State lawmaker and lawyer Jennifer McClellan will be the first Black woman to represent Virginia in Congress after easily winning a special election Tuesday in the Richmond-area 4th District.
A Democratic state senator, McClellan was leading Republican Leon Benjamin Sr., pastor of New Life Harvest Church, 67 percent to 33 percent when The Associated Press called the race at 7:22 p.m.
McClellan, 50, will be in the minority party in the House, but the self-described “pragmatic progressive” said she learned to find common ground with lawmakers across the aisle after beginning her first term in a Republican-controlled state House of Delegates at age 33.
