doors and also reminded them to vote. In contrast, other campaigns mostly did lit drops, from what I hear…
- Volunteers: To make a nomination contest like this work, with three days of early voting and 17 primary day voting locations, takes HUNDREDS (400 or so?) of volunteers to pull off. So THANK YOU to every single person who volunteered their time, sweat, etc. to making this process work smoothly. Also, great work by everyone who pulled off that well-run VA11 Democratic debate last week!
- The crypto industry: They spent heavily on this race, on behalf of James Walkinshaw, and obviously they won big. This one’s a classic case, by the way, of how you can be a “Winner” in the “Winners and Losers” list even though I’m not a fan…in this case of the crypto industry.
- Blogs, Digital Media: Unlike the WaPo (see below for them in the Losers category) and print media in general, which barely covered this race, blogs like this one (we did extensive interviews with the majority of candidates, as well as providing a constant stream of detailed information on the voting locations, turnout, etc.), as well as digital media sites like FFX Now and the Patch, did a much better job of providing information on the candidates, voting locations, turnout, etc.
- Walkinshaw endorsers: There were a ton (50+) of Walkinshaw endorsers, but just a few that jump out include (other than Gerry Connolly, already mentioned above – when that happened, I told a bunch of people I thought that was “game/set/match” for Walkinshaw on this race) are former Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA10), labor unions like the National Federation of Federal Employees, 32BJ SEIU, the Virginia State Association of Letter Carriers, Teamsters Local 639, UFCW Local 400, State Senators Jennifer Boysko and Dave Marsden (both of whom went against a State Senate Democratic colleague to endorse Walkinshaw), former Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, Del. Briana Sewell, former Del. Ken Plum, Fairfax County Chair Jeff McKay, Fairfax County School Board Chair Karl Frisch (going against a former School Board colleague), Fairfax County School Board member Rachna Sizemore-Heizer (ditto; also sets herself up for a run for the Braddock District Supervisor position?), Fairfax County School Board member Ilryong Moon (also sets himself up for a possible run for Braddock Supervisor?); Supervisor Jimmy Bierman, Fairfax City Mayor Catherine Read, etc., etc.
- VA11 Democratic voters: They showed up in large numbers (nearly 38k) for this primary, by far breaking the previous record of 28k set back in the December 2022 “firehouse primary” for the VA04 seat after Rep. Donald McEachin passed away suddenly. And, as noted above, many of them showed up because of their strongly positive feelings for Rep. Gerry Connolly. But whatever the reasons, they waited in long lines, sometimes in the hot sun and humidity, to cast their ballots, and that deserves kudos!
- The 2025 Virginia Democratic statewide ticket: Related to #10, note that the huge turnout in this primary bodes well for Virginia Democrats this November. Clearly, for a variety of reasons, Democratic voters in Northern Virginia seem plugged in, fired up, etc. – with record turnout yesterday hopefully indicating what we could see this fall.
Mixed
- Del. Dan Helmer: Smart move not to throw his hat in the ring, because he would have lost badly if he had. So why is he not a winner? It was on the edge, but in the end, I feel like avoiding a glaringly obvious debacle for yourself (this would have been his third loss in three runs for Congress – two in VA10 and this one in VA11) just feels like a no-brainer, not some kind of genius move or anything. Still…very wise not to run.
- Candidates who ran, lost badly, but didn’t hurt themselves in any way: Folks like Amy Roma (who finished fourth with 7.2%, about 5 points higher than the fifth-place finisher Dan Lee), Amy Papanu, Leo Martinez, Priya Punnoose, etc. didn’t really do themselves any harm, while raising their profiles, mostly in a positive way. So that’s fine. On the other hand, they got crushed, getting in the 1%-2% range (with the exception of Amy Roma, who got 7.2%, which is decent for a first-time candidate in such a large field), and…no, that’s not really great.
- Ranked Choice Voting: Should be used in every Democratic nominination process, including this one, but…in this case, it really didn’t matter, as James Walkinshaw would have won in the first round anyway, with nearly 60% of the vote, so RCV wouldn’t have had to kick in. Plus, one of the main points of RCV is that it increases the legitimacy of the winner to have gotten a majority of the vote, and in this case, Walkinshaw did that easily without RCV. But yeah, let’s use RCV the next time we have a party-run special election!
- Issues: So it’s hard to say if any particular issues, whether foreign or domestic policy, had much of an impact at all in a race won in such an overwhelming landslide, and mostly based on love for Gerry Connolly and respect for his preferred successor, James Walkinshaw. Now, I’m not saying that issues aren’t important, because obviously they very much are/should be! But I’m not really seeing that VA11 Democratic voters were driven by them to overwhelmingly support James Walkinshaw. Qualifications, loyalty, etc. on the other hand – most definitely yes. Also, of course, pretty much all the candidates stressed that they’d fight Trump, DOGE, etc., so to the extent that was an issue, it came down to who voters thought could most effectively fight back – and that was James Walkinshaw.
- UPDATE: Almost forgot about this one, but it’s kind of an important issue – namely, what these primaries (in VA11 yesterday, in New York City on June 24) say – if anything – about where the Democratic Party is heading. Of course, the media has spilled *tons* of ink, both physical and digital, over Zohran Mamdani’s win in the NY City mayoral primary, while Republicans have leaped on that win to claim (falsely) that the entire Democratic Party is Mamdani-style “far-left” “socialists,” “communists,” “anti-Israel,” etc. In contrast, it’s basically 100% guaranteed that the media will pay only a tiny fraction of the attention to the huge win yesterday by James Walkinshaw, a self-described “pragmatic progressive Democrat very much in the Gerry Connolly mold.” Also note huge differences between Mamdani and Walkinshaw on economics (Walkinshaw’s a standard Democrat, pretty much; Walkinshaw’s much further to the left) and on foreign policy (e.g,. Mamdani is strongly anti-Israel; Walkinshaw is pretty much the standard Democratic “J Street”-style support-Israel’s-right-to-exist-in-peace-and-security-but-not-happy-with-the-horrible-situation-in-Gaza-and-want-it-to-end. Anyway…which primary, the one for NY City mayor or the one for Congress in VA11, says more (or anything, really) about the future of the Democratic Party? (Note: no matter what you think of Mamdani, or Walkinshaw for that matter, on policy/ideology, I definitely think we can learn from the *tactics* used, whether skillful use of social media by Mamdani or effective door knocking and community relationship-building by Walkinshaw, that worked for these two very different, but both successful, candidates)
Losers
- Candidates who were never involved in Fairfax or Virginia Democratic politics previously, suddenly showed up to run for themselves, then will probably disappear again: I’m not going to call them out by name, but it’s really obvious when you look at the list of people running. We saw this in VA10 last year as well, by the way, so it’s certainly not unique to this race. The thing is, if you want to be involved in helping your community, the country, etc. by running for political office, that’s fine, but if you just sort of pop up when there’s an opening for Congress – I mean, you *could* run for local office first or do the hard work on boards, commissions, etc. – then disappear after you lose the Congressional election, let’s just say I’m not a fan of that. [UPDATE: Just to be clear, in no way/shape/form is this meant to imply that new people – especially people who are talented, have good ideas, energy, etc. – shouldn’t run for Democratic nominations and/or get involved in the Democratic Party. Quite the contrary – let’s hope everyone who ran stays involved/engaged, runs for other offices, helps elect Dems up and down the ballot, etc…and doesn’t just disappear after this!]
- The whole “coronation” argument: So here’s the thing – you could theoretically argue this would have been a coronation, for instance, IF the VA11 Democratic committee had simply chosen a candidate and not let the people decide; IF 40,000 people (by FAR a record for VA Dem “firehouse primaries”) hadn’t voted; or IF James Walkinshaw hadn’t won with around 60% of the vote in a 10-person field; IF James Walkinshaw hadn’t been highly qualified for the job (e.g., a decade as Connolly’s right-hand man, a Fairfax Supervisor in his own right); and IF James Walkinshaw hadn’t spent over a decade doing the work/casework in the community, building relationships with the community, etc. So…nope, this was definitely not a “coronation”. And no, getting a bunch of endorsements because you’re the best candidate for the job does NOT count as a “coronation” either! LOL
- David Hogg: First of all, wasn’t the whole point of his group to primary ineffective, incumbent Democrats? So…last I checked, the incumbent in this race: a) was HIGHLY effective; b) was no longer alive. So…why? Also, Hogg’s endorsement (of Irene Shin) appeared to have zero impact on the race…or at most a few points for Shin, who ended up with 14% of the vote? Anyway, Hogg’s endorsement got a lot of press, because the political media loooves this stuff, but basically was ineffective and a big fizzle. BTW, almost every single person I asked for Winners/Losers suggestions mentioned Hogg, unprompted, using words like “grifter” and “enormous loser” a lot…
- Twitter: Let’s just say, there was a LOT of chatter, smack talk, etc. on Twitter, a lot of it about how Walkinshaw was supposedly terrible, or even supposedly *disqualified* (due to one tweet by Connolly’s campaign Twitter account several days ago), etc. And…nope, none of it mattered. So, for those who argue that “Twitter is not real life,” you can now point to this primary as a key piece of evidence to bolster your case! LOL
- The 11th CD Republicans: While the Democrats were busy overwhelmingly nominating a highly qualified, 100% electable candidate in James Walkinshaw, the Republicans were busy nominating a MAGA/Trump fanatic for this deep-blue district, someone who literally said that “I cannot think of a single thing I disagree with with the president” and “I trust President Trump, and so I trust that President Trump has intel that’s driving his decisions; I trust everything he’s done.” So…how big of a landslide is James Walkinshaw going to win by on 9/9? LOL [Also, per the Patch, “2,601 GOP voters cast ballots for one of the seven candidates on the ballot” – that compares to 38,000 Democratic voters – so <10% of the Democratic turnout on the Republican side, haha!)
- Endorsers of candidates not named James Walkinshaw: I’m not going to call them out by name, because there are a lot of really good Democrats in here, plus you have a 100% right to endorse anyone you want in any race (plus some were probably because of important relationships, and the endorser really didn’t do much beyond that). But I mean, if you endorse someone and that candidate loses by 45, 50 points, it doesn’t exactly make you a “winner,” LOL. Also, how about people from outside Virginia (unless it’s like Barack Obama or someone of that caliber) who kinda randomly endorse in Virginia elections mostly have no impact whatsoever – just seems kinda silly IMHO. But whatever, it probably doesn’t hurt them for the most part…other than looking like they had no influence.
- WaPo’s Absolutely PATHETIC coverage: Last but *most definitely least*, lol. Yeah, this paper used to matter in terms of local politics (including endorsements, which they don’t do anymore), but since 2005, its home circulation has fallen like 90%, and hell, they even recently ditched their standalone Metro section. Plus, of course, the WaPo’s coverage of Virginia politics has been horrendous for years – tons of false equivalence, “both sides” bullshit, “sanewashing,” whitewashing (of right-wing extremists as supposed “moderates” or whatever), stenography, horserace (who’s up/who’s down), superficial, etc. coverage. And in this primary, they added to their list of debacles, completely botching their VA11 Democratic candidates questionnaire. In short it’s almost impossible to express in words how far this once-excellent paper has fallen…certainly in their coverage of northern Virginia politics. Hell, at this point, they might as well just ditch that coverage completely, as the WaPo’s basically just focused on national and international coverage at this point…
- [UPDATE from a Twitter comment]: “How about the casino lobby in the “losers” category? The overall winner was anti casino. Anti casino candidates who weren’t Walkinshaw also performed very well, especially near Reston/Herndon (proposed site 1) and Tysons (proposed site 2).”
