Special House Election Set in Blue Northern Virginia

Democrats are expected to hold a safe blue seat in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington in Tuesday’s special congressional election.

The open seat is in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District, formerly held by longtime Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who died in May after a battle with esophageal cancer. 

The Northern Virginia congressional district, one of the wealthiest districts in the country, elected Connolly with 66% of the vote in the November 2024 general election. Republicans have not won the seat since 2006, when then-Rep. Tom Davis was reelected. Indeed, the district with many government employees and lobbyists as residents is almost tailored for a Democrat victory.

As such, a likely Democrat win in the special election in the deep blue district should not necessarily be seen as a significant rebuke of Republican President Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled House and Senate.

Republicans currently control the House of Representatives by a margin of 219 to 212. There are currently four vacancies in the House, including the one left by Connolly. The looming 2026 congressional midterms have drawn a rash of political maneuvering by both major political parties, including redistricting efforts in a number of states and an attempt by Trump to exclude the counting of illegal aliens from a new national census.

Maintaining control of both chambers of Congress is crucial if the GOP hopes to avoid another impeachment attempt by Democrats of Trump and to be able to continue Senate confirmation of nominees by the president.

The two main candidates to replace Connolly are Democrat Fairfax County Supervisor James Walkinshaw and Republican candidate Stewart Whitson. Whitson is a combat veteran who served in the U.S. Army in Iraq as well as a former FBI special agent. He participated in more than 300 combat missions. Whitson is a lawyer and Catholic father of five. 

Stewart Whitson greets a prospective voter in his bid for the 11th Congressional District seat at an event at Fairfax High School on June 28 in Fairfax, Virginia. (Craig Hudson/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Walkinshaw, meanwhile, is Connolly’s chosen successor, endorsed by the now-deceased former congressman after he announced he would not seek reelection. He previously served as Connolly’s chief of staff for more than 10 years beginning in 2009. The political aide assumed his current position as a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in January 2020.

Walkinshaw’s platform is a panoply of progressive priorities, including support for abortion rights, “comprehensive immigration reform that creates a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, protects Dreamers, and secures family reunification,” and voting rights legislation that was criticized by Republicans as a way to federalize elections to favor the Democratic Party.