Darius Mayfield has been behind bars.
As a teenager without a father figure in New Jersey, he was arrested and jailed for 60 days for stealing.
But that wasn’t the end of his story.
He discovered mentors and rose from the poverty of Section 8 (subsidized) housing to eventually thrive in the car-selling business, becoming general manager of Manhattan Volkswagen.
Mayfield left that well-paying gig, though, after being inspired by President Donald Trump. Now, the 39-year-old lives in Stafford County and wants to be the next congressman from Virginia’s 7th District, which includes the Fredericksburg area.
Mayfield is at least the third candidate to announce plans to seek the GOP nomination in the district. State Sen. Tara Durant of Stafford and Prince William County businessman John Gray also are running to presumably face Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman in next year’s general election.
That’s not a new scenario for Mayfield. He was the Republican nominee in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District in 2022 and 2024, losing both times to Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a Democrat.
After marrying his wife, Kezia, in November, Mayfield settled in Stafford’s Embrey Mill in January, and shortly thereafter started campaigning around the neighborhood, telling his story.
“That, to me, that’s the American dream, you know,” Mayfield said. “I could have complained, I could have looked at myself as a victim for everything that I came up with, but I never did.”
That past includes his mother using his aunt’s address in South Brunswick, N.J., so that he could attend school in a safer area. Then, when she got caught, she moved Mayfield and his sister from their actual home in New Brunswick, N.J., to South Brunswick, so they could have a better education.
That’s led Mayfield, as a conservative, to believe in school choice. And the varying experiences he’s had in life have led him to feel like he relates to everyone, of all political and cultural circles.
“I’m all about bringing people together,” Mayfield said. “I’m all about unity, whether we agree or we disagree.”
He said he’s able to talk to Democrats and independents and find common ground, whereas career politicians focus too much on what divides Americans.
For example, he said that, even as a Black conservative, he can go into Black and brown neighborhoods and talk about issues such as police-community relations.
The government needs to fund the police, he said, but the police and constituents also need to respect each other. Saying one supports the police or supports the people is not how to bring opposing sides together, Mayfield said.
He also said he doesn’t endorse the extreme wing of his party.
“You’ve never heard me say the phrase, ‘Let’s go, Brandon!’” he said, referring to a vulgar expression of disdain for former President Joe Biden.
Mayfield also acknowledged that some people are surprised that he’s both Black and a conservative. But, he added, Black communities, especially older ones, are full of very conservative values.
And once people hear his ideas — and the empathy in his voice — they don’t see color, he said.
“They don’t just look at me as a Black conservative anymore,” Mayfield said. “They look at me as somebody with conservative values that cares about all people.”
A civic late bloomer
The first time Mayfield voted was in 2016, and he said he knew Trump would be president when he saw the now-familiar image of the businessman coming down the escalator to announce his candidacy.
Trump talked about kitchen-table issues, said Mayfield, some of the same topics of conversation he remembers being discussed at the table with his family, such as undocumented immigrants taking resources away from cities.
“These are not conversations that I’m foreign to, you know, even coming from very Democratic and left-leaning families and communities and things of that sort,” he said.
Mayfield said he doesn’t want to see Virginia turn into another New Jersey, a place where, three years ago, people broke into his house, and where politicians have been shot.
He said he wants to ensure that small businesses thrive in the 7th District, too, and that economic development isn’t limited to big-box stores.
On data centers, he said he wants to see that the right zoning is in place for them.
“We want to make sure it’s benefiting the actual constituents, not just big business, at the end of the day,” Mayfield said.
The congressional hopeful also would work to make sure the American people have to time to read legislation before it’s voted on, and to ensure that bills are simplified.
“So I’m for single bills for single issues, up-and-down votes on those bills, and then we move forward from there,” he said.
But can he win?
Getting into office wouldn’t be easy, though.
These days, Mayfield works on business ventures, including Be American Enterprises, where his website says he “continues his turnaround work serving local businesses, and Tunnell Contracting, an electrical contracting company that serves companies such as Walmart.”
And, of course, he’s campaigning. He called Coleman, his Democrat opponent in New Jersey, “the most progressive member of Congress” and said he moved the needle 5 percent in Republicans’ favor there, “something that hadn’t happened in decades.”
So, he figures, if he’s able to have similar success in the 7th District, he could defeat Vindman, who won a close race last year against Republican Derrick Anderson.
“I am the candidate that people want, they deserve and they’ve been looking for for quite some time,” he said.
