Republican Bob Weir, a vocal and longtime critic of the Prince William Digital Gateway and other data center developments in western Prince William County, handily won Tuesday’s special election for the Gainesville District seat with more than 60% of the votes cast, according to still unofficial results from the Virginia Department of Elections.
Weir, 60, won nine of the 14 Gainesville precincts as well as the early vote cast in the race. Kerensa Sumers, his Democratic challenger, won five precincts as well as the mailed absentee ballots, garnering about 39% of the votes cast.
Weir attributed his win Tuesday night to discontent in the community over the county’s rapidly expanding data center development.
“I would say it’s not only a referendum, it’s a mandate,” Weir said in an interview Tuesday night. “It’s a mandate from the Gainesville District about what they want and what they don’t want.”
Weir will serve the remainder of the term vacated by former supervisor Pete Candland, who resigned from his seat in December 2022 due to conflict-of-interest concerns. Candland joined his neighbors in signing a contract to sell his family’s home and 5 acres on Livia Drive to Compass data centers, one of two companies seeking rezonings to develop the Digital Gateway.
Weir’s win means the local GOP will retain the Gainesville District seat, and the county board will retain its 5-3 Democratic majority. Weir's term will be up in December of this year unless he runs for re-election again in November – something he said he had not yet decided as of Tuesday.
Turnout in the special election was about 21%, more than double the 10% Prince William County Registrar Eric Olsen said he was expecting in the special election.
Turnout was highest – 28% -- in Heritage Hunt, an “active-adult, over 55” community of about 3,500 residents, many of whom have strong feelings about the Prince William Digital Gateway. The 2,139-acre data center corridor would be built directly east of their golf-course community.
Weir garnered 900 of the 1,143 votes cast at the Heritage Hunt precinct, or nearly 79%.
Some people in the Heritage Hunt community stood in their front yards holding signs reminding their neighbors to vote in Tuesday’s contest.
A Heritage Hunt resident stands on her street corner with signs, reminding her neighbors to vote.
Cher MuzykBill Wright, a Heritage Hunt resident who once served as treasurer for the Gainesville District Democratic Committee, handed out literature for Weir, a Republican, as well as Democrat Deshundra Jefferson, who launched a primary challenge against Board of Supervisors Chair Ann Wheeler, D-At Large, in January -- mostly in opposition to Wheeler’s support for the Digital Gateway and other data center developments she and other residents consider too close to homes and schools.
Wright said he supported Weir out of a concern about “reckless development and lack of prudence on the board.”
This election “turned me from blue to red at least for today,” Wright said.
Eleonore Stevens, 90, said she is a Republican who has lived at Heritage Hunt for 22 years and voted for Weir because she’s “not a fan of data centers.”
Stevens’ neighbor, Mary Foster, 80, said she’s a Republican with “a very long list of concerns” about data center development in the county. Foster said she has spoken before the county board but “feels ignored.”
“The board claims that they want more commercial tax revenue, but the county needs to diversify,” she said. “Putting all their eggs in one data center basket is not fiscally prudent.”
Weir narrowly beat Sumers even in the Sudley United Methodist Church polling place, where many of the more than 100 landowners involved in the Prince William Digital Gateway data center corridor cast votes in the contest. Weir won 51% of the 640 votes cast at the church.
The Digital Gateway involves 102 landowners along Pageland Lane, each of whom have signed contracts to sell their homes and land for between $350,000 and $950,000 an acre if the county board approves three rezonings associated with the project.
Weir said he was not surprised to win the vote at Sudley United Methodist because it's also the voting place for residents of Oak Valley, an upscale neighborhood on the edge of the massive new data center corridor. Oak Valley residents have sued the Prince William Board of County Supervisors in an effort to fight the development.
Oak Valley resident Sean Muir said he’s “a staunch Democrat” but nonetheless voted for Weir. Data centers, he said, provide “essentially no economic benefit, few jobs, and they will pave over a national treasure,” referring to the Manassas battlefield.
“After Trump, I said I’d never vote for a Republican again, but here I am,” Muir added.
Several people who voted for Sumers said they, too, are wary of the county’s growing data center development and hoped that Sumers would put the brakes on the move to industrialize Gainesville.
Sharon Lane, of Manassas, said she voted for Sumers because she supports Sumers’ “Democratic policies” and said she believes data center development is “important for tax revenue in the county.”
“But that careful placement is also important,” Lane said, adding that she “wants to keep historical sites historical and place data centers in proper places.”
Sumers supporter Christine Howlett, of Manassas, said data centers are “ugly, take up too much territory and electricity, and [that] it is difficult to cope with their noise.”
Howlett said she hopes the county board can find a way to ensure data centers are not built “so big and are more attractive and quieter.”
Cathy Kroohs, of Manassas, said she voted for Sumers because affordable housing is important to her and also because of Sumers’ union support. As for data centers, Kroohs said she “is all for somebody paying high taxes but doesn’t want data centers in residential areas or near the Manassas battlefield or in the rural crescent.”
Sumers, however, received campaign contributions from Digital Gateway landowners and other developers with controversial data center projects in western Prince William. Through her campaign manager, Sumers declined an interview with the Prince William Times Tuesday.
Outside a polling place Tuesday morning, Weir said he believes the election was a referendum “on a lot of things” – not just future data centers.
Among concerns on voters’ minds, Weir listed: “data centers, industrialization, high-density [development] in places where it doesn’t belong, or we can’t support.”
“What’s the long-range plan? Is there a plan? There are so many different aspects to it,” he added. “Where’s the tax [revenue] going to go? Is the revenue ever going to come from the data centers? Have we been oversold? Is there enough power?”
“I mean there are so many issues and so many concerns,” he added. “There is just so much going on, and there doesn’t seem to be any direction.”
Weir said he is concerned the county’s senior staff “is fleeing,” a reference to news last week that both the county’s planning director and deputy planning director had resigned.
“I’m on the record of saying that there is a management issue in this county, and we’re viewed kind of as the ‘dumpster fire’ of the commonwealth,” he added. “Somebody needs to ask the questions that haven’t been asked. I’m not shy about asking questions.”
Weir said he doesn’t think it’s too late to stop the Prince William Digital Gateway but acknowledged it’ll be a slog.
“…The answer is no, I can’t single-handedly stop it,” Weir said. “I’ve got to convince others, too.”
Reach Cher Muzyk and Jill Palermo at news@fauquier.com
(5) comments
This is is not a left vs right issue. This is a money/power vs everyone else issue. It is driven by those who stand to gain from the data centers -- financially or from the power derived from data tracking people's every transaction, location, viewpoint, contacts, relatives, preferences, beliefs, and health. Do we want a surveillance state powered by data centers? Do we want politicians who are funded by corporate interests, ideologues, and the super wealthy? Dear well-intentioned Democrats who care about important issues like affordable housing and the environment: the politicians funded by data center proponents are just using you to reach their own goals.
Well said.
Your last sentence says precisely what I have been trying to tell them for over a year.
Ms. Sumers was a nice clear example of that. Lots of principles I agree with, but data centers 100 feet from homes. And I couldn't decide if her assertion of $1.89/100 as Loudoun's tax base was an example of being stunningly uninformed, an honest and naive disbelief at the discrepancy between Loudoun's and Prince William's tax bases, or calculated misinformation. Regardless, I voted for Weir despite both having reservations and having been a Democrat much of my life.
Bob Weir’s resounding victory proves at least two things:
1) Money can’t buy you love.
An influx of campaign cash from unions, developers and financially motivated data center advocates could not prevent the sound thrashing Ms. Summers took from voters irate over the plundering of western Prince William County by the destructive agenda of BOCS Chair Ann Wheeler.
2) Opposition to the Wheeler regime is a lot more extensive than the “handful of activists” she claims.
Not only did Bob Weir take 9 of 14 precincts, he did so with impressive margins – including more than 75% in the Heritage Hunt, Evergreen and Gravely precincts.
Even those few precincts that Ms. Sumers won had paltry turnout, despite lavish Democratic canvassing and advertising efforts.
It remains to be seen whether the BOCS majority will learn anything from this decisive rejection of their policies. They have been consistently dismissive of public opposition, but Tuesday’s expression was through votes, not words.
The next expression of voter sentiment will be delivered on June 20th when several Democratic supervisors, including Chair Wheeler, face primary challenges. Let’s see how much developer cash they can rustle up for that one.
Game on.
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.