Democrat Lashrecse Aird easily wins election in newly drawn 13th Senate District

PETERSBURG — After two years away from Richmond, former Del. Lashrecse Aird is heading back, but this time it is on the other side of the state Capitol building.

Aird, a Democrat, rode huge margins in Petersburg and eastern Henrico County to easily dispatch of Republican challenger Eric Ditri Tuesday with 58% of the vote in the race for the new 13th Senate District. Her well-funded campaign, most of which was raised in her overwhelming Democratic primary victory over incumbent Joe Morrissey, far outdistanced what Ditri was able to raise in what many observers had said was an uphill battle from the start.

Ditri, making his first bid for political office, showed nicely in the mostly rural areas of the district. Roughly seven out of every 10 voters in his home region of Prince George County voted for him over Aird, and he also carried equally conservative Dinwiddie County with 55% of that county's vote. Additionally, he won Sussex County and Surry County by narrow margins.

However, the Democratic bastions of the new district — Petersburg and eastern Henrico County — ultimately delivered Aird back to Richmond.

She took Petersburg with 87% of the vote [a 5,455-vote margin] and Henrico by more than 2,000 votes. Aird's narrowest victory within the district was in Hopewell, where she won with 53% of the vote.

She also took sparsely populated Charles City County.

In a statement released by her campaign, Aird called the victory "a tremendous honor."

"Countless voters across the district have personally shared with me that they’re ready for solutions – solutions for better access to affordable healthcare, to ensure a quality education and good paying jobs, for mental health supports, for safer communities – not for more divisive rhetoric," Aird said. "I’ve worked hard to get this opportunity and I’ll work even harder for the families of this district.”

The new 13th District stretches from eastern Dinwiddie to eastern Henrico, picking up Petersburg, Hopewell, Charles City, Prince George, Surry and Sussex along the way. Based on the past voting records of its core voters, pundits had labeled it an easy Democratic win.

For Aird, the victory washes away the taste of defeat from 2021, where she saw her six years in the House of Delegates come to an end at the hands of Republican Kim Taylor. Taylor, however, was deemed vulnerable by Virginia Democrats and found herself in a dogfight for her 82nd House District seat with Democratic challenger Kimberly Pope Adams.

She sought [and won] revenge against Morrissey, a controversial and polarizing political figure who four years earlier had bounced Aird's mentor, Rosalyn Dance, in the Democratic primary. Morrissey's past personal and political misdeeds, coupled with his pro-life beliefs, made him the bane of existence for many progressive Democrats, particularly women in Senate Democratic leadership.

As of late Tuesday, it was not immediately clear if Aird's victory would mean Democrats would maintain control of the chamber. However, it could be seen as a blow to the political capital of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican whose highly touted "Partnership for Petersburg" initiative was designed to pull the city out of both physical and fiscal crisis. While the future of the partnership did not hinge on the outcome of the Tuesday election, the margin of Ditri's defeat in the city — he scored barely a thousand votes there — gives it more of a partisan political optic now than ever before.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Former delegate wins election to state Senate from Petersburg