Five Democrats have entered the race to fill the Fourth District congressional seat in the wake of the death of Congressman Donald McEachin.
Del. Lamont Bagby was the first to formally enter the race, announcing his candidacy on Monday, ahead of State Sen. Jennifer McEachin, who announced her intent to run for the seat on Tuesday.
Another state senator, Joseph Morrissey, also entered the race on Tuesday, along with former Del. Joseph Preston and former House of Delegates candidate Tavorise Marks.
Democrats will hold what is called a firehouse primary to determine the Fourth District nominee on Tuesday, Dec. 20, a week from today.
Two Republicans are seeking their party’s nomination in the Fourth – Leon Benjamin, who lost in a 30-point landslide to McEachin in November, and former Mecklenburg County School Board chairman Dale Sturdifen.
McEachin died on Nov. 28 from complications from a lengthy battle with colorectal cancer.
A special election to fill his term will be held on Feb. 21.
The district is a safe Democratic district. McEachin’s closest election was his first, in 2016, in which he defeated Republican Mike Wade by a nearly 16-point margin, receiving 57.7 percent of the vote.
McEachin won re-election last month with 64.9 percent of the vote.
Bagby and McClellan, the presumed frontrunners, have lined up long lists of endorsements.
Bagby, 45, has the backing of Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, Petersburg Mayor Samuel Parham, State Dels. Delores McQuinn (D-Richmond) and Luke Torian (D-Prince William), and Clark Mercer, the former Chief of Staff to former Gov. Ralph Northam.
McClellan, 49, who finished third in last year’s Democratic Party gubernatorial primary, finishing behind eventual nominee Terry McAuliffe and former Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, counts three Democratic members of Congress among her backers – Don Beyer (D-VA-08), Jennifer Wexton (D-VA-10) and Gerry Connolly (D-VA-11), along with Dels. Dawn Adams (D-Richmond), Rodney Willett (D-Henrico) and Candi King (D-Prince William).
“The people in the Fourth District deserve another champion in Congress,” said McClellan, who served in the House of Delegates for 11 years before winning a special election to fill McEachin’s unexpired term in the State Senate after he’d been elected to Congress in 2016.
“For the past 16 years, I’ve served the people of Virginia in the General Assembly and passed major laws to protect abortion rights, safeguard voting rights and tackle climate change. Now, I’m running for Congress to continue my friend Donald McEachin’s legacy of serving the people of Virginia and making sure their voices are heard in Washington, D.C.,” said McClellan, a Petersburg native who graduated from Matoaca High School in Chesterfield County and is an alum of the University of Richmond and the University of Virginia School of Law.
Bagby has served in the House of Delegates since 2016, and is the chair of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus.
The Richmond native is a graduate of Henrico High School and Norfolk State University.
“No one will ever be able to replace Donald McEachin, but I promised him, his wife Colette, and his children that his legacy would live on forever,” Bagby said. “As delegate and chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, I have fought to get guns off the streets, make housing more affordable, expand access to voting, and run predatory lenders out of Virginia. There is more work to do to take on radical Republicans and to represent this district – and I hope the constituents of Virginia’s Fourth Congressional District will trust in me to do so.”
The other name candidate in the race, Morrissey, 65, is best described as “controversial.”
A former Richmond Commonwealth’s attorney and state delegate, he was convicted in 2014 after admitting to a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old receptionist at his law office, and served 90 days in jail.
He resigned his House seat after being convicted, but ran in the special election to fill the unexpired term while serving out his jail sentence, and won.
He later married the teen, Myrna, in 2016, and won election to the State Senate in 2019, receiving 63.8 percent of the vote in his race.
At his campaign announcement on Tuesday, Morrissey raised issue with the way the party decided to name a nominee, calling the firehouse primary “the most anti-working class, anti-Democratic, anti-women’s decision since the Byrd era.”
“I am not whining. I’m not complaining. I will fight back. I will work hard. My parents taught all of us never to give up, never to quit. And that’s what we’ll do. So we’ll play by your rules. Shame on you, Susan Swecker, and the Democratic elites for what you did. We’ll play by your rules and we’ll beat you,” Morrissey said.
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Chris Graham
