Fairfax and the transformed presidential race
Fairfax and the transformed presidential race
Rep. Don Beyer calls in from the DNC: ‘There’s much greater optimism about making sure we win Virginia again’
Rep. Don Beyer is in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention — and he’s been busy.
Beyer, whose 8th district includes Annandale and McLean, sat with other Virginia delegates Monday for prime-time speeches by leaders like Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and President Biden. He stopped by an afterparty of political junkies that, after he left it, went until 2 a.m. Then he woke up and had to skip the 8 a.m. Virginia breakfast because he was doing the introduction at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee briefing.
There are, he said, “three things happening at every hour.” In a good way.
“The energy’s very high. It’s like Obama’s Denver in 2008,” Beyer told The Machine in a phone call Tuesday evening. “This is my fifth convention, but this is probably the best energy I’ve ever seen. People are just really excited about the ticket, Kamala [Harris] and Tim [Walz], and about our prospects in the House and the Senate and especially the top of the ticket.”
Fairfax’s congressional reps like Beyer are among those hustling to support that new-look ticket, both in Chicago and locally, since Biden dropped out of the race a month ago today. And they’re now looking to animate voters in a core region here for Democrats, in a state where polls had been tightening.
“There’s much greater optimism about making sure we win Virginia again,” Beyer said.
But he’s not taking it for granted.
The state of the Virginia race
A Roanoke College poll released Tuesday showed Vice President Harris with a three-point lead over former president Donald Trump in Virginia. The last notable poll, from VCU in July, had showed Trump up three on Biden.
Brandon Jarvis, who runs the Virginia Political Newsletter, said his read was that Trump was never likely to win the commonwealth. But now, with Harris leading the ticket, it’s “not really in play anymore.”
“I think she is going to drive even more voter turnout in the blue parts of Virginia, and Fairfax is a stronghold for Democrats,” Jarvis said. “I think it’s going to be one of the driving factors that will make sure Virginia stays in the Democratic column.”
In 2020, Fairfax County went nearly 70% for Biden and Harris, handing them a 250,000-vote margin, as Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads and the Richmond metro stitched up a comfortable state victory.
Fairfax proved even more critical for Dems in 2016, when Clinton and Sen. Tim Kaine ran up a 197,400-vote margin here. They won Virginia by close to that same number.
“It is still very much a purple state. And living in Northern Virginia, sometimes it doesn’t feel that way, but if you travel the state a lot, you realize that there’s a broad gamut of political perspective, which means we have to take it seriously,” Beyer said. “The fact that there were some close polls didn’t discourage me. For me, it was an energizing key for all those grassroots Democrats.”
What local Democrats are saying
Rep. Gerry Connolly, whose 11th district spans the heart of Fairfax County, is in Chicago, too. (“I’ve seen Gerry a number of times,” Beyer said.)
Connolly doesn’t have a speaking slot at the DNC, press secretary Nick Burroughs said, but he was speaking to the Virginia delegation and to the Kentucky delegation and will be a “featured panelist” at an event on democracy and the U.S.-EU alliance.
“This election is a choice between two futures for America — one of hope and promise, and the other of anger, violence, and division,” Connolly said in a statement to The Machine. “I know which version I choose. It’s the same version that millions of Virginians and Americans across the country will choose when we come together to defeat Donald Trump and put Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the White House. If there was any doubt before this convention, there should be none now — Democrats are united, energized, and ready to get it done.”
Beyer won’t be on “the big stage” either, he said, but he will speak to military families Thursday. Asked what a Harris-Walz administration might mean for Northern Virginia, he said he thought it’d be “a grief relief for my district,” citing Project 2025 and its plan to replace federal employees with Trump loyalists. The employees it proposes targeting primarily are managers, Beyer noted, and they skew older.
“You know where they live? Northern Virginia,” he said.
Retiring Rep. Jennifer Wexton’s office said Wednesday, after this post first published, that she wasn’t able to make it to Chicago. Kaine and fellow Sen. Mark Warner were both there, Beyer said, as was former governor Terry McAuliffe.
What local Republicans are saying
Fairfax’s GOP branch and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who spoke at the RNC, have strongly backed Trump. But over the weekend, a surprising former congresswoman joined Beyer, Connolly, and Wexton in their support of the Harris/Walz ticket: Republican Barbara Comstock.
“After January 6, after Donald Trump has refused for four years to acknowledge that he lost and his threats against democracy, I think it’s important to turn the page,” Comstock said during a CNN interview Sunday. “And that’s why I will be voting for the vice president.”
Comstock, whom Wexton unseated in Virginia’s 10th District in 2018, became a public Trump critic during the 2016 Republican presidential primary and has remained one since.
Fairfax County’s current foremost elected Republican, Supervisor Pat Herrity, carries Comstock’s endorsement on his website. The Machine asked this week whether he supported or planned to support a candidate in November. A staffer said they would supply a comment by end of day Tuesday, but The Machine hasn’t received it yet.
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