McClellan announces gubernatorial bid

Virginia State Senator Jennifer McClellan this morning made official what has been rumored for months – that she is running for governor.

McClellan, a Democrat from Richmond whose Ninth District includes a portion of Henrico County, will seek her party’s nomination to run for the position in 2021. It is expected to be a crowded field; Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy, who represents Northern Virginia in the Second District, already has announced her candidacy, and other rumored candidates include Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax, Attorney General Mark Herring, and possibly former Governor Terry McAuliffe.

In her candidacy announcement, McClellan emphasized the importance of the election for Virginia.

“We stand at a critical time in our history, a time where I worry, like so many other parents, about the Virginia we will leave our children,” she told the Citizen. “I have a very clear understanding of how we got here. We cannot answer the question of where do we go from here without a clear understanding of where we are and how we got here.”

McClellan, 47, cited her experience in the General Assembly – where she served six terms in the House of Delegates representing the 71st District (which included a portion of Henrico), before winning a special election in 2017 as the Ninth District representative in the Virginia Senate.

“I have a record as a community leader, as a party leader, and as a legislator, of putting forth progressive policies to solve problems, and I will continue to do that,” she said. “I think what Virginians want right now is new leadership dedicated to solving people’s problems and making progress.”

Governors nationwide have been tasked with managing an unprecedented health crisis that has also had devastating effects on the economies. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the devastation it has reaped onto the economy now becoming a partisan issue, McClellan said she wants to lead Virginia down a path of economic recovery that helps all Virginians.

“Rebuilding our economy shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” she said. “What we need to do is first come together to identify which parts of the economy are driving and growing and which ones are not, and work together to make sure we rebuild an economy that addresses inequity and doesn’t leave any part of the state behind.”

McClellan, an attorney who works as regulatory counsel for Verizon, declined to answer when asked whether she would have handled the COVID-19 pandemic situation differently from the way Gov. Ralph Northam has.

“I’m more focused on the future, how we continue to navigate the pandemic and recovery because that is probably going to transcend his governorship,” she said.

'We need to have an honest conversation'
Like the rest of the nation, Virginia also is grappling with social justice issues and racial inequity; the state has witnessed both topics play out nightly as community members demanding reforms and accountability have clashed with police on a number of occasions.

McClellan wants the honest conversation that is now taking place across the commonwealth and country to continue.

“I think that we have begun this process. We need to have an honest conversation about our history and how all of our systems were built from the beginning,” she said. “When laws implementing Jim Crow were repealed or struck down, the long-lasting impacts that they had did not go away. First, we need to have an honest conversation about that. Then, at every level of government and everyone involved in all of our systems needs to ask the question ‘What are we doing?’ to either address that inequity, maintain the status quo, or in some cases make it worse.”

McClellan has risen to the top of a system that was designed for white males to succeed. She said she is thankful to the generations that predated her and allowed her the opportunities to succeed but said she also recognizes that more needs to be done.

“I would say that is true for every aspect of my life,” she said. “All of our systems, education, healthcare, government, and politics were built by and for white men. Our historic struggle has been how to transition our society and all of our systems to one that is available for all. I think I have certainly benefited from the work done by my parents and their generation and the generations before.”

All levels of government and society should provide equal access to everyone, McClellan said.

If ultimately elected governor, McClellan does not want to look at individual issues one-by-one without acknowledging their correlation with other aspects of society.

“We sometimes look at issues in silos, but what we need to do is build a strong thriving economy and community,” she said. “We need to rebuild our economy in a way that doesn’t leave anybody behind and addresses those inequities and gives us the flexibility to meet changes in technology in the marketplace that were already coming, but may have been exacerbated by the pandemic that we are in now.”

A chief way to do that, she said, is through the provision of a high-quality public education for all students.

“That is critical to a thriving economy, it is critical to healthy communities, it is critical to a healthy democracy,” she said. “We have seen that our healthcare and economic safety nets have been stretched to the breaking point and in some cases broken – we need to rebuild them in a way that removes historic inequities and prepares us for the next crisis, whatever it may be.”

Next fall, Republicans will be trying to regain the governor’s seat for the first time since 2009, when Bob McDonnell won.

McClellan has announced a number of endorsements from elected officials and community leaders statewide, including from Del Rodney Willett of Henrico (73rd District) and four state Senators. McClellan is a graduate of Matoaca High School, the University of Richmond, and the University of Virginia law school.