After climbing through Alexandria’s political spheres, it’s almost as if R. Kirk McPike is starting over.
The new 5th House District delegate to Virginia’s General Assembly resigned his seat on the Alexandria City Council just before winning a special election in February to fill the seat vacated by now-state Sen. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-39). In order to comply with state law, the Democrat also had to quit his full-time job as chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA).
The Alexandria City School Board on Thursday (July 9) unanimously elected new leadership for the next year.
Without opposition, School Board Member Christopher Harris was elected as chair, and Alexander Crider Scioscia was elected vice chair. Both are graduates of Alexandria City High School (when it was T.C. Williams High School), and the one-year appointments went into effect in the beginning of Thursday night’s meeting.
After failing to secure 50% of votes from members, the top two candidates running for president of the Alexandria teachers union are headed to a runoff.
The election was overseen by the Virginia Education Association after it invalidated the results of the Education Association of Alexandria’s officer elections in May. Votes for union officers and building representatives were collected online on June 29 and 30. EAA presidential candidate David Paladin-Fernandez got 190 votes (47%), followed by 115 votes (29%) for Christina Bohringer and 96 votes for Madeline Wingate Alfonso (24%).
A former Alexandria City Council member used a candidate forum to rip into Rep. Don Beyer (D-8th) as the Democratic congressional primary draws closer and heats up.
At the Arlington County Democratic Committee’s candidate forum on July 1, Mo Seifeldein went after Beyer on campaign finances and banking reform. Seifeldein also said the incumbent “hasn’t pushed back” on the Trump administration or Republicans in Congress.
Candidates for the 8th Congressional District will gather in Alexandria for a candidate forum next week.
Shiloh Baptist Church and the NAACP Alexandria Branch will host the candidate forum at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 9 in the Shiloh Baptist Church Worship Center (1401 Jamieson Avenue). Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.
With the November midterm elections just four months away, Northern Virginia Rep. Don Beyer (D-8) is considering the implications of a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives.
In his office at the Longworth House Office Building, Beyer told ALXnow in an interview that President Donald Trump deserves to be impeached a third time, but not as a messaging exercise that will result in an acquittal from a divided Senate. He also said that no matter the outcome of the November midterms that the country will still have two years left of an administration that operates under the unitary executive theory of the presidency.
Alexandria City Council voted Tuesday to create an ad hoc committee to discuss possible Alexandria City School Board election reforms such as terms and the size of the nine-member board.
City Council’s approval allows the committee to discuss term lengths, staggered term elections and overall board size and composition. The action comes after School Board Chair Michelle Rief requested the joint committee to seek city charter amendments on School Board terms. Specifically, the School Board is requesting moving members from three-year terms to four-year staggered terms, with one member from each of the three School Board districts being elected each year.
Michael Duffin, a fired State Department worker from Alexandria who is running for Congress, appeared on “The Daily Show” Tuesday to discuss federal workforce reductions by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Duffin, who lives in the West End with his wife and two children, was one of more than 1,300 federal workers fired by the State Department in July 2025. The Democrat running in the 8th Congressional District joined Maryland congressional candidates Alexis Goldstein and Tracy Starr and New York candidate Alissa Ellman in “The Daily Show” segment on fired federal workers’ campaigns.
After invalidating the officer elections for the local Alexandria teachers union, the Virginia Education Association has set a timeline for new elections that it will oversee later this month.
VEA President Carol Bauer informed Education Association of Alexandria (EAA) members of the new election timeline in an email on June 12. VEA’s decision to reject EAA’s union officer elections came after the elections were postponed from May 18 to May 21, and candidate for EAA president David Paladin-Fernandez was disqualified less than 12 hours before the elections.
Early voting is set to begin Thursday, June 18 for 2026 congressional primary elections in Alexandria, according to the city’s Office of Voter Registration and Elections.
The elections on Aug. 4 will include a Democratic primary for U.S. House of Representatives in the 8th Congressional District and a Republican primary to decide who will run against Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) for U.S. Senate. Virginia voters are not registered by party, so they can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary.
The Virginia Education Association (VEA) has invalidated last month’s officer elections held by the local Alexandria teachers union and will oversee a new election.
In an email sent this week to members of the Education Association of Alexandria (EAA), VEA said that it conducted a review of its Alexandria affiliate to see “whether the recent EAA officer election complied with the legal requirements established under the federal Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.” The news comes after an EAA’s union officer election was postponed from May 18 to May 21, and EAA presidential candidate David Paladin-Fernandez was disqualified less than 12 hours before the election.
