Jim Webb

James Henry Webb Jr. (born February 9, 1946) is an American politician and author who served as a United States senator from Virginia from 2007 to 2013. He previously served as secretary of the Navy, assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs, counsel for the United States House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and is a retired Marine Corps officer. Webb has been a member of the Democratic Party since 2006, having initially been a Republican. He was the first Democratic senator to be elected in Virginia since 1994 and is the most recently elected senator who did not serve as governor of Virginia. Webb has also worked as a journalist and filmmaker, and is the author of ten books. In addition, he has taught literature at the United States Naval Academy and was a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics. As a member of the Democratic Party, Webb announced on November 19, 2014, that he was forming an exploratory committee to evaluate a run for president of the United States in 2016. On July 2, 2015, he announced that he would be joining the race for the Democratic nomination for president, but ended his campaign on October 20, 2015, stating that he was "not comfortable" with many political positions of the party's leadership. In 2020, Webb was named the first distinguished fellow of University of Notre Dame's International Security Center.