page_title: Ben Cline
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Ben Cline / Political career
caption_attribution_description: English: Congressman Bob Goodlatte visits the Rockbridge Rapids booth with Delegate Ben Cline at the Rockbridge Community Festival
context_page_description: Benjamin Lee Cline is an American politician that has served as the U.S. Representative for Virginia's 6th congressional district since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he represented the 24th District in the Virginia House of Delegates for 16 sessions, from 2002 to 2018.
context_section_description: Cline served as Chief of Staff for United States Representative Robert "Bob" Goodlatte before running for office. 
  Cline started his political career in 2002 in an election to the Virginia House of Delegates in a special election, replacing incumbent Delegate Vance Wilkins who resigned the seat due to sexual harassment allegations. Cline won in 2002 with 57% of the vote despite Democratic opposition from former Lexington Mayor Mimi Elrod. With the election victory, Cline represented the 24th district, which consisted of Bath and Rockbridge Counties, the cities of Buena Vista and Lexington, and parts of Amherst and Augusta Counties.
  In 2003, Cline won again with 69% of the vote against Independent E.W. Sheffield.  In 2005, he won with 62% of the vote against Democrat David Cox. Cline ran unopposed in 2007. In 2009, Cline ran against Amherst native and Democrat Jeff Price and won with 71% of the vote, taking the Lexington City precinct (for the first time since Price's election in 2002) and every precinct in the 24th House of Delegates district. Cline ran unopposed in both 2011 and 2013. In 2015, Cline won 71% of the vote against Democrat Ellen Arthur. In 2017, he won re-election with 72% of the vote against independent candidate John Winfrey. 
  In November 2017, Cline announced he would run for Congress in Virginia's 6th congressional district in 2018 for the seat being vacated by the retiring incumbent Bob Goodlatte. On May 19, 2018, Cline won the Republican Party nomination for that election on the first ballot at the district convention.
  Cline won the election on November 6, 2018, winning 15 Virginia localities with more than 60% of the vote, to the four localities won by his opponent, Jennifer Lewis. (Lewis won Harrisonburg, Lexington, Roanoke and Staunton, but lost all the rest, including a razor's edge loss in her hometown of Waynesboro.) He resigned from the Virginia House of Delegates on December 18, 2018.
caption: Cline and Bob Goodlatte at the Rockbridge Community Festival in August 2008
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