The congressman from the 11th District is Gerald Connolly, a Democrat elected in 2008 to the open seat left by retiring Republican Rep. Tom Davis. Connolly was among the small group of Democratic freshmen to survive the 2010 GOP tidal wave, though just barely. Read More

The congressman from the 11th District is Gerald Connolly, a Democrat elected in 2008 to the open seat left by retiring Republican Rep. Tom Davis. Connolly was among the small group of Democratic freshmen to survive the 2010 GOP tidal wave, though just barely.

Connolly grew up in the Boston area. He considered joining the priesthood and studied for six years at a Catholic seminary. But his interest in public policy led him to Washington, D.C., after college, where in the 1970s he managed the American Freedom from Hunger Foundation and the U.S. Committee for Refugees. He got a master’s degree from Harvard and worked for a decade on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he specialized in Middle Eastern affairs and foreign aid. In 1989, he left Capitol Hill to run the Washington office of Stanford Research Institute International, and then became vice president of the San Diego-based defense contractor SAIC. In 1995, Connolly won a seat on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, whose former chairman, Davis, had been elected to the 11th District seat in 1994. In 2003, Connolly was elected board chairman, putting him in charge of a large local government at a time of rapid growth. Transportation was a major preoccupation, and his biggest project was the Metrorail extension from Tysons Corner to Dulles.

In these battles, Connolly worked with Davis, who paid close attention to local issues as well as playing a major national role as the chairman of National Republican Congressional Committee in the 2000 and 2002 election seasons. But Davis, an expert on political demographics, could see that Northern Virginia was changing, and in January 2008, he announced he would not seek re-election.

Connolly was obviously a prime candidate for the office. Also getting into the primary, however, was former U.S. Rep. Leslie Byrne, who was defeated in the 11th District in 1994 by Davis. She had the backing of the national women’s fundraising group EMILY’s List, but Connolly outpaced her in fundraising, in part because of his support from defense contractors. Both ran as solid liberals. In a low-turnout June primary—only 24,000 people voted—Connolly won by a solid 58%-33%. The Republican nominee was Keith Fimian, a businessman and newcomer to Northern Virginia politics who self-financed much of his campaign. Democrats attacked Fimian as a conservative on cultural issues, in contrast to Davis’ moderate record, and Fimian got little help from national Republicans. Connolly won by a solid 55%-43%.

In the House, Connolly joined the centrist New Democrat Coalition and established a moderate voting record. In 2009, he was among 10 freshman Democrats who opposed release of the second half of the Troubled Asset Relief Program funds for the financial services industry. Connolly got a bill into law in 2010 to encourage tele-working, one method to reduce traffic congestion in his district. And to better serve his district’s multiethnic residents, he hired aides who spoke Korean, Spanish, Urdu and Arabic. “I think the Democratic message resonates … with a lot of new Americans,” he told National Journal in 2009. “But we don’t even have to work hard at it, frankly, because the other side is absolutely driving folks into our arms because of the ‘You’re not welcome’ message up front.”

Fimian returned for a 2010 rematch with Connolly that could not have been more different from their earlier contest. Fimian did not have to rely on self-financing and raised nearly $3 million to Connolly’s $2.5 million. Fimian stuck to the national Republican message of “outrageous spending” and rising deficits and attacked Connolly as a “career politician.” The Democrat’s lead shrunk to single digits by the closing weeks of the race. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee shelled out $1 million in the final week to cast Fimian as an extremist on gun control and other social issues. The polls closed showing Connolly with a 480-vote lead, which grew as more ballots were counted. Five days after the election, Fimian conceded, having won 48.8% to his opponent’s 49.2%—a margin of less than 1,000 votes out of 227,000 cast. Republican redistricting efforts in Virginia in early 2011 reportedly were concentrating on bolstering GOP strength in other areas at the expense of making the 11th District more Republican.