Andy Parker, who became a prominent Virginia gun control advocate after his daughter was killed on live TV, won’t be on the ballot in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District after failing to submit enough valid signatures to qualify, according to Democratic Party officials.

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       As a result, Josh Throneburg, Parker’s Democratic opponent in the primary race, claimed the nomination in a statement Monday night, saying the Virginia 5th District Democratic Committee informed him he would be the only Democratic candidate on the ballot. The chairwoman confirmed that Wednesday.

       “I was the sole candidate to fulfill all of the requirements to run, including submitting 1000 petition signatures from Fifth District voters, which means we’ll bypass a primary this year,” he wrote in a message on Facebook. “I’ve been a candidate in this race for over a year, and I’m thrilled that I’ll be challenging Bob Good in November.”

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       Parker launched an emotional bid in January for the Democratic nomination to run against Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), saying he was running in honor of his daughter, journalist Alison Parker, who was shot and killed during a live TV news broadcast in Roanoke in 2015. While gun control remained important to him, Parker said one of his main objectives in Congress would be to crack down on Big Tech and the proliferation of misinformation and violent content, as videos of his daughter’s murder continue to circulate despite his efforts to have them removed.

       Candidates need 1,000 signatures from voters in their district to qualify to be on the ballot. According to the Virginia Democratic Party, Parker submitted 1,093 signatures to qualify, but only 937 were valid.

       In a statement to The Washington Post, Parker said that his campaign would be taking “a few days to perform a forensic audit on our petition signatures. When that is complete we will explore our options.”

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       The party advises candidates to submit at least 1,500 signatures to avoid issues with invalid signatures, which may come from people who don’t live within the 5th District — particularly in a year of redistricting when voters may be confused about new district lines.

       When contacted by The Post, the chair of the 5th District committee, Patricia Harper-Tunley, pointed to comments she made to Cardinal News on Wednesday affirming that Throneburg is the district’s Democratic nominee. She told Cardinal News that a team of five reviewed the signatures several times but that the rejected signatures came from people who did not reside in the 5th District or who lacked matching addresses.

       “We have done our part in terms of submitting the certified documents, which means that Josh Throneburg is the Democratic nominee,” she told the news outlet. “We are moving forward and are looking to engage our voters and remove Bob Good from the 5th district.”

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       Throneburg, an ordained minister and small-business owner in Charlottesville, would face an uphill climb as the Democratic nominee in the red 5th District, which under the newly drawn congressional map President Donald Trump would have won by 8 percentage points in 2020.

       In an interview Wednesday, Throneburg said he believed his background lent itself well to the district, having grown up in a town of about 500 people in rural Illinois. The 5th District, which includes many rural areas in central and Southside Virginia, now stretches from Charlottesville to the North Carolina border.

       “I grew up in a rural community, and those rural parts of our country have been very much overlooked and hollowed out over the last 30, 40 years,” he said. “I think there’s an opportunity for us to reinvest in rural communities — broadband, access to education, access to health care — and bring some life and vitality back to these communities.”

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       He added that he would aim to focus on the threat of climate change while seeking to boost economic development in the district through the creation of green jobs. As a White father in a multiracial family, Throneburg said that issues of racial justice would be important to him, as well.

       Democrats had their eye on the 5th District in 2020, but the race was more competitive then only because both candidates, running for an open seat, had little name recognition. And an acrimonious GOP convention in which Good ousted then-Rep. Denver Riggleman (Va.) left some Republicans with split loyalties.

       Good defeated his Democratic challenger, Cameron Webb, by about five percentage points, and in his first term has become one of the most conservative members of the House, as part of the GOP’s Freedom Caucus. He faces a challenge from Charlottesville GOP Committee Chairman Daniel Moy.

       The 5th District GOP convention will be held May 21. The Democratic primary is scheduled for June 21.