The 2026 Sixth District congressional field is starting to get crowded

We have a second candidate about to enter the race for the Democratic Party congressional nomination in the Sixth District, with a third maybe on the way – amid uncertainty about what the district will even look like next fall.

Ken Mitchell, who challenged Ben Cline in the Sixth District as it is currently drawn in 2024, and lost by 28.6 points, will formally launch his campaign for the 2026 cycle on Friday in Harrisonburg.

Mitchell, a 24-year military veteran-turned-Rockingham County organic farmer, joins Pete Barlow, a former FEMA analyst-turned-Augusta County small farmer, in the Democratic Party nomination race.

The rumored third candidate is bestselling author and journalist Beth Macy, whose book Dopesick is perhaps the defining piece of journalism on the U.S. opioid crisis.

Macy, who lives in the Roanoke area, would bring an interesting star power to the race in the Sixth – or wherever she could end up running.

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ICYMI

• Pete Barlow to Sixth District Democrats: Let’s be the big tent party
• Roanoke: Author Beth Macy has faith Democrats can win back rural America
• Ken Mitchell is the kind of Democrat who can win in our part of Virginia

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I put that qualifier in because, we can’t assume the Sixth will look anything like it does now after the congressional redistricting that is coming next spring and summer.

Virginia Democrats are working through a rewrite of the district maps ahead of the 2026 midterms that would add three or even four new Democrat-majority districts from the 11 in the U.S. House representing the state.

The maps floating around that would add three would transform the current Sixth into a Democrat-majority district by linking Charlottesville-Albemarle, Harrisonburg-Rockingham, Staunton-Waynesboro-Augusta to the Roanoke Valley.

The 10-1 maps, which give Republicans a majority district only in Southwest Virginia, might end up splitting us here in the Shenandoah Valley from the Roanoke Valley, which would mean Macy, if she were to throw her hat into the ring for 2026, would end up being a candidate in an adjoining district.