VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Former Virginia Beach Fire Chief David Hutcheson has won the special election for the city’s District 1 council seat.
Hutcheson, who was up by 359 votes over John Napier with all precincts reporting Tuesday night, says Napier called to concede.
“It feels damn good … it was a lot of work, a lot of work went into this. Our team knocked on over 5,000 doors, we spoke to well over a thousand constituents,” said a giddy Hutcheson Tuesday night.
Hutcheson, who ran as an independent, had some similar top priorities to his Republican opponents, like supporting public safety and improving infrastructure, but was the only candidate in the race to express interest in potentially moving forward with collective bargaining for city workers, a major topic moving forward this year.
He finished with 1,985 (47.30%) of the votes before provisional votes are counted, winning all but one precinct. Napier finished with 1,626 votes (38.74%) and Teresa Gladney got 574 (13.68%).
The special election was called after former District 1 Councilmember Rocky Holcomb stepped down to take over for former Sheriff Ken Stolle.
This article is breaking and will be updated.