New Candidate Andrea Miller from Virginia District 04

Andrea will be the first African-American female elected to Federal office in Virginia's history and she is running in a district with a large African-American population. Andrea is fighting a vigorous campaign against the Republican incumbent. She supports DAPAC's progressive values such as universal health care, a woman's right to choose, and ending the Iraq war and the Patriot Act. Andrea also supports strong environmental protections and is opposed to drilling in ANWR, off the east coast and supports limiting emissions. She believes the funds saved from ending the Iraq War would go far in funding health care and education.

Andrea will receive a tremendous increase in Democratic turnout due to several factors. First, the Obama Campaign is expanding their phenomenal effort to register new voters; their goal is 150,000 new voters between the June primary and the general election. As an example, The Virginia State Board of Elections reported that over 36,500 new voters registered in July. Also young voters are now registering over 50% higher than in the 2004 presidential election. The Obama Campaign will continue this effort with a push to get their identified voters to the polls on election day. Second, Andrea will receive a significant increase in Democratic turnout due to the fact that there is a large African American population in the district who will be highly motivated to vote for both her and Obama. She is working hard to increase the African American turnout in her district with early projections indicating that this turnout will be double 2004's turnout.

Andrea grew up in Chicago and attended Northwestern University where she majored in early childhood education. She has taught at the elementary school and college level and understands the needs educators face every day. Andrea also worked for the United Farmworkers as a community activist and organizer, as the Regional Coordinator for MoveOn.org and as the Virginia Coordinator for the Kucinich presidential campaign. She has lengthy business experience in the private sector and currently works as a consultant to government agencies on computer and homeland security.

The current incumbent for the district, Randy Forbes, has been a staunch leader of the Republican religious-right and has led efforts to foster school prayer through legislation. He founded and chairs the Congressional Prayer Caucus and opposes laws that ban prayers that are led by school officials. In addition, he is a member of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.

Forbes also received campaign funding from Tom DeLay's ARMPAC and other questionable funding sources. ARMPAC received a fine of $115,000 from the Federal Election Committee and was forced to go out of business.

This is a very tough district. However, Virginia has been badly hit by the Republican's economic policies and the state is currently facing a deepening recession. Polls indicate that Virginia voters will be punishing Republicans on election day for their devastating economic policies and their negative effects on middle-class families.

Andrea is the first serious Democrat running against Forbes in this district and she desperately needs your support to run an aggressive campaign to have these voters identify her as their representative who will lead them out of this economic quagmire. DAPAC has just jumped into the race and we are going to aggressively find funds for Andrea to run a successful race for this seat. We will be doing a fundraising training with her and a grassroots get out the vote organizing effort.

As progressives, we have the opportunity to make an historic impact on this election and allow a progressive Democratic legislature the power to change our country's direction in the next year. Please consider supporting our efforts by making a contribution to DAPAC at www.dapac.org and Andrea's campaign at http://andreamiller.us. Thank you for your continued help.