RICHMOND — Virginia Democratic Party Chairwoman Susan Swecker trounced a handful of challengers Saturday to stay at the helm of a party that she’s led through ups and downs for the past seven years.
The party’s State Central Committee elected Swecker to a four-year term at a virtual convention, where she won 213 out of 268 votes cast, or nearly 80 percent.
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Placing a distant second with 31 votes was Josh Stanfield, executive director of the liberal group Activate Virginia. Stanfield was campaign manager last year for Del. Lee J. Carter (D-Manassas), a self-proclaimed socialist who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. In third place with 24 votes was Jim McBride, a member of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee.
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Two other candidates dropped out of the race before Saturday.
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“I am incredibly grateful to Virginia Democrats for putting their faith in me to continue to lead the Party as we move forward,” Swecker said in a written statement. “We have made so much progress as a Party and Commonwealth over the last seven years, and now is the time to protect and build upon that progress.”
Under Swecker, the party has grown from four full-time staff and an annual operating budget of less than $1 million to a fully unionized, full-time staff of 15 and a budget of more than $3 million. During much of her tenure, especially while President Donald Trump was in the White House, Virginia seemed to shift from purple to blue.
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For two years, Democrats enjoyed control of the state House, Senate and governorship for the first time in a generation, allowing them to pass a host of long-sought liberal priorities — including tightening restrictions on guns, loosening them on abortion and voting, abolishing the death penalty, legalizing small amounts of recreational marijuana and overhauling criminal justice laws.
But with Trump out of the White House, Republicans made a comeback in November, as now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin led a Republican sweep of three statewide offices and helped the GOP flip control of the House of Delegates. Some of Swecker’s challengers were upset with those losses, but she successfully pitched herself as someone with the experience to lead the opposition to Youngkin.