Prospect of new congressional map prompts two exits and one entrance

Wednesday was a busy day on the campaign trail in Virginia, with two congressional candidates dropping out and one jumping in.

All this action happened on the Democratic side, and all three of those moves were related to the proposed redistricting map that Democrats hope voters will approve in an April 21 referendum (assuming the Virginia Supreme Court allows the vote to go forward).

Let’s take these moves district by district, although that’s tricky because the maps might change.

Pruitt exits, endorses Perriello in the 5^th (or maybe the 6^th)

Albemarle County Supervisor Mike Pruitt was likely the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in the 5^th District until former Rep. Tom Perriello, also of Albemarle, jumped into the race in December.

Since then, Perriello has reeled in endorsements from Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, as well as Gov. Abigail Spanberger. He’s also amassed a dragon’s horde of campaign cash. In the final quarter of the year (for which Perriello was only an active candidate for a few weeks), Perriello outraised Republican incumbent John McGuire and finished the year with twice as much cash on hand — $676,616 for Perriello, $314,375 for McGuire.

Pruitt appears to have concluded he simply couldn’t compete with that. He dropped out Wednesday and endorsed Perriello.

“I joined this race knowing I’d face a hard, uphill battle,” Pruitt said in a statement. “But with the newly publicized district maps, I now know that such a fight will do more harm than good.”

The new map that Pruitt referred to would put Charlottesville and Albemarle County in a so-called “university district” that knits together Democratic-voting college towns — from Radford and Blacksburg to Charlottesville, Staunton and Harrisonburg — into a Democratic-leaning district.

With Pruitt’s exit, that narrows the race on the Democratic side to Perriello and Roanoke author Beth Macy. Geographically, Pruitt’s departure — and endorsement of Perriello — creates another handicap for Macy. In the currently drawn 6^th District, she’d have been the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. In a reconfigured 6^th District, she’d be at a distinct disadvantage in a primary against Perriello — there are twice as many Democratic voters in Charlottesville and Albemarle as in the Roanoke Valley and the new 6^th wouldn’t even include all of the Roanoke Valley. Macy is a Democrat who would likely be better off under the current maps.

Gooditis exits the 6^th, endorses Subramanyam in the 10^th

When former Del. Wendy Gooditis of Clarke County entered the congressional race, she said she wanted to run against Republican incumbent Ben Cline in the 6^th District, but it was widely assumed that she was really hoping to wind up in a newly drawn district that had no incumbent.

Under the proposed map, she would be in a new district, but one with an incumbent, Democrat Suhas Subramanyam of Loudoun County.

On Wednesday, she dropped out and backed Subramanyam. “As a steadfast Virginia Democrat and as someone who cares deeply about the well-being of our Commonwealth’s residents, I strongly approve of the newly released map of congressional districts,” she said in a statement. “Under this new map, my home has been drawn into a district with a strong incumbent who represents our values. I am so pleased that Suhas Subramanyam will be my Congressman. He will continue to work hard for our communities and stand up to Trump’s attack on our democracy.”

Cooney enters the newly drawn 7^th District

The most unusually shaped new district is the 7^th, which has come to be referred to as “the lobster district” for its distinctive shape. (Others see a frog or a scorpion.) This district starts in Arlington County, runs through part of the Piedmont, and then branches out into two “claws,” one into the Shenandoah Valley to pick up parts of Augusta and Rockingham counties, another into Southside to pick up Goochland and Powhatan counties. That configuration picks up McGuire, the current Republican incumbent in the 5^th, but puts him in a Democratic district. The buzz has been that this is a district intended for Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County, but now there are at least two other contenders.

Ken Mitchell, the 2024 Democratic nominee in the 6^th District, lives in Rockingham and says he’ll be running in the new 7^th. Now J.P Cooney of Arlington, a former deputy to special counsel Jack Smith, has entered the race.

“I’m running for Congress, because never before in the history of our country has a president of the United States posed a graver threat to our Democracy, our rule of law, and the economic security of American families,” Cooney said in a statement. “And never before have we had a complicit Congress rubber stamp a lawless president like Donald Trump. I stood up to Donald Trump as a federal prosecutor, and I’ll do it again in Congress.”

More to come?

We’re likely to see more moves in the days and weeks ahead as potential candidates assess their prospects in the new districts. As I pointed out in a previous column, Democrats didn’t do some of their incumbents any favors — Don Beyer of Alexandria in the 8^th and James Walkinshaw of Fairfax County in the 11^th would lose most of their current constituents, a situation that creates openings for potential primary challengers. Beyer previously faced multiple challengers; now both of them potentially have new voters to appeal to.

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