This Tuesday, per the Alexandria Democratic Committee (see below for a screenshot of their Facebook post), there will be a Democratic “firehouse primary” in HD5 (Alexandria) for the seat being vacated by Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who will almost certainly (given that it’s a deep-blue seat; went 78%-19% for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump) be moving to the State Senate (specifically, the seat currently held by Adam Ebbin, who’s moving into the Spanberger administration to work on cannabis issues). The special election for the HD5 seat will be on February 10, which is why Democrats are selecting their nominee so quickly.
According to the Alexandria Democrats, there are four Democratic candidates for this seat – former Alexandria City School Board member, “award-winning communications strategist, author, and policy leader” Eileen Cassidy Rivera; Alexandria City Council member “since 2022, where he has been a leading advocate for housing construction, climate change action, and sound budgetary policies,” Kirk McPike; criminal defense attorney Chris Leibig; and Greg Darrall (don’t know anything about him). I’ll update this post with information as I see it. Also, check out the interviews Sunday late afternoon by The Alexandria Brief, starting at 4:30 pm with Kirk McPike, followed by Eileen Cassidy Rivera at 5:30 pm and Chris Leibig at 6:30 pm.
P.S. Personally, I don’t know any of these candidates, and I don’t feel like there’s nearly enough time to get to know them before Tuesday morning, so I’m definitely not going to be endorsing in this race.
From VPAP, here’s a map of the district with race/ethnicity information.
