Special Election for 41st House District
Competitive Race in Fairfax County To Be Decided March 2 Special Election for House of Delegates
The 41st House of Delegates district was vacated in January when Dave Marsden (D) won a special election for the Senate seat opened by the election of Ken Cuccinelli as Attorney General. H 41 will now be filled by another special election on March 2.
House District 41 is a geographically small but densely populated area just outside the Beltway that consists almost entirely of Burke and Lake Braddock. It is a suburban swath of south-central Fairfax County rich with white-collar professionals and federal government employees, where cul-de-sac communities are packed next to each other. Burke's landscape of subdivisions and strip malls can make it tough for candidates to connect with voters, but both Filler-Corn and Bolognese know this terrain well. It is a competitive political battleground. Obama won here with 57% in 2008, Bob McDonnell captured 55% a year later. This race is a toss-up, too close to call.
Vying to replace Marsden are Democrat Eileen Filler-Corn and Republican Kerry Bolognese, both of whom have run here before. Filler-Corn ran in 1999 and lost to then-Delegate Jim Dillard (R). Bolognese ran in 2009 and fell to Marsden by only 209 votes. Both candidates are lobbyists. Filler-Corn is director of government relations at Albers and Co., an Arlington-based firm that represents the Democratic Governors Association and other political groups. She previously served as a senior aide to Govs. Mark Warner (D) and Tim Kaine (D) for six years before leaving for the private sector in 2007. She’s married to Bob Corn, owner of the major Democratic political consulting shop Landmark Strategies, and is a graduate of Ithaca College in New York.
Eileen Filler-Corn
http://www.eileenfordelegate.com/
Eileen Filler-Corn
http://www.eileenfordelegate.com/
Bolognese is vice president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, a lobbying group for higher education. He previously worked on Capitol Hill for a decade in the 1980s and early 90s. In 2009, he challenged Marsden and ran about 6.5 points behind Gov. Bob McDonnell, losing 49.6%-48.6%. He also served as a GOTV lieutenant for Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli when he represented southwestern Fairfax County as a senator. He is a graduate of East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania.
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