“I’m ready to fight for you in Congress for as long as you’ll have me,” State Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan declared Tuesday night.

Richmond’s senior state senator jubilantly made the comment as she celebrated with family, friends and supporters at a Downtown hotel her history-making special election victory that will send her to Washington to represent the 4th Congressional District.

The win ensures the 18-year state legislator will be the first Black woman to represent Virginia in the House of Representatives when she is sworn into her new office in the next two weeks. She will join 29 other Black female representatives from other states already serving in the 118th Congress, according to Pew Research.

As expected, the 50-year-old Petersburg native steamrolled Republican Leon Benjamin Sr., a Navy veteran and Richmond minister, in the race to succeed the late Congressman A. Donald McEachin, who died Nov. 28, after winning his fourth term.

Sen. McClellan won by a 3-1 margin, receiving almost 75 percent of the nearly 109,000 ballots that were cast in the district, which is comprised of 15 localities, including Richmond, Colonial Heights, Emporia, Hopewell and Petersburg and 10 counties, including parts of Chesterfield and Henrico.

In an election that drew about 20 percent of the district’s voters, election analysts such as Chaz Nuttycomb were impressed that Sen. McClellan’s strong showing included wins in Dinwiddie and Southampton counties, which usually go for the GOP candidate.

Mr. Benjamin narrowly won Colonial Heights and Prince George County to avoid a shutout.

Sen. McClellan said Tuesday that she would serve in the General Assembly through the adjournment, expected this Saturday, Feb. 25. She said her date to officially become a congresswoman has not been set, but should be accomplished by March 7.

Tuesday was a red letter day for the senator. She received a congratulatory call from President Biden and also learned the House passed two bills she had spearheaded to control the cost of electricity, including one that restores the State Corporation Commission’s authority to regulate power company rates and a second that requires standards to ensure home weatherization programs actually save customers money.

The daughter of a late Virginia State University professor, she arrived at her victory party at the Richmond Marriott around 8 p.m. with her husband, David J. Mills, and their two children, Jackson and Samantha.

Dressed in a royal blue outfit topped by the signature pearls of her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, Sen. McClellan drew cheers and applause from more than 300 people in the ballroom as she sent verbal bouquets to everyone involved. She paid homage to her forbears John Mercer Langston, Virginia’s first Black congressman, who represented the district in 1890, Shirley Chisholm of New York, the first Black female congresswoman, and Congressman McEachin.

“We’ve done a lot of good here in the state house,” Sen. Mc- Clellan said, “passing the Voting Rights Act of Virginia, passing the Virginia Clean Economy Act, passing the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights — all of that work that needs to be done in Washington.

“Just as I worked to carry those across the finish line,” she continued, “I will work to do the same in Congress.”

She told supporters she developed her passion for public service “sitting at my parents’ feet, listening to them tell stories of growing up during the Depression and in the segregated South.

She learned from them “that at its best, government is a force for solving problems and helping people, and at its worse, it’s a force of oppression.”

A University of Richmond graduate who earned her law degree at the University of Virginia, Sen. McClellan said she grew up “wanting to make this country, this commonwealth, this city a better place.”

And that can happen, she said, “when we come together and we care more about doing the work and solving problems than the sound bites, we can help people. I am ready to get to work.” Sen. McClellan, who has had 350 pieces of substantial legislation passed during her time in the General Assembly, said she is not concerned about being in the minority in a Republican-controlled House.

“I have been in the minority party for 14 years here,” she said, and learned that to get things done “you really need to listen and understand why people believe what they believe, where they are coming from.

“And when you do that, sometimes you’ll find common ground. If you can’t find common ground, then persist until you succeed. That’s what I intend to do.”