A former television anchor who was the boyfriend of the Virginia journalist who was fatally shot on air two years ago has won a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. The man, Chris Hurst, had run for office to honor his former girlfriend.
Hurst, who ran as a Democrat, had announced in a February op-ed for the Daily Beast that he was running to champion causes he and his late girlfriend, Alison Parker, valued. “Going into the newsroom each day began to numb me to the humanity on which I was supposed to be reporting,” he wrote. “Even as I connected with people in a new, profound way on TV, I was becoming a shell. The man Alison loved began to fray at the edges. That man is being made whole now with my dedication to the service of the people who supported me during my sorrow.”
Hurst and Parker worked for a Roanoke, Virginia, television station, where they had started dating. They had moved in together, and Hurst said the two had wanted to get married. On Aug. 26, 2015, as Parker was conducting a live interview outside a shopping center in southwest Virginia, a disgruntled former colleague at the station opened fire on Parker and cameraman Adam Ward, who was also killed.
Hurst told reporters after he announced his bid for office that he could not stay at the station, as it was “too emotionally painful.”
Hurst was elected to represent the 12th District of Virginia’s House of Delegates, defeating the three-term Republican incumbent and overcoming what the Roanoke Times called “long odds” to win “one of the state’s most contentious and expensive House races.” Hurst’s campaign supported stricter gun safety, according to USA Today, but it centered more around school funding and the expansion of Medicaid. On his website, he stresses education, health care, gun violence, and the environment.
