Virginia HD17: Democratic Firehouse Primary This Sunday
As you might have heard, Virginia Del. Mark Sickles was selected earlier this week by Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger to serve in her Cabinet as Secretary of Finance. As such, there will be a vacancy shortly in HD17 (Franconia/Springfield in southern Fairfax County; 70% Kamala Harris district), which Del. Sickles represents. For that reason, Virginia Speaker Don Scott set the special election date for this seat as 1/20/26, with Fairfax Democrats selecting their nominee THIS coming Sunday (12/28); see call to Caucus info here (and note that turnout for this could be very low, maybe not even 1,000 voters out of >80,000 people in the district effectively selecting their next delegate).
So with just a few days to campaign, and for voters to be informed about the election – including when/where to vote, as well as who the candidate are – things are moving very quickly. Plus, it’s the holidays, and presumably most people are barely (if at all) focused on this. So I figured it might be helpful to do a quick summary of who’s running (to my knowledge, Russell Brooks, Carla Bustillos, Garrett McGuire, Joy McManus) and who’s endorsed them. I’ll update this as I see new endorsements (or ones I’ve missed).
P.S. Also, I’m hoping that these candidates will all get back to Blue Virginia by tomorrow with answers to some questions that Fairfax City Dems Chair Laura Stokes sent them the other day…
https://bluevirginia.us/2025/12/virginia-hd17-democratic-firehouse-primary-this-sunday-whos-running-whos-endorsing-which-candidate-etc/