GOP hopeful, Trump supporter, sets sights on 4th
Candidate has tough fight against established incumbent McEachin
Before he led the raucous crowd in prayer, Leon Benjamin, red USA hat in hand, said President Donald Trump’s impending arrival at the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport last week was a sign.
“A wave is about to hit Virginia, and Virginia is about to turn red again!” Benjamin said into the microphone, drawing applause and cheers from the large crowd gathered on the tarmac to hear Trump speak.
Benjamin, a pastor in Richmond, is seeking to do just that in Virginia’s 4th Congressional District, where he’s the Republican candidate in November.
His opponent, incumbent Democratic Rep. Donald McEachin, a veteran legislator and former attorney, has won the seat by large margins twice in the past four years.
The Virginian-Pilot earlier published an election guide laying out each candidate’s biographical information and their answers to the same three questions. You can read those at pilotonline.com/voterguide2020.
Benjamin, 52, is a vocal supporter of Trump. His website boasts that he was one of about 30 evangelical leaders who serve as informal advisers to the president.
McEachin, who turns 59 next weekend, thinks he’s the best candidate because he’s willing to stand up to Trump.
“The notion that you would embrace this man at this time in our history is anathema to the citizens of the 4th Congressional District,” McEachin said in an interview.
The district is a sprawling one, stretching from Richmond down to Hampton Roads, including parts of Chesapeake and Suffolk. The district lines were redrawn in 2016 after a federal court ruled state lawmakers had packed too many African American voters into the neighboring 3rd district. The redistricting flipped the 4th from a safely Republican district to a Democratic one.
Benjamin is going up against a veteran lawmaker with a sizeable
war chest. McEachin has raised about $657,000 compared to Benjamin’s $380,000, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. McEachin was first elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1995 and later served in the Senate before moving to federal politics.
McEachin leans on his record on the environment. He’s a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce as well as the House Committee on Natural Resources. He started a congressional task force around environmental justice.
He said the social justice movement playing out across America is not limited to the taking down of Confederate statues and police reform. It also includes the topic of environmental justice, or when Black and brown communities bear the brunt of poor air and water quality from certain development in neighborhoods. He says this issue should be treated as a civil rights one and that he has fought for citizens to have more of a voice fighting back.
He’s also worked on police reform in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis, co-sponsoring a Justice in Policing Act that sought to ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants. The bill passed the House but was not expected to pass the Republican-controlled Senate.
Benjamin, the former chairman of the Richmond Republican Committee, believes he’s the right candidate to address safety. He said that while the death of Floyd raised questions about whether people are safe around law enforcement, “we immediately judged 99.9% of the police officers that are working hard and protecting our community. The .1% that may be bad apples and we put them all in the same bunch.”
Benjamin, who like McEachin is Black, pointed to a Gallup poll that found 81% of Black Americans want the same or increased level of police presence in their neighborhoods.
“Some are playing on the emotions of our community as opposed to playing on actual facts as to what is needed right now,” Benjamin said.
Asked about his opponent’s efforts on police reform, Benjamin said the country should fully support police officers doing their jobs. That could mean helping them get more training on dealing with mental health calls.
“Instead of saying defund the police let’s see how we can help them to do their job,” he said.
McEachin said that he does not support defunding police departments and said the bill he cosponsored does include training for police officers.
“I fully support our police and trying to help them do the very best job they can,” McEachin said.
Benjamin, who served in the U.S. Navy, says he wants to push for children to get back into schools safely and is worried over reports he’s seen of child abuse calls going up.
“We have to take a position that we can reopen safely and get our kids back in school and protect the most vulnerable as opposed to shutting it all down,” he said.