Meet Kelsey

My name is Kelsey Linnehan, and I am the Republican nominee for Delegate in Virginia’s 79th District. I want voters in our community to have a real say in elections, which is why I am proud to run as a true alternative to the Democratic party that has consistently increased our taxes while failing to provide basic goods and services, like safe drinking water.

I am a conservative Catholic homeschooling mother of four, soon to be five, wonderful children living in Southside Richmond. But if you met me a decade ago, you would have encountered a very different woman. This is my story.

In 2016, I was a Big Law attorney living in Washington, D.C. I voted for Hillary, I was a pro-choice feminist, and I had no religious affiliation other than “Christian when convenient.” I won professional recognition as a “Rising Star” in international trade litigation year after year, and I defined myself by my career.

But by 2017, my worldview was changing. Although I was prepared to despise President Trump from the moment he took office, I couldn’t ignore the fact that he was making a real difference for my clients — U.S. businesses struggling to compete with unfair imports. Where companies once had to pay law firms like mine millions of dollars to petition the government for relief, President Trump was proactively going to bat for suffering U.S. industries without making them jump through hoops. The results were fast and measurable, and I was forced to reevaluate what I’d been conditioned to think about this unconventional president. For all their talk about championing U.S. industries, no Presidents in my lifetime — Democrat or Republican — made more of a difference for real American companies and workers than President Trump did in his first few months in office.

Around the same time, I started attending a Catholic church with the man who would later become my husband. My conversion was slow and methodical. I argued with the Church like I would argue a case in federal court, trying my best to justify my own disordered life and resisting change with all my might. In the end, God prevailed (as He always does). I was confirmed in the Catholic Church in the Easter season of 2018.

In 2019, I married the finest man I’ve ever known, and five months later we found ourselves unexpectedly pregnant with our first child. Immediately, I was overwhelmed with maternal instincts telling me to leave D.C., where the local government extracted the maximum amount of tax revenue from its citizens while tolerating crime and homeless encampments throughout the city. We wanted better for our new family, so we decided to leave.

Looking outside of D.C., we immediately ruled out Northern Virginia. The high cost of living near strip malls, cookie-cutter developments, and data centers simply wasn’t enticing. We longed to live in a place with character, history, and community. We found everything we were hoping for in Richmond.

We moved to Richmond at the start of 2020, and we immediately fell in love with our new city. We bought a 100-year-old home in Southside, where we are the happy beneficiaries of generations of Richmonders who have come before us. Our first child was born in that home August, 2020, as was our second child in 2022. In 2024 we welcomed our third and fourth children — twins! — at a local hospital. And later this year we will welcome our fifth child. We are so grateful that all five of our children are native Richmonders!

I continued working as an attorney after our move, working remotely for a D.C. firm. Although I was fortunate to have maternity leave, it was painful going back to work after our first child was born. It was even more painful after the birth of our second child. I struggled to find meaning in my “very important” job, even though I had defined myself by my professional accomplishments for so many years. My gut was telling me that my children would be better off with a present, loving mother.

When I stopped working in 2023, it was a major shift for our family. Because I had always earned more than my husband, we had to learn how to live on less than half of our typical income. We had to make sacrifices. After a few months, we worked out a sustainable family budget and never looked back. Having me at home with our kids has blessed our lives more than money or professional stature ever could, and we are continuing to joyfully grow our family as a result.