B6 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, APRIL 25 , 2022
went on to attain a Pell grant and
scholarship to attend Stanford
University. She got a job in the
tech sector in Silicon Valley, facil-
itating public-private partner-
ships at the software company
Palantir, before deciding to re-
turn to Arlington in 2020.
Now, combining a tech-savvy
background and by-the-boot-
straps upbringing, she’s target-
ing young voters and the dis-
trict’s many minority communi-
ties. She makes TikTok videos.
She talks to many voters in their
own languages — and says she
speaks seven, to varying degrees,
having grown up in a multilin-
gual household. Leaving the
stage at Makeda that March eve-
ning, she gave a little farewell in
the predominant Ethiopian lan-
guage Amharic, to whoops and
cheers. “She’s obviously going
above and beyond to connect
with the audience,” said Gelila
Sebhatu, a local Democratic
grass-roots advocate and politi-
cal consultant who emceed the
event that night. “Even though
they didn’t know her, they really
liked her.”
Sebhatu, who is part of theloved ones from overseas.
“There’s a reason why he has
such strong support from new
American and Latino communi-
ties,” Lopez said. “It’s because he
was standing shoulder to shoul-
der with us on immigration re-
form, and on the Dream Act, and
on the issues that mattered to
new Americans and Latinos be-
fore anyone else, really.”
That is the sphere in which
Virasingh has sought to find an
opening.Her mother immigrated to
the United States from Ec-
uador. Her father was born
in Bangkok to Punjabi Sikh refu-
gees. They met in Arlington,
where they raised Virasingh, liv-
ing for a time only on her moth-
er’s minimum-wage job as a man-
icurist, Virasingh said. “Our lu-
cha,” Virasingh said at Makeda
that evening, using the Spanish
word she defined as “to strive, to
overcome the odds that are
stacked against you,” which she
has used as a rallying cry for her
campaign.
Virasingh has framed her per-
sonal story as an example of the
American Dream, saying shehelping Congress better under-
stand a type of energy production
that is not yet viable but that
Beyer believes “has the potential
to lift more citizens of the world
out of poverty than any idea since
fire.”
“Someday I’m hoping my
granddaughter can say, ‘Don Bey-
er started the Fusion Caucus and
saved the planet,’ ” Beyer told a
roomful of voters at another
forum he attended with Viras-
ingh this month — maybe exag-
gerating but also maybe not.
Lopez, who has endorsed Bey-
er, said that aside from his cli-
mate leadership, Beyer has been
effective in bringing resources
back to the district. He managed
to secure all 10 of his community
project funding requests — or
“earmarks” — in the federal
budget, such as body-worn cam-
eras for Alexandria police and
storm sewage improvements to
mitigate flooding. But on a more
personal note, Lopez said, also
notable was Beyer’s work on
immigration reform and his of-
fice’s assistance to immigrant
families in the district seeking
visas or trying to reunite with“nobody had ever hard of climate
change,” he said. When Al Gore’s
documentary “An Inconvenient
Truth” came out in 2006, he said,
his dealership started giving
away a bicycle or a dogwood tree,
plus two tickets to the movie,
with every purchase of a new
Volvo. Now, he’s among Con-
gress’s advocates of electrifying
the automobile industry.
“His advocacy in terms of cli-
mate change is terrific, and he
knows what he’s talking about,
which is even better,” said Rep.
Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), the
chairman of the House Ways and
Means Committee, of which Bey-
er is a member and which drafted
much of the now-in-limbo Build
Back Better Act. “He’s very effec-
tual.”
Several pieces of climate-
change legislation that Beyer led
were included in Build Back Bet-
ter, among them tax incentives
for carbon capture and for zero-
emission commercial vehicles.
He attended the U.N. climate
change summit in Glasgow, Scot-
land, last year. In February 2021,
he founded the bipartisan Fusion
Energy Caucus, which focuses onEthiopian and Eritrean Ameri-
can community, said she and
many in the local diaspora appre-
ciated Beyer’s outspokenness in
Congress on the conflict in Ethio-
pia involving the Tigray region
and his opposition to sanctions
legislation targeting certain
Ethiopian leaders. And so she
was having a hard time deciding
whom to support, finding herself
drawn as well to Virasingh’s en-
ergy and message about diversity,
she said.
Sebhatu said she has noticed
Virasingh targeting her outreach
in “untapped communities” that
typically have lower turnout, in-
cluding in predominantly Latino
neighborhoods, believing that
such overtures could be one of
her strongest assets in a decided-
ly difficult race.
“For me, her story was ex-
tremely compelling,” said Diana
Vaca McGhie, an Alexandria vot-
er whose parents came to the
United States from Ecuador. Vaca
McGhie said she had thought
about breaking into local politics
but wasn’t sure how to start.
Seeing Virasingh aim straight for
the top impressed her, leading
her to decide to hold an Empana-
das for Victoria gathering at her
home to help Virasingh’s cam-
paign. She supported Beyer’s
work in Congress but felt ready to
take a chance on Virasingh, sym-
pathizing with her call on Beyer
to pass the torch.
“Our politics is so White-cen-
tric,” she said. “That’s where we
need to start the dismantling. We
need men in power like the Don
Beyers to say, ‘You know what?
It’s my turn to pass it over.’ That is
leadership.”
Beyer said he has heard the
message. “I don’t disagree with
any of her goals,” he said of
Virasingh while saying that clos-
ing the racial wealth gap is
another priority of his in Con-
gress. But for him and many of
his supporters, the primary con-
test comes down to experience:
They believe that now is not the
time for him to step aside, when
he can leverage more powerful
relationships in Congress to
bring resources to the district
and advance Democratic priori-
ties.
“Certainly, more women in
Congress is good. More people of
color in Congress is good. I’m for
all that stuff. I can’t fulfill any of
that, because I’m an old White
male,” Beyer said. “But because
she hasn’t been there yet, I don’t
think there’s an appreciation at
this time of how difficult it is to
get things done, and how much
relationship drives achievement,
and relationship means that
there are people who trust you. ...
It’s taken me a bunch of years to
develop.”
Virasingh has argued that she
would be more ahead of the
curve than Beyer on liberal
causes such as increasing the
federal minimum wage, support-
ing an hourly minimum of $18
rather than $15, considering the
higher cost of living in the 8th
District. “She’s right,” said Beyer,
a member of the Congressional
Progressive Caucus. But the rea-
son he said he is pushing for $15
now is that politics “is still the art
of the possible.”
Robbin Warner of the grass-
roots group Network NOVA said
she planned to bring Beyer and
Virasingh onto the group’s Friday
Power Lunch show to discuss
their campaign when it ends,
believing it should be an example
even in national Democratic poli-
tics of an engaging primary chal-
lenge that should be welcomed,
not frowned upon, by the estab-
lishment. If Virasingh cannot
beat Beyer this time, Warner
said, acknowledging that the feat
would be tough for Virasingh to
pull off, at the very least Demo-
crats can “build the bench” and
elevate female candidates such as
Virasingh for the future.
“I can’t say anything bad about
Don Beyer. He’s beloved! He’s a
great guy. He’s everything we’ve
wanted,” Warner said. But com-
petition is healthy, Warner said,
especially when looking for the
next generation of Democratic
leaders.
At a candidate forum this
month at Busboys and Poets in
Arlington — as they campaigned
“with” each other but also at least
a little bit against each other, too
— Beyer signaled that he agreed.
The moderator asked the candi-
dates to say something they ad-
mired about each other.
“Where do I start?” Beyer said
to Virasingh. “I’ve told many
people, I hope I win this primary,
but I look forward to supporting
you often in the many years to
come.”and did not seem to flinch
against doubts she could take on
the 71-year-old Democratic Party
stalwart.
But as Beyer and Virasingh
shook hands at Makeda that
evening in March, the vibe was
warm. “Victoria and I are having
a great time campaigning with
each other, not against each oth-
er,” Beyer said to the crowd of
Ethiopian and Eritrean Ameri-
cans.
For Beyer, Virasingh’s spirited
challenge has offered a chance to
jump back into the campaign fray
for the first time since he was
elected in 2014, reflecting on his
four terms as he makes the case
to voters to let him continue. It’s
“a wonderful way to make sure
you haven’t lost touch. I’ve tried
to stay engaged. But you get
engaged in a different way when
there’s a June 21 deadline,” Beyer
said, noting the date of the Dem-
ocratic primary.
Over his eight-year tenure,
Beyer has built a reputation for
an intense focus on climate
change and an economic prowess
that has earned him the chair-
manship of the Joint Economic
Committee, a wonkish bipartisan
group that has worked largely
behind the scenes to help shape
some of Congress’s most influen-
tial pandemic-era legislation,
such as economic impact pay-
ments.
“Frankly, I was a little sur-
prised he had primary opposi-
tion,” said Rep. Eddie Bernice
Johnson (D-Tex.), the chairwom-
an of the House Committee on
Science, Space and Technology,
for which Beyer chairs the sub-
committee with oversight of
NASA and space projects. “She
picked one of the most active and
concerned leaders in the Con-
gress to challenge.”
Virasingh said she hears that a
lot: Why is she challenging? “It’s
certainly the million-dollar ques-
tion I get across the district,” she
said.
She and Beyer do not disagree
on much. Virasingh has applaud-
ed Beyer’s work. Their candidate
forums become substantive pol-
icy discussions on issues about
which both say they are passion-
ate: wage inequality and labor
rights, immigration reform, cor-
porate responsibility and making
the wealthy pay their fair share in
taxes. But in a district where
48 percent of residents are mi-
norities, Virasingh, a Latina and
Indian American, is zeroing in on
one key difference: her perspec-
tive as the daughter of immi-
grants who made minimum wage
as she grew up in Arlington — a
perspective she said Beyer can-
not share.
“I’m running because I know
the future ahead of us is brighter
when we bring diverse voices,
diverse experiences, a lived ex-
perience, to the halls of Con-
gress,” she said to the crowd at
Makeda.
Virasingh said in an interview
that she was closer to the “lived
realities of most Americans” than
Beyer, one of the wealthiest
members of Congress, and be-
lieves that voters are looking for
someone reflecting themselves.
“This is a race about passing the
torch,” she said.
But Beyer, who said he envi-
sioned serving 12 to 20 years in
Congress when he was elected,
does not appear quite ready for
torch-passing.
V
irginia Del. Alfonso H. Lo-
pez (D-Arlington) remem-
bers running against Beyer
in that crowded 2014 Democratic
primary to fill the 8th Congres-
sional District seat vacated by
Rep. James P. Moran (D) — at
least for a little bit. “As soon as I
got my polling back, I was the
second person to get out of the
race,” Lopez said recently. “It was
clear he was going to win in a
landslide.”
Beyer, the charismatic car
dealer with catchy radio ads, had
leveraged a career in state poli-
tics as lieutenant governor and a
stint in the Obama administra-
tion as ambassador to Switzer-
land and Liechtenstein to mount
a successful political second act.
Looking back on it, he said he
believes the campaign worked
because he had a singular mes-
sage. “I was going to be the
strongest, clearest voice I can be
to fight climate change,” Beyer
said. “That was the only message.
I’ve tried to fulfill that in every
possible way.”
Beyer’s career evolution in the
climate-change sphere is notable,
considering he started selling
cars at a time in the 1970s when
PRIMARY FROM B1
I n Va.’s 8th District, a spirited but warm Democratic race
PHOTOS BY MEAGAN FLYNN/THE WASHINGTON POST
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and his primary opponent Victoria Virasingh attend a forum in Arlington. This election marks the first time Beyer
has faced a primary challenge in the eight years since he took office; for Virasingh, it is her first time as a candidate.Virasingh, 29, said in an interview that she was closer to the “lived realities of most Americans” than Beyer, one of
the wealthiest members of Congress, and believes that voters are looking for someone reflecting themselves. For
71-year-old Beyer and many of his supporters, the primary race comes down to experience: They believe that now
is not the time to step aside, when he can leverage his relationships in Congress to advance Democratic priorities.“Because she hasn’t been there yet, I don’t think there’s an appreciation at this time ofhow difficult it is to get things done, and how much relationship drives achievement.”
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)S0137-6x1He beat leukemia.
But then things got really bad... wapo.st/medicalmysteries
Read “Medical Mysteries,” Tuesdays in Health & Science.
“I’m running because I know the future ahead of us is brighter when we bring diverse
voices, diverse experiences, a lived experience, to the halls of Congress.”
Victoria Virasingh, a Democratic candidate in Virginia’s 8th Congressional District