Democrat James Walkinshaw to win Virginia House race, narrowing GOP majority

Democratic candidate James Walkinshaw is projected to win a special election Tuesday to represent a Northern Virginia congressional district once held by the late Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly, according to The Associated Press.

Walkinshaw, a Fairfax County supervisor, defeated Republican Stewart Whitson, a former FBI special agent. He previously served as Connolly's chief of staff and was endorsed by the congressman prior to his death.

Walkinshaw's win will further narrow the House GOP's majority to 219-213. As of now, there are four vacancies in the House, following the deaths of Connolly and two other Democrats, and the resignation of Republican Rep. Mark Green.

In a statement, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin argued the win "continues the dominant trend we're seeing so far this year – Democrats are massively overperforming in nearly every race."

The district that Walkinshaw will soon represent is just outside of Washington, D.C., and includes the city of Fairfax and most of Fairfax County. The district is reliably Democratic: In the 2024 election, Connolly won reelection 67% to 33% and former Vice President Kamala Harris won Fairfax County 65.6% to 30.9%.

The special election comes less than a month before an end-of-September deadline for Congress to either pass a new federal funding package or face a government shutdown.

President Trump's sweeping cuts to the federal workforce, led by the Department of Government Efficiency, are also a key issue in Virginia's 11th congressional district. Some 12% of the district's workers are employed by the federal government — more than almost any other district in the country, according to a 2024 Congressional Research Service report.

"The dominant issue in this race has been job cuts caused by Donald Trump, and I think that's meaningful for the rest of the country," Walkinshaw told CBS News. "So every single person in our community now knows somebody who's lost their job because of those [cuts]."

Asked by Fox News about the cuts, Whitson called federal workers "wonderful people" with "great experience," but added: "The people in our district who have lost their job or who are worried about losing their job, they don't need sympathy, they need solutions."

He said that he planned to work with the Trump administration and, "if there are good federal workers that have been pushed out of the federal workforce, I want to find a way to get them back in."

Meanwhile, a group of lawmakers — led by GOP Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna — is pushing a bill that would require the federal government to release files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Massie is gathering signatures for a "discharge petition" that would force a vote on the bill if it's signed by a majority of House members, or 218. It's two signatures shy of that target, as all 212 Democrats and four Republicans have signed.

Walkinshaw says if elected, he would sign Massie's discharge petition.

"This is one of those issues that voters who are Democrats, voters who are independents, voters who are Republicans agree on, including a lot of folks here voting for Donald Trump, that we should release these files," he told CBS News.

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