VIRGINIA BEACH — It looks like city voters will have no shortage of options for mayor on this year’s ballot.
Cheryl Turpin, a Virginia Beach teacher who served in the House of Delegates, has formed a campaign organization to run for mayor of Virginia Beach.
Turpin is the fourth challenger who wants to unseat Mayor Bobby Dyer. Filing deadlines for local candidates are still a month away.
Turpin filed a statement of organization on Tuesday, May 7, according to a copy provided by the city elections department in response to a request from The Independent News.
Turpin on Wednesday, May 8, declined to comment, saying via text message she would be unavailable until after the upcoming print edition went to press late Thursday, May 9.
However, Turpin announced the campaign on Thursday, May 9.
She joins the incumbent Dyer and challengers City Councilmembers Chris Taylor and Sabrina Wooten and former City Councilmember John Moss in the race.
Turpin is a Democrat who served a term in the House of Delegates in the former District 85 seat from 2018 to 2020 after defeating then-Del. Rocky Holcomb in a 2017 election.
Holcomb, who later served on the City Council and is now Virginia Beach’s sheriff, had defeated Turpin in a special election for the 85th District seat earlier in 2017.
Turpin ran for the former District 7 Virginia Senate seat after former Sen. Frank Wagner announced his retirement in 2019. Turpin lost a close race to Jen Kiggans, a Republican who is now a member of Congress representing Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District.
This is not the first time Turpin turned her eyes toward a local office in Virginia Beach. In 2020, she filed paperwork to challenge City Councilmember Michael Berlucchi in the former Rose Hall District under the city’s old local voting system. Turpin withdrew from that race to care for a loved one.
Moss on Thursday, May 9, said he had expected one or two more people might join the race to be mayor of Virginia Beach.
“I think competition is good for the public,” he said, adding that a disadvantage of the election system is that there are no runoffs when there are many candidates.
“At the end of the day,” Taylor said during an interview on Tuesday, May 7, “the more the merrier.”
Wooten on Tuesday, May 7, said she had no comment about Turpin’s candidacy.
“I’m going to run my race,” Wooten said.
And Dyer, the incumbent, said he would simply keep running on his record.
“We encourage people to run for office,” Dyer said on Thursday, May 9. “It’s a process that I respect as part of our nation.”
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