Former AAN Marketing Director Adam Ebbin won a hotly contested five-way primary in Virginia’s 49th District Tuesday by a margin of less than 50 votes, defeating two Hispanic candidates in a district that is 40 percent Latino.

The urban Northern Virginia district is among the most Democratic in the state. No Republican or Independent has filed to run in the general election in November, giving Ebbin a virtual shoo-in to office.

Ebbin, 39, left AAN in 2002 to become Virginia’s Department of Labor and Industry chief deputy commissioner. He ran a focused campaign that turned on his ability to raise nearly $60,000 in less than three months, The Washington Post says.

Ebbin thanks his friends and supporters at AAN member papers for their campaign contributions.

“In such a close race everything seems to matter more and the financial support from people at AAN papers allowed me to wage a much more vigorous campaign,” Ebbin says.

Ebbin is now working to raise money to pay his campaign debt and meeting with GOP lawmakers to begin the process of consensus building, he says.