A quarter-century after he ran for the lower house of the legislature from Arlington, John Massoud is now angling for a seat in its upper house, representing the Shenandoah Valley.
Massoud, a taxicab-company executive, has launched a bid for the state Senate’s newly redrawn 1st District, which includes parts of Clarke, Frederick, Shenandoah and Warren counties and the city of Winchester.
The general election won’t be held until November 2023, but because General Assembly districts have been redrawn – sometimes radically – candidates already are lining up to get their names out to the public.
In campaign literature, Massoud paints himself as “a constitutional conservative who won’t bend to the pressures of special interests.”
In 1997, Massoud was the Republican nominee in the 48th House District, which included a sliver of Fairfax County but was centered on Arlington. In the general election, garnered 36 percent of the vote to 58 percent for Democrat Bob Brink and 6 percent for Reform Party candidate R.D. “Dick” Smith.
The victory was Brink’s first; he would go on to represent the district until he was tapped for a position in the McAuliffe administration in 2014. Currently, Brink chairs the State Board of Elections. The 48th District currently is represented by Democrat Rip Sullivan.
Massoud has been active in politics in the Shenandoah Valley, serving on the Strasburg Town Council and chairing the 6th Congressional District Republican Committee.
His bid for office recently was endorsed by Republican National Committee members Morton Blackwell and Patti Lyman.
“It’s refreshing to see a candidate who seeks out the grass-roots support to drive his committee,” they said in a statement.