Buta Biberaj, a Democrat who became the top prosecutor in Loudoun County in 2020 after pledging to reduce incarceration, lost her bid for a second term to Bob Anderson, a Republican who vowed to prosecute more crimes and previously held the office from 1996 to 2003.
After a week of counting votes in one of the closest races in Virginia this year, Loudoun election officials announced the final tally Tuesday: Anderson received 68,068 votes, exactly 300 more than the 67,768 votes Biberaj received. Biberaj called Anderson to concede early Wednesday and held a news conference later in the day, stating that she was proud to have been Loudoun County’s first female commonwealth’s attorney and that violent crime had fallen on her watch along with the average daily jail population.
“The work of building a fair and equitable justice system is ongoing, and I encourage every person to stay engaged,” Biberaj said in her concession statement.
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Republicans celebrated the razor-thin victory margin as a bright spot in an election season largely dominated by Democrats across Northern Virginia. Anderson, who did not face a primary opponent, had raised just under $77,000 and spent $70,000 for the general election as of his last available campaign finance report that was filed Oct. 30. Biberaj had raised and spent $1.1 million on the primary and general elections as of her Oct. 30 report.
National criminal justice reform advocates had promoted Biberaj as a success story who has overseen drops in both violent crime and the jail population during her term, while conservatives accused her of botching high-profile cases and imperiling public safety, especially after she sent a memo to Loudoun County judges in January announcing her office would stop prosecuting “low-level, nonviolent offenses” such as drug possession and petty theft to focus resources on violent crimes.
“We were able to get a message out: The message was this is wrong, and it cannot continue,” Anderson said in an interview. “It’s been catastrophic in some cases. I think that resonated with some people, even if they were inclined to vote Democratic.”
Anderson, 75, said he would prosecute more crimes, seek to hire more investigators and run an apolitical office. He ruled out prosecuting women for abortions in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling last year to overturn Roe v. Wade, calling it a “legislative issue.” He said, “I am not going to get between a woman and her doctor. We prosecute criminal offenses. That’s what we do. There are no criminal statutes on the book that address the issue of abortion.”
Under Virginia law, Biberaj had 10 days after the final vote tally to request a recount. Because Anderson had a margin of victory that was less than 0.5 percent of the votes cast, Loudoun County would have footed the bill. But Biberaj said she decided against a recount “to conserve taxpayer funds and expand the transition period.”
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Some fellow Democrats, including the chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, had criticized Biberaj for her management style and dealings with other agencies. And Biberaj sometimes courted controversy, personally pursuing a disorderly conduct charge against the father of a girl who was raped in a high school bathroom after the father had angrily lashed out at a school board meeting, and then sparring with him on social media after a judge disqualified her from the case because of concerns she might be biased. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) pardoned the father in September.
Biberaj in an interview said she stood by her decision to press the case, noting that the father was arrested only after tussling with a sheriff’s deputy. “I will always protect law enforcement,” she said. Anderson said he would not have sought charges against the rape victim’s father. “Anybody that goes to a meeting like that, with their daughter abused, is going to be emotional about it,” he said, adding that he would also not comment on cases on social media.
Statistics from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office show that violent crime rates were flat from 2020 through 2022, while some property crimes were on the rise. However, the sheriff’s office said Loudoun County was named the safest in Northern Virginia by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments in 2021.
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Biberaj was part of a trio of Democratic prosecutors in Northern Virginia who swept into office in 2020 pledging to curb the use of cash bail, reduce incarceration rates and address more offenses through the mental health system rather than the courts.
She was elected in 2019 with 51 percent of the vote and won a primary race this year against a challenger who had barely mounted a campaign. The other two Democratic commonwealth’s attorneys, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti in Arlington County and Falls Church and Steve Descano in Fairfax County, did not face opponents in the general election and secured reelection last week.
Anderson, who lives in Purcellville, ran as a Republican for his two previous terms, and then ran unsuccessfully as an independent for a third term. He was defeated by James Plowman, a Republican who is now a Loudoun County Circuit Court judge and has also sparred with Biberaj.
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