It can be hard to pinpoint where Gerry Connolly ends and where James Walkinshaw begins.
Walkinshaw appeared to have no reservations about leaning into his close ties to the longtime representative for Virginia’s 11th Congressional District in his bid to succeed his political mentor and former boss.
Many staffers on Walkinshaw’s campaign for the now-vacant House of Representatives seat previously led Connolly’s reelection team. Some occasionally wore “Connolly for Congress” shirts at events, and the campaign even used Connolly’s mailing lists and social media accounts to promote their candidate, weeks after the 75-year-old Congressman died of esophageal cancer.
But once all the votes were tallied on Saturday (June 28) after a blitz of a Democratic primary, Walkinshaw emerged overwhelmingly as the victor, validating the effectiveness of the campaign’s approach.
Though Walkinshaw is his own man, the voters want to continue to be represented by somebody like Connolly, campaign manager Donald Brownlee told FFXnow. And Walkinshaw is just about as close as one could get outside of Connolly himself.
“I really came to appreciate, after he passed, the attachment voters had to Gerry Connolly,” Brownlee said. “They felt he was part of their life. They thought they had a great member of Congress, and I think if James can be as good a member of Congress as Gerry was, that’s all the voters in the 11th wanted. I think we saw that in the results.”
Walkinshaw earned more votes than all nine other Democratic candidates combined, receiving nearly 60% — 59.54%, to be exact — of the 37,624 ballots cast across the 11th Congressional District, according to unofficial results.
“I was pretty confident we would be over 50%,” Walkinshaw said. “I didn’t know if that meant 51% or 55% or 60%, so I was pleasantly surprised that we were at 60%.”
Walkinshaw’s toughest competitor in the race was believed to be state Sen. Stella Pekarsky, a former Fairfax County Public Schools teacher who ousted a Republican on the local school board in 2019 and a longtime Democratic incumbent to win her General Assembly seat in 2023.
Pekarsky ultimately finished third, just behind Del. Irene Shin, who was the youngest contender and endorsed by lieutenant governor nominee Ghazala Hashmi. Both candidates received fewer than 15% of the vote.
Outside of Vienna attorney Amy Roma, who received 7.12% of the vote, the six other candidates — including Dan Lee, who campaigned on the traditionally progressive Medicare for All — each came in under 2%.
“The outcome reflects the political character of Democratic voters in Northern Virginia — solidly center-left and generally not aligned with the rebellion-progressive wing of the party,” former Del. David Ramadan, a professor at GMU’s Schar School of Policy and Government, said.
Though voters could cast ballots at any of the 17 locations provided by the party-run primary, turnout was high in the two polling places in the Braddock District, which Walkinshaw has represented on the Board of Supervisors since 2020.
More than 3,800 ballots were cast for Walkinshaw between Frost Middle School and Lake Braddock Secondary School, accounting for roughly 71.3% of the vote at those two polling places alone.
Some in the Democratic Party expressed disappointment with the 11th Congressional District Committee’s decision not to use ranked-choice voting, which might’ve allowed other candidates to build coalitions.
However, the decisive, across-the-board support for Walkinshaw suggests the voting format likely didn’t make a difference, Ramadan says, noting that ranked-choice voting “can be a useful tool to ensure consensus, especially when results are tighter.”
“He’s clearly well-liked and had [a] strong grassroots and organized campaign,” Ramadan said of the Braddock District supervisor. “Connolly’s backing certainly helped signal continuity, but this shouldn’t take away from Walkinshaw’s own popularity.”
Walkinshaw advances to face former FBI staffer Stewart Whitson, the Republican nominee, in the special election on Sept. 9 to fill the remainder of Connolly’s term. No Republican candidate has received more than 33% of the general election vote in the 11th district in the last 10 years.
