By Brian Trompeter
In perhaps one of the biggest surprises in a day filled with them, challenger Saddam Azlan Salim defeated four-term state Sen. Chap Petersen (D) in the newly formed 37th District in the June 20 Democratic primary
As of June 22, Salim led with 10,049 votes (53.8 percent) to Petersen’s 8,616 votes (46.2 percent), based on almost complete but still unofficial totals reported by the Virginia Department of Elections.
Petersen won most of the precincts around Vienna and Oakton, but lost heavily in areas near Falls Church, which he had picked up after his district received a new name and boundaries.
Salim, who was born in Bangladesh and moved to the United States with his family in 2000, works as a senior consultant for the advisory firm 11th Hour Service.
He graduated from Falls Church High School, attended Northern Virginia Community College and went to George Mason University, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public administration.
Salim’s campaign is pressing for more affordable housing, renewable energy, electric-vehicle infrastructure, higher teacher pay, protecting LBGTQ communities, a “more equitable” criminal-justice system and funding for public transportation and pedestrian/bicycle safety.
Salim has not responded yet to the GazetteLeader’s request for comment, but posted on his Facebook account, “So grateful to all my volunteers, supporters, donors, friends and family. We worked hard! Onward to November!”
Petersen was unhappy, but philosophical, concerning his primary loss.
“We ran a positive campaign for re-election based on my past record as a senator,” he said in a June 20 statement after the polls closed. “It didn’t work this time and I bear all responsibility.”
Petersen said for the past few years he felt he had had a target on his back, most directly because of his vocal opposition to the COVID-19 lockdowns and related school closings.
“That was not party orthodoxy and so that invited a lot of resentment and backlash,” he said.
Petersen, who served in the House of Delegates before defeating incumbent Republican state Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites (now Davis) to win what then was the 34th District seat, said he was proud of his record.
“I stood up for what I believed in,” Petersen said. “I was an independent voice. That’s not what the majority of Democratic voters wanted. So I accept that.”
Regarding current Democratic Party views, “I think there’s a lot more orthodoxy, in terms of thinking and speaking,” he said. “If you’re more of an independent-minded person or don’t follow party orthodoxy, you’re going to get a primary challenge – and, at least in my case, you’re going to lose it.”
Petersen said many of the issues that Salim pounced upon dated from years earlier, but the senator’s opposition to the pandemic lockdowns spurred the most opposition from party activists.
“I thought a lot of the actions that were taken, in the guise of executive actions, were unconstitutional,” Petersen said, adding that he had filed a lawsuit on the matter. “I felt like the school shutdown was a terrible mistake. I felt like the student masking was overdone and needed to end. All of those were unpopular positions and they certainly came back and helped organize the opposition against me.”
In the remaining months of his final term, Petersen plans to work on the state’s budget.
Saying his career is “finished,” Petersen said he would like to be remembered for fighting on behalf of children and small businesses during the pandemic, plus his battle against the influence of Dominion Energy, which he said at the time was a “monopoly with unfettered control of the General Assembly.”
Salim now will face Republican candidate Ken Reid in the Nov. 7 election. Reid, a former Loudoun County supervisor and Leesburg Town Council member, on June 21 issued a statement that the Democratic Party had rejected Petersen and that the senator no longer has a future in the organization.
As for his opponent, “the policies Mr. Salim advocates would be harmful to the Virginia economy, and thus, our quality of life,” Reid wrote. “He also does not have the legislative background to represent the district in Richmond, especially the relationship between the municipalities and the General Assembly.”
Reid took aim at several of Salim’s policy positions.
“Getting rid of right-to-work laws and imposing more government burdens on small business, allowing continued sexualized course material in public schools, weak law enforcement, and imposing further extremist environmental provisions on the populace, are not ‘Progressive’ policies, but ‘regressive,’” he wrote. “They will only serve to raise taxes and drive business out of Virginia, and with that, people will move and our schools quality will suffer with it.”
Fairfax County residents do not want their community to become a failing “regressive” city like Baltimore or San Francisco, Reid’s statement read.
“I support keeping the Dillon Rule and right to work, tackling crime, traffic congestion (including helping Metro) and teaching public school children how to think, not ‘what to think,’” he wrote.
