(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Virginia Democrat who helped turn once-red bastion blue launches bid for key office [1] ['Daily Kos Staff'] Date: 2024-06-20 Henrico County Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor on Wednesday became the first major candidate from either party to announce a 2025 bid for attorney general of Virginia, a post that Republican Jason Miyares flipped three years ago. Taylor, though, is likely to face a tough primary campaign next year before she can focus on the eventual Republican nominee—who may or may not be Miyares. While former Del. Jay Jones' team tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he'll wait until the end of the presidential election to announce if he'll join the race, prominent Old Dominion Democrats have already backed his long-anticipated campaign. Former Govs. Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam and Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Steve Descano have all publicly called for Jones, who lost the 2021 primary to incumbent Mark Herring 57-43, to run again. Jones would be Virginia's first Black attorney general, while Taylor would be the second woman elected to this post. (The first was Mary Sue Terry, a Democrat whose 1985 victory made her the first woman elected statewide; Terry later lost the 1993 race for governor to Republican George Allen.) Miyares himself became the first Latino elected statewide when he narrowly unseated Herring in 2021, and politicos have long expected that he'll run for governor next year. Miyares, however, has yet to confirm he'll enter the race to succeed Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is prohibited from seeking a second consecutive term. The attorney general would likely need to go through a difficult primary against Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who also hasn't announced a gubernatorial bid that almost everyone nonetheless anticipates is coming. It's always possible, however, that party leaders will encourage either Miyares or Earle-Sears to seek reelection so they can avoid intra-party acrimony—especially now that Rep. Abigail Spanberger appears to be on a glide path to claim the Democratic nod. For now, though, Taylor has the contest for attorney general to herself, and the Democrat used her Wednesday kickoff to tout herself as an experienced "progressive prosecutor" who has been tested at the ballot box. Taylor was a first-time candidate in 2011 when she campaigned to succeed retiring GOP Commonwealth's Attorney Wade Kizer in Henrico County, a longtime conservative bastion in the Richmond suburbs that was still in the midst of a dramatic political transformation. The county, starting with Dwight Eisenhower's 1952 win, backed the Republican nominee in 14 consecutive presidential elections. Strong showings there each helped Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and Bob Dole carry Virginia in 1976, 1992, and 1996 respectively. Henrico County, however, became considerably more competitive during the first decade of the 21st century thanks both to national Democrats' increasing strength in the suburbs and an increasingly diverse electorate in an area that was a destination point for conservative voters in the era of white flight. Barack Obama in 2008 dramatically broke the GOP's long winning streak by carrying the county 56-43, but Republicans still controlled the county's most powerful local offices. The GOP's campaign to hold Kizer's post, however, took a chaotic turn in the summer of 2011 after the public learned of an extra-marital affair involving nominee Matthew Geary. Geary refused to drop out, and powerful local Republicans like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor responded by recruiting GOP Del. Bill Janis to run as an independent. Taylor soon launched her own campaign 10 weeks before Election Day—coincidently on the same day that an earthquake rattled the area. Taylor ultimately defeated Janis 46-38 as Geary took 16%, a victory that ended the GOP's 24-year hold on the commonwealth's attorney post. That result coincided with Tyrone Nelson's upset win for a key seat on the five-person Board of Supervisors that, while not enough to end the Republicans' longtime majority, belied claims that Taylor's election was merely "a fluke." Those skeptics got some unwelcome news the next year when Obama carried Henrico County again, and this onetime GOP stronghold quickly transformed into a reliably Democratic community in statewide races. Biden won it 64-35, and McAuliffe still carried it 59-40 even as he was narrowly losing the 2021 gubernatorial contest to Youngkin. The party finally took control of the Board of Supervisors following last year's elections, and African American officials also made up a majority of its members for the first time ever. Taylor, who easily won her fourth term in 2023, has argued that all of this, as well as her party's strength across the state, owes its origins to what happened locally in 2011. "I firmly believe that night, with Tyrone Nelson and I winning, was the beginning of the Blue Wave," she told the Times-Dispatch as she announced her bid for statewide office. 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