In the News

Katie Gooch didn’t wait for the outcome of the Democratic primary to succeed Congresswoman-elect Jennifer McClellan in her old Senate district.

Gooch, who will turn 40 in less than two weeks, already had filed her candidacy as a Democrat in the new 14th Senate District, created under a political redistricting map that transforms McClellan’s old 9th Senate District into one that encompasses most of Richmond, as well as a slice of Henrico County.

She’s not daunted about potentially running against Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, who cruised to victory in the firehouse primary on Feb. 26 for the Democratic nomination to face Republican Steve Imholt in a special election for the 9th District seat. The seat came open after McClellan defeated Republican Leon Benjamin in a special election on Feb. 21 to succeed the late Rep. Donald McEachin, D-4th, who died on Nov. 28.

“I’m not running against Lamont Bagby or anyone else,” Gooch said in an interview this week. “I’m running to represent the communities of District 14, communities I’ve been engaged in for a decade.”

By engagement, Gooch is talking about the efforts of a pastor or a community organizer because she’s both as director of the Pace Center for Campus and Community Ministry, a church-supported initiative serving students at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, although it’s not part of the university.

She is an ordained United Methodist minister who previously served as associate and executive pastor at Reveille United Methodist Church in the city’s West End for four years. As director of the Pace Center for almost seven years, she’s a campus minister in an extension ministry of the United Methodist and Presbyterian churches.

That means helping VCU students learn how to help themselves and their communities and teaching them how to lead and organize, skills that could ready them for jobs and careers. It is ecumenical in the broadest sense, serving young people of all faiths and cultures.

“We’ve got more Muslims than we do Methodists who come through our door,” she said.

Gooch also is engaged personally in communities across Richmond. She lives with her husband and three children in Barton Heights in the city’s North Side. She serves on boards for the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, Virginia Public Media and the United Methodist Church Legislative Network. She chairs the board at Grace Covenant Child Development Center.

Previously, she served on an advisory board for Friends of the VCU Library, as secretary of the board at Shalom Farms and as a partner of the Swansboro Elementary School Community Partners.

Gooch is focusing her campaign on affordable housing, education, child care and transportation — all issues she considers vital to Richmond’s growth.

“Everyone doesn’t need just a voice at the table,” she said. “They need a seat at the table when they address these important issues.”

A native of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Gooch played Division I field hockey at Duke University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in public policy and political science and a master’s degree in divinity.

She acknowledges that she may be “a nontraditional candidate” in a race that could feature Bagby and two other well-known Richmond political figures, Del. Dawn Adams, D-Richmond, and Alexsis Rodgers, a former mayoral candidate who is director of the 4th Congressional District Democratic Committee. Bagby defeated both of them in the firehouse primary for the 9th District party nomination, but they have not said whether they will run again in the new district.

“I may not know all the political folks, but I know all the community folks,” Gooch said.