Pete Barlow dropping out of Sixth District Democratic congressional race

Pete Barlow said Monday that he is ending his bid for the Democratic Party nomination for the Sixth District seat in Congress, after talking with supporters and coming to the conclusion that the new congressional district map “does not leave me with a district for a viable campaign.”

“We will focus on sharing issues with other candidates and connecting neighbors who voted differently on the referendum with each other and with candidates,” Barlow said in a statement released by his campaign on Monday.

It was going to be tough sledding ahead for Barlow, who entered the race in the Sixth last summer, before Democrats in Richmond worked up a response to the move by the Trump regime to have Texas redraw its congressional district lines to create more MAGA seats in the U.S. House in the 2026 cycle.

The new maps in Virginia, approved by the General Assembly earlier this year, and put into motion by the constitutional amendment approved by voters in last week’s statewide referendum, will create four new Democrat-majority seats in the Commonwealth, including three that cut into the old district lines of the Sixth.

Two stretch into the Sixth from Northern Virginia, and it’s fair to assume that the favorites in the Democratic congressional races in those – in the Seventh and the 11th – will come from NoVa.

The Sixth District race, for its part, has attracted the attention of former Fifth District congressman Tom Perriello and best-selling author Beth Macy, each raising gobs of money in their bids to unseat four-term MAGA incumbent Ben Cline.

Sensing the uphill battle ahead, Barlow – a Rockingham County native, is a former Peace Corps high school biology teacher, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service administrator and FEMA program analyst – convened a meeting of more than 50 supporters via Zoom last week to conduct a status check.

“The consensus was clear,” Barlow said. “Participants said they value my campaign’s focus on listening to constituents that Cline ignores, amplifying local issues that never got attention in Washington, and connecting neighbors with each other across artificial divisions created by the partisan system.”