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Forbes v. Ward

Chesapeake City Councilwoman Ella Ward has announced her intention to run against Rep. Randy Forbes in (my own)  4th Congressional District.

Her candidacy may be considered a long-shot: 

On the one hand, the district was held by moderate Democrat Norm Sisisky for 10 terms until his death.  Forbes (who was then a state senator and Chairman of the state Republican Party) managed to win a low-turnout special election against state Sen. Louise Lucas 52-48% in 2001.

On the other hand, the Republican-dominated General Assembly has racially gerrymandered the district twice since then, methodically slicing black voters out of the 4th district and into Rep. Bobby Scott’s 3rd district.  Rep. Forbes has either run unopposed or has dominated token candidates ever since.

Back on the first hand again, the district narrowly voted for Obama 50%-49% four years ago, and Obama will be back on the ballot this year in a high-turnout election.  Also, Ward is the most credible candidate Rep. Forbes has ever had to face since taking office.  She has already proven to be electable within the district.  If this shapes up as a Democratic wave election, she may get swept in with the tide.

Rep. Forbes’ lifetime League of Conservation Voters score on protecting the environment is a truly abysmal 4%.   He voted to privatize Medicare and repleace it with a voucher.  His biggest legislative accomplishment was a nonbinding resolution redundantlyaffirming that ”In God We Trust” is still the national motto.  I will be very happy to support Ward.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Forbes v. Ward”

  1. David Campbell Says:
    January 23rd, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    UPDATE: The latest round of Republican redistricting flipped the 4th district from one that voted for Obama over McCain 50%-49% to 48%-51%.

    The newly defined district would have still voted for Webb over Allen 60%-39%.

  2. Henry Ryto Says:
    January 23rd, 2012 at 5:44 pm

    Ella Ward is a nice lady with her heart in the right place. I’ve had the chance to sidebar with her at the HRPDC.

    Instead of this uphill battle, I wish she would have gone for lower hanging.

  3. David Campbell Says:
    January 24th, 2012 at 6:08 am

    Two rounds of Republican redistricting have stacked the deck against her.

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