NEW: Jennifer McClellan makes history as the first Black woman elected to represent Virginia in Congress, NBC News projects.
“I feel a responsibility to ensure I’m not the last,” she said.
McClellan served 11 years in the House of Delegates and has been a member of the state Senate since 2017. She ran for governor in 2021, losing in a five-person primary to Terry McAuliffe, who ultimately lost to Republican Glenn Youngkin.protect voting rights and domestic workers — issues that resonated with her family’s experiences and that she said helped shape her policy views.
She said her commitment to voting rights stems in part from the challenges family members faced in their efforts to vote. Voting officials tried to stop her great-grandfather from voting in Alabama because of his efforts as a Black community leader and teacher, she said. She also said her grandfather was forced to take a literacy test before he could vote.
“I brought those experiences and those stories with me into the public policy arena,” McClellan said, adding that her family’s struggle enabled her to “be a voice that for a long time was missing in the halls of the General Assembly.”
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