Corey Fauconier is likely not a name you've heard before. And that's because he's a self proclaimed "everyday joe" -- who just also happens to be running for Virginia's State Senate.
Fauconier is the libertarian candidate for the 9th Senate District in Tuesday's special election. That district includes much of Richmond City, and parts of Henrico, Hanover, and Charles City counties.
Fauconier — though — has a message he thinks all Virginians should hear: that in 2015, more than half of state lawmakers ran for their seats unopposed.
He sat down with Richmond reporter Mallory Noe-Payne.
The 9th District Senate Seat became open when then-senator Donald McEachin ran for and won a Virginia congressional race. Now, it's one of two state senate seats that need to be filled before the start of this year's General Assembly.
But before Fauconier jumped on the ballot, the only person running for the seat was Democratic Delegate Jennifer McClellan. Fauconier says he wanted to make sure people have a choice.
Interview Highlights:
Fauconier: When I made a decision to run I wanted to give the people of the 9th district a choice, not just the next Democrat that's in line that has all the money, that can take a month off of work. It needs to be a real person, I'm a real person. If I don't go to work today I'm not going to be able to pay my bills just like a whole bunch of other Virginians.
Noe-Payne: What have you learned through the process that makes it clear it's not approachable for an everyday person, what's difficult about it?
Fauconier: The things that we do running for office have to be paid for. You have to design a website, you have to do fliers, you have to do a phone bank. So you can't do it without money, you need some type of financial backing... But it doesn't need to be a lot, if you have 10,000 Facebook followers and everyone gives a dollar, that's $10,000. To somebody like me that's mountains of money that you can really do good with.
Fauconier is running against Democrat Jennifer McClellan. There is no Republican on the ticket. Learn more about Tuesday's election and if you're eligible to vote for either of the two open seats here.
