A crowded field of Democrats is vying for the party’s nomination in the special election for Virginia’s 11th Congressional District. James Walkinshaw, Connolly’s chosen successor, appears to be the clear frontrunner, sparking concerns among rivals that the nomination process favors establishment candidates and also limits voter access.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced the special election date for Sept. 9 after Connolly, 75, died in May due to esophageal cancer. It came weeks after Connolly announced he would not seek reelection and would step down as the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.
The 11th District Democratic committee announced a firehouse primary scheduled for June 28, giving candidates less than a month to make their case to voters.
Walkinshaw holds a 41% lead in a poll released by a PAC supporting his campaign. He is endorsed by Connolly — who, Walkinshaw says, persuaded him to run shortly after stepping down — as well as neighboring Rep. Don Beyer, D-VA08, and former Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn.
Other candidates are gaining some traction, including state Sen. Stella Pekarsky and Del. Irene Shin. All of the candidates are campaigning on a platform focused on opposing former President Donald Trump and protecting federal workers, 80,000 of whom live in Fairfax County.
Seven Republicans have also put their hats in the ring for a June 28 party primary, including Mike Van Meter, who lost to Connolly in 2024 by a 67-33% margin. They are unlikely to flip the deep blue district. Independent candidate Chandrashekar Tamirisa is also in the mix.
Frontrunners
Walkinshaw is highlighting his 11 years of experience working as a staffer in Congress and five years as an elected official in local government. He knows the 11th district better than any other candidate, he said.
“This is not a moment for on-the-job training,” Connolly said in his endorsement of Walkinshaw.
Walkinshaw’s top priority is stopping Trump from damaging the federal government and American democracy, he says. He was Connolly’s chief of staff during the first Trump administration.
“I know how to use the process in the House to slow down, block and thwart the MAGA Republican majority,” Walkinshaw said.
Pekarsky comes from a family of Greek immigrants. She is a former public school teacher, business owner and Fairfax County School Board member — having served as chair during COVID.
“I did not get into this work as a career politician,” Pekarsky said. “I’m a mom with six kids who’s just heavily involved in my community.”
The freshman senator, who was first elected to the state Senate in 2023, is skeptical of “business-as-usual” politics and believes people are looking for elected officials focused on progress, rather than their own careers.
In the Senate, Pekarsky has prioritized health care and education policy, frequently taking aim at the insurance industry. She has earned endorsements from Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, and Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth — two of the chamber’s most influential Democrats.
“I have a record of taking on very big fights and winning, sticking by my values,” Pekarsky said.
Shin, 37, does not believe the Democrats are doing a good job of being an opposition party, and says it is time for a generational change.
“I think that Democrats shouldn’t be rolling over and playing dead,” she said. “Instead, we should be fighting back [against] Trump.”
Shin is endorsed by David Hogg — the recently ousted Democratic National Committee vice chair — and his organization Leaders We Deserve, which seeks to primary “out-of-touch, ineffective” incumbent House Democrats.
“Unless we have a willingness for leaders to step up and meet this moment, we’re gonna continue to see the same old plays from the same old tired playbook that Democrats have continued to run and lose on,” Shin said.
Connolly was the third House Democrat to die in three months. Shin said Connolly was beloved in Fairfax, but acknowledged the system often prioritizes “seniority over efficacy.”
Shin, a former nonprofit organizer, is a renter and a child of immigrant parents. She decided to get into politics after witnessing how unaffordable health care is when her father had to fly to Korea to treat his sickness — which she aims to prioritize in Congress.
Rest of the field
Six other Democrats are seeking the nomination but struggling to gain support. One is former Venezuelan Congressman Leo Martínez, who witnessed authoritarianism under Hugo Chávez and wants to prevent it from happening here.
Martínez worked in a number of positions under Govs. Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam, as well as Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, related to climate and energy finance, small business development and latino development — including the now-collapsing United States Agency for International Development.
In addition to fighting Trump, budgeting and creating more opportunities for small businesses and immigrants are priorities for Martínez.
Amy Papanu is a “career fed” with over 28 years of experience between the State Department, FBI and CIA. She put an emphasis on national security and fighting Trump’s attacks on federal workers in an interview with Virginia Scope. She wants to use diplomacy and restraint to avoid major conflicts in the Middle East.
Candice Bennett is a Fairfax planning commissioner, small business owner and community organizer. She is the deputy executive director of the nonprofit Good Shepherd Housing & Family Services, which seeks to provide low-income families with affordable and stable housing.
Dan Lee is an entrepreneur who has founded multiple health-tech companies. He wants to tackle the affordability crisis with Medicare for All, universal pre-K and a $25 minimum wage, according to his campaign website.
Amy Roma is a lawyer and expert on national security and energy. She touted herself as someone who has brought clean energy projects to life and worked directly with federal agencies in her campaign video — using the slogan “let’s get things done.”
Dr. Priya Punnoose is a psychiatrist from Herndon who served on Capitol Hill in an adolescent psychiatry congressional fellowship. She is advocating for science-driven policies and more support for education and health, according to her campaign website.
Rounding out the list is Ross Branstetter, an executive for the Northern Virginia-based Millennium Bankshares Corporation.
Controversy around the nomination process
Pekarsky and Shin criticized the nomination process, citing concerns that support for Walkinshaw was disproportionately stacked and that access was unfairly restricted, thereby harming the democratic process.
Pekarsky, in reference to Walkinshaw’s support, said Democrats are perhaps falling in line, being promised other positions or following the leader, rather than engaging in robust conversations, which is a disservice to the democratic process.
“I think everybody who’s watching can tell what is happening,” Pekarsky said.
The 11th District has its first chance in decades to elect a congressperson in the region most impacted by Trump’s attacks on the federal workforce, Pekarsky explained.
“I think the very educated and motivated voters of the 11th Congressional District do not appreciate being told who others think should be our next representative,” Pekarsky said. “Democracy is for the people, by the people, it does not belong to any one person. Nobody is entitled to it, nobody is owed it.”
The primary will be held at 17 voting locations across the district and will also offer early voting for Democrats.
Shin said Virginia should explore holding state-run special primaries, saying the task is too large for local parties that rely on volunteers.
“The short timeline, the unwillingness to consider ranked choice voting as a way to conduct this primary, and then, of course, very little consideration for language access for voters, as well as no opportunity to do vote-by-mail; I think means all of the progress Democrats have pushed for and won at the state legislative level to make Virginia a really great place for voting access and voting rights, we are not seeing that duplicated,” Shin said.
Shin said the committee’s members were stacked by Connolly, who had been a giant and an institution in Fairfax County.
“They aren’t even trying for the optics of neutrality,” she said.
Walkinshaw said he made a decision early on to let the Democratic committee run the process.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for the candidates to be trying to work the refs and change the process,” Walkinshaw said. “I said from the beginning, I’ll compete and win under any process or timeline that’s established.”
Committee chair says Youngkin is to blame
Fairfax County Democratic Committee chair Aaron Yohai deflected against Shin and Pekarsky’s claims, noting the party must run a neutral, transparent and accessible process. He blames Youngkin for putting the party in a tight spot with his chosen election date.
“Let’s face it, many people are still mourning the late, great Connolly, and we have had to labor under that loss to bring forward a process that I think he would be proud of,” Yohai said. “At the same time that we are revving up for these all-important elections in November, we now must also plan for a special election in September, which was certainly Gov. Youngkin’s idea all along to put us through this.”
Special elections in Virginia must be held on Tuesdays and cannot be held less than 55 days before a primary or general election, according to state law. With Virginia electing a new governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general on Nov. 4, Youngkin chose the latest possible Tuesday for the special election within the allotted timeframe.
Yohai said it is unfortunate the primary must be held in June, which is during peak vacation time for Fairfax residents. Still, he expects it to be one of the most widely attended firehouse primaries for a congressional seat in recent Virginia history, as Democrats proved they were motivated by turning out for the statewide primary on Tuesday.
“To my knowledge, it is the most access ever to a process like this,” Yohai said.