RICHMOND, Va. -- Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney officially announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Virginia governor in 2025 on Monday.
Stoney, 42, made his formal announcement in a video that highlighted his modest upbringing and the struggles he overcame to become the first in his family to graduate from high school and college.
With the official announcement, Stoney joins fellow Democrat Rep. Abigail Spanberger in vying for the Democratic nod.
Stoney has another year left in his second term as Mayor of Richmond.
Despite some high-profile City Hall setbacks, including the failures of the Navy Hill development and two separate referendums that sought to bring a casino to the city, Stoney said Richmond has seen growth under his watch. He added personal and household income were up significantly, and poverty in Richmond has dropped 22 percent.
"If you look at the City of Richmond today compared to where it was a decade ago, you will see that the tax base in this city has expanded," Stoney said in an interview with CBS 6 following his announcement. "It's nearly doubled since the last 10 years. I'm very, very proud of that. And that means that we've been very diligent about bringing new employers in. You think about Costar's bringing its 2,000 jobs to downtown."
He went on to address some of his failures.
"Whether it was Navy Hill or the casino, and I have no regrets. Let me tell you why. Because I'm always going to be a champion for economic opportunities, always going to be a champion for job opportunities, always going to be a champion for educational opportunities," he said.
The Republican Party of Virginia issued a statement shortly after Stoney's announcement, saying:
"Radical Democrat Levar Stoney has spent the last six years failing Richmond as its mayor and putting special interests and left-wing ideology ahead of his constituents. Now he expects Virginia voters to reward his failures by electing him governor.
Mayor Stoney pretends to care about helping working families, but just this year raised utility rates for Richmond residents because his office wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on useless liberal pet projects.
Mayor Stoney also pretends to care about public safety but was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the radical “Defund the Police” movement. Unsurprisingly, the crime rate in Richmond is nearly twice that of Virginia overall.
It’s clear that a Stoney governorship would be a disaster for Virginia, and the exact opposite of the principled, common-sense leadership we have seen over the past three years under Governor Youngkin."
No Republicans have announced campaigns yet, though Attorney General Jason Miyares and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears are seen as likely contenders.
Under state law, GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin cannot seek a second consecutive term.
In his video announcement and an interview Monday morning, Stoney criticized Youngkin's leadership as out of step with voters' values.
“I think many Virginians are sick of a governor who was out there focused on banning abortion and banning books and making it harder for people to vote instead of actually focused on how do they climb the economic ladder into the middle class," he said.
Youngkin's office did not immediately respond to the AP's request for comment.
Stoney, who has two decades of experience in Virginia politics, served as the first Black Secretary of the Commonwealth — a cabinet position — under former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, with whom Stoney is close.
In that role, Stoney oversaw the process of restoring the voting and other civil rights of felons who had completed their sentences, an effort that McAuliffe accelerated and called the most important legacy of his term.
Stoney went on to win a competitive race in 2016 to become the youngest person to serve as mayor of the state's capital city. He was re-elected in 2020.
In his gubernatorial campaign launch, he also touted his efforts to improve Richmond residents’ lives by tackling what he called “generational problems” — improving the city’s finances, fixing its roads, building new schools, and reducing the poverty rate.
He also emphasized his role in directing the removal of Richmond's enormous collection of Confederate monuments amid the racial justice protests that followed George Floyd’s killing in 2020.
Stoney, who is Black and if elected would be the second African American person to serve as governor, said at the time that the statues' removal would send a message that the onetime capital of the Confederacy was no longer a place with symbols of oppression and white supremacy.
“Those statues stood high for over 100 years for a reason, and it was to intimidate and to show Black and brown people in this city who was in charge,” he said in the summer of 2020.
Stoney has been involved in Virginia politics since his college days at James Madison University.
He worked as a fellow in the office of then-Gov. Mark Warner, then joined John Kerry's campaign for president. He's since worked on several other statewide campaigns and at the Democratic Party of Virginia, serving as political director and then executive director.
While Stoney said he sees his current base of support in the central Virginia African-American community, he thinks his work, executive experience, and life story will help him connect with voters around Virginia, arguing he's the “only candidate that can campaign everywhere.”
“I truly believe that the voters, the Democratic voters, want someone who has run something, and I’m going to lay out that record at vision over the course of the next 18 months" ahead of the primary, he said.
Connor Joseph, a spokesperson for Spanberger, said in a written statement that “Virginians know and trust Abigail’s record of public service, her commitment to bringing people together, and her track record of getting things done against tremendous odds — while winning tough races.”
The Democratic primary for governor will take place in June 2025.
Stoney lives in Richmond with his wife, Brandy. The two are expecting their first child in March.
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