The four Arlington County Board contenders now making their final pitches to voters are each positioning themselves as agents of change.
But coming at it from different angles.
“One-party rule is not healthy,” said Madison Granger, an independent who is running under the banner of the nascent Forward Party in the battle to succeed Board member Libby Garvey.
Garvey, like all current Board members a Democrat, has held the post for 12 years, and opted against seeking re-election. Granger, independent Audrey Clement, Republican Juan Carlos Fierro and Democrat JD Spain, Sr., are vying to succeed her.
“We need more than one party with a real seat at the table here in Arlington,” Granger said. “I’d like to be part of a change.”
(Her comments, like those of other candidates in this article, came during a recent Advance Arlington candidate forum, moderated by former Board member Jay Fisette.)
Clement has been running continuously for elected office — either County Board or School Board — for more than a dozen years as a self-described protest candidate.
She said Spain, who emerged as the Democratic nominee after a contentious June primary, would either embrace his party’s local agenda willingly, “or be forced to go along with it.”
“The only way to stop the unaccountable [Democratic political] machine is to stop re-electing it,” Clement said. “It’s your choice. Now is your opportunity.”
Spain, who unsuccessfully sought to become the 2023 Democratic County Board nominee before finding success this spring, said Democrats can be change agents in Arlington, too. He has told all who will listen he will not serve as a rubber stamp.
“We’ve got to find ways to compromise,” Spain said. “We need individuals that are going to bring this community together, work together in unity. I’m up to the task.”
Fierro last year finished behind Susan Cunningham, Maureen Coffey and Clement in a four-way general-election race for two open Board seats. He disagrees with Spain that a Democrat could enact real change in the county.
“The residents of Arlington deserve a different perspective,” Fierro said. “You need people of action. If you want change, I am your change.”
Fisette, who moderated the Advance Arlington candidate forum, served 20 years on the Board from 1998-2017. He is the second longest serving Board member in county history, behind only the 24-year tenure (1974-97) of the late Ellen Bozman, who preceded him in the seat.
Fisette said that the faces on the five-member body may rotate over time, but issues tend to remain the same.
“It’s about land use, it’s about budgets, it’s about citizen engagement,” he said.
The 2024 Board campaign is the first general-election race in Arlington, and in Virginia, to be held under the ranked-choice-voting process. But the rules governing that process only will kick in if no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes.
Given the impact of the Arlington County Democratic Committee’s sample ballot in determining election results, especially in a high-turnout presidential year, it seems likely Spain has a chance of emerging with an absolute majority. If so, the ranked-choice machinery will not need to be cranked up.
Voting has been ongoing since mid-September. Early voting, both in-person and by mail, is approaching 50,000 of the county’s 164,000 registered voters. In the 2020 presidential race, about 131,000 county residents cast ballots either on Election Day or in advance.
Whichever candidate wins the seat, it will mark the first time in 44 years that this particular slot has turned over in a general election.
In 1980, Democrat John Milliken defeated Republican-backed independent “Sim” Pace to secure a seat that had been held for two four-year terms by Democrat John Purdy. Purdy did not seek re-election.
Milliken won despite Ronald Reagan securing the popular vote in Arlington that year. It is, to date, the last time a Republican presidential candidate has accomplished that feat.
Since then, occupancy of the Board seat has been determined by a series of special elections and has been maintained by Democrats:
- In May 1990, Democrat James Hunter III won a special election over Republican Monte Davis, after Milliken was appointed Virginia Secretary of Transportation by then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.
- In November 1997, Barbara Favola won the seat in a special election run concurrently with the November general election, after Hunter resigned due to illness. (He died in early 1998.)
- In March 2012, Garvey won the seat after Favola resigned following her election to the Virginia Senate. Garvey defeated Republican Mark Kelly and Clement in the special election.
Also on the Nov. 5 ballot are four candidates vying for two School Board seats, left open when incumbents Cristina Diaz-Torres and David Priddy opted not to seek second four-year terms.
Zuraya Tapia-Hadley and Kathleen Clark won the Democratic endorsement in a May caucus, and are joined on the School Board ballot by Paul Weiss and James “Vell” Rives IV. It is being run under the traditional winner-take all format, with the top two finishers elected.
Both County Board and School Board seats are all at-large.
Arlington voters also will cast ballots in the 8th District congressional race, where incumbent Democrat Don Beyer is facing three opponents, and in the U.S. Senate race, where Democratic incumbent Tim Kaine is being challenged by Republican Hung Cao. County voters also will decide the fate of five county bond referendums and have their say on a state constitutional amendment.
