And then there were six. And that’s where it might stay, as Arlington Democrats move toward selecting two nominees for County Board.
Susan Cunningham used the March 1 Arlington County Democratic Committee meeting to announce her candidacy in the race to succeed incumbents Katie Cristol and Christian Dorsey, who are not seeking third terms.
In her remarks, Cunningham took aim at the current (all-Democratic) board’s relationship with the public.
“Arlington needs common-sense leadership,” she said. “Above all, we’ve got to get the basics right. We need elected officials we can trust.”
Cunningham particularly went after elected leaders on the Missing Middle housing proposal.
“The County Board’s process has been a mess,” she said. “We are more confused and divided [as a community] as I’ve ever seen.”
It is her position on Missing Middle that has encouraged retired Arlington principal and longtime civic activist Marguarite Gooden to back Cunningham.
“We need to slow down and get it right,” said Gooden, who feared about the policy’s impact on Arlington’s historically African-American communities.
Cunningham “will work to get it right,” Gooden said.
Given that County Board members are slated to enact the Missing Middle policy in coming weeks, what impact a Cunningham victory would have on the policy discussion remains to be seen. Last year’s anti-Missing Middle County Board candidate, perennial independent Audrey Clement, won a few North Arlington single-family precincts against Democrat Matt de Ferranti, but managed less than 30 percent of the countywide vote as de Ferranti cruised to victory.
Cunningham has long been a civic activist, and for a time served as interim CEO of AHC Inc., an Arlington-based affordable-housing provider. The Democratic rank-and-file, however, may remember her best for a 2020 bid for County Board as an independent, after a special election was necessitated by the death of incumbent Erik Gutshall.
Cunningham’s explanation of that bid? She was upset because the Democratic nominating process was limited to just several hundred party leaders, owing both to the short time frame for the election and pandemic conditions, she said at the March 1 event.
But some Democratic leaders felt she was trying to copy the playbook of John Vihstadt, who in 2014 won a County Board seat by positioning himself as a common-sense, independent-minded alternative to an out-of-touch Democratic oligarchy on the County Board.
Vihstadt was ousted by de Ferranti in 2018 for a variety of reasons, and Cunningham’s 2020 bid seemed to sputter right out of the gate. She got into the weeds on issues at public forums and never managed to hack her way out.
Cunningham won just 33 percent of the vote against 63 for Democrat Takis Karantonis and 5 percent for Republican Robert Cambridge.
In 2023, Cunningham joins J.D. Spain Sr., Jonathan Dromgoole, Maureen Coffey, Tony Weaver and Natalie Roy, who previously announced bids for the two County Board seats. While the filing deadline is April 6, Cunningham’s entry could be the last for Democrats.
Most years, only a single County Board seat is on the ballot. In the once-every-four-years period when there are two seats, all candidates run on one ballot, with the top two finishers either being nominated (in a primary) or elected (in the general election).
The June 20 primary for County Board will be conducted under ranked-choice voting – a first for Virginia in a state-run primary. The change in format means candidates will need to not only try to be the first or second choice of voters in their quest for the two open seats, but also attempt to convince those voting for others to rank them third on their ballots.
Given the composition of the Arlington electorate, the general election is usually a formality; it is winning the Democratic nomination that counts.
