Democrat wins Virginia special election seen as Trump referendum

Democrats will hold onto a vacant congressional seat in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., in a special election seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump and his sweeping and controversial agenda.

Democratic Party nominee James Walkinshaw defeated Republican nominee Stewart Whitson in Virginia’s left-leaning 11th Congressional District, according to The Associated Press.

Walkinshaw will succeed late longtime Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly, who died in May after a battle with cancer.

Heading into Tuesday’s special election, Republicans controlled the House 219-212, with three seats controlled by Democrats vacant, as well as one held by the GOP. Walkinshaw’s victory in the left-leaning district that Republicans haven’t won in nearly two decades further narrows the GOP’s fragile House majority.

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Campaign signs for Republican Stewart Whitson and Democrat James Walkinshaw Sept. 8, 2025, in Fairfax County, Va., on the eve of a special election in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District.  (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News )

With the vast majority of votes counted on Tuesday evening, Walkinshaw appeared headed for a roughly 50-point victory margin over Whitson. Connolly won re-election by nearly 34 points last December, and by 33 points in the 2022 midterms.

“Rep-elect Walkinshaw’s victory continues the dominant trend we’re seeing so far this year – Democrats are massively overperforming in nearly every race,” Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin said in a statement.

The district is home to tens of thousands of government workers and contractors, and the federal jobs cuts by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and crime and immigration, transgender policies and even the push to release the Justice Department’s files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were all in the spotlight on the campaign trail.

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“Folks in Northern Virginia and Fairfax are feeling the impact of the Trump policies. And I like to say we’re kind of on the leading edge of the Trump economy here. Everybody in Fairfax knows someone, probably someone on their street, maybe the parent of their kid’s soccer team, who has lost their job because of DOGE or the Trump policies,” Walkinshaw told Fox News Digital on Election Day eve.

James Walkinshaw, the Democratic Party nominee in the special election in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District, is interviewed by Fox News Digital Sept. 8, 2025 in Burke, Va. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News )

Walkinshaw, a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors member who previously served as Connolly’s chief of staff, argued that “if the Trump policies continue, tariffs, the so-called big, beautiful bill, that’s going to be the case all around the country. So, I think we’re on the leading edge of that. And I think voters tomorrow are going to send a statement about that.”

Whitson also said Trump was in the campaign spotlight because of a “lot of the great policies that he’s been championing.”

Whitson, an Army veteran and former FBI special agent who oversees federal affairs for a conservative think tank, told Fox News Digital “the people in our district who have lost their job or who are worried about losing their job, they don’t need empathy. They need solutions.”

He said Walkinshaw claimed “he’s going to fight President Trump and fight the administration. And my pitch to voters in our district is: is that going to help? Is that going to help improve the situation? The answer is no.

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“We need someone to represent the people in our district who can work with any administration, whether it’s Republican or Democrat,” Whitson emphasized.

While Trump isn’t very popular in the district — the president won just 31% of the vote in his White House re-election last year — Whitson said Trump’s polices “center on … common sense.”

Fox News’ Kiera McDonald contributed to this report.