Virginia State Sen. Ben Chafin, 60, has died in Richmond from complications due to COVID-19, his office has confirmed.
Gov. Ralph Northam and the Virginia Senate Republican Caucus also confirmed Chafin's death on Friday.
Chafin was hospitalized at VCU Medical Center in Richmond in mid-December, reports the Roanoke Times.
“Southwest Virginia has lost a strong advocate — and we have all lost a good man," Northam said in a statement.
“I knew Ben as a lawmaker, an attorney, a banker, and a farmer raising beef cattle in Moccasin Valley, working the land just as generations of his family had done before him. He pushed hard to bring jobs and investment to his district, and I will always be grateful for his courageous vote to expand health care for people who need it."
Chafin had represented the state’s 38th district for the past six years, and his office said in a statement that his family wanted to thank the VCU Medical Center "for its vigorous care and heartfelt support during his two weeks of medical services there," reports CBS affiliate WTVR in Richmond.
Northam has ordered the Virginia state flag to be flown at half-staff until the day Chafin is buried. The Republican was the first Virginia lawmaker to die of COVID-19 since the pandemic started, while others have contracted the disease.
“Ben Chafin has left us a legacy of the best in public service,” state Senate Republican leader Thomas Norment Jr. said in a statement. "He served to ensure that his region and community, and the people he loved, would never be forgotten."
His office remembered him Friday as "a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, economic development and health care coverage for hundreds of thousands of low-income Virginians."
"He advocated jobs in his district, particularly in the coalfields where the decline of coal has devastated local economies," the statement said.
Chafin's death comes days after GOP Rep.-elect Luke Letlow, 41, of Louisiana, died from COVID-19.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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