Stacey Kincaid Wins Democratic Nomination for Fairfax County Sheriff

About 1,000 people packed into the auditorium at W.T. Woodson High School Tuesday night, and 956 of them cast ballots.

The space was brimming with Democratic enthusiasm, and both Sites and Kincaid received equally rapturous applause from the crowd when they delivered speeches before the voting.

But Kincaid apparently brought out more supporters, with 605 votes to Sites’ 351.

“I am humbled, truly,” Kincaid said after the results were revealed around 9:20 p.m., almost 90 minutes after ballots were cast. “This has truly been an amazing leap of faith.”

Kincaid will join a Democratic ticket with Terry McAuliffe and state Sens. Ralph Northam (D-Norfolk) and Mark Herring (D-Loudoun), candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, respectively.

“I look forward to moving forward … and working together and kicking butt in November with Terry, Mark and Ralph,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

Sites, who is serving as interim sheriff after Stan Barry's retirement, took his defeat gracefully and said Kincaid’s victory was good for the Democratic Party as a whole.

“What’s most important in all this is that success continues on into November,” Sites said.

If everyone turns out for Democratic candidates the way they turned out for the caucus, “without a doubt, the governor’s mansion will be ours,” he said.

Kincaid said she plans to focus on the sheriffs office’s main jobs: running the Fairfax County detention center, protecting the county’s courtrooms and serving civil process.

But she says she wants to do more as well, including changing the public’s perception that the sheriff’s office is “disengaged and unapproachable” by stepping up the office’s involvement in the community.

Kincaid also wants to reform the promotion system in the office, to make it more objective and less confusing. Additionally, she said she wants to foster diversity within the office.

She supports universal background checks for purchasing firearms, as well as bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines. 

Finally, she wants to advocate for more money from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, as she believes the office’s budget is too small to effectively do its job.