HISTORY

Local party committees have been around in one form or another since 1800 and there has been an Arlington County Democratic Committee ever since our county assumed that name in 1920. The early party committee however, was securely under the control of the Byrd Organization – the conservative political organization built by the U.S. Senator Harry Flood Byrd that advocated for limited, pay-as-you-go government and organized massive resistance to racial desegregation in the 1950s.

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President ​Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and World War II brought thousands of people to the nation's capital and to the nearby suburb of Arlington. They arrived from across the United States with perspectives and political outlooks that often differed–and frequently clashed–with the traditions of Virginia’s establishment. The 1950s saw the emergence of new civic organizations – like Arlingtonians for a Better County (ABC), founded in 1955 – designed to work around Hatch Act limitations and give a political voice to liberal-leaning citizens put off by the conservative policies of the Byrd-dominated Democratic Party. 

 

During the 1960s and early 1970s, many activists associated with ABC ultimately wrested control of the County Committee from the Byrd Organization. The first non-Byrd Chair to help usher in this change was Mary A.R. Marshall, elected in 1961. After her term, the Byrd Organization never regained control of the party in Arlington. Today, we honor her legacy each year through our Mary Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award.

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This tumultuous period was followed in the mid-1970s by the emergence of numerous young Democratic leaders who were elected to state and local office. Our Arlington Young Democrats, the oldest young Democrats chapter in Virginia and the progressive pioneers of the 1960s helped strengthen our organization and by 1990, Democrats held every elected office in Arlington, including all five local constitutional officer positions.​

 

We’ve witnessed a lot of change over the ensuing decades. On election night 1984, CBS News anchor Dan Rather pointed to a small blue dot in Northern Virginia and said, “The U.S. is voting overwhelmingly for Ronald Reagan but in the suburbs of the nation’s Capital, Walter Mondale is winning handily in Arlington!” Fast forward to 2008, Arlington helped deliver Virginia for President Barack Obama–the state's first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

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Through the 1990s and the first decades of the 21st century, we have consolidated our success by modernizing the party’s infrastructure, improving our outreach to younger voters along the Metro corridors, and developing new ways to engage with all of our communities. Our finely tuned get-out-the-vote operations have driven Democratic turnout and enabled us to help elect Democratic governors, U.S. senators and presidents.

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In recent years, our Beyond Arlington initiative has harnessed the Committee’s organizational strength and strong volunteer base to phone bank and canvass in competitive races across the state and around the nation. As technology and methods continue to evolve, we’re also innovating and finding new ways to reach voters, register new ones, and turn them out at the polls.  

 

As an all volunteer organization, we’re committed to carrying forward this legacy of electing effective, Democratic leaders in Arlington and elsewhere. That mission remains as relevant as ever today as our democracy and democratic institutions are challenged. Visit our volunteer page (link) to join us in this important and rewarding work.