CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – As he drives around the 6th – and parts of the 5th – District in his 2012 Toyota Tacoma, the one approaching 300,000 miles, Pete Barlow is out to deliver a simple message to voters. It’s his campaign slogan.

“More love, less bullshit,” Barlow told Cville Right Now.

Barlow, who lives in Weyers Cave in Augusta County, and worked with FEMA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is running for Congress in the 6th District, where – as it currently stands – he’ll face Beth Macy in a Democratic primary for the opportunity to unseat Republican incumbent Ben Cline in November. But that primary field could become more crowded and complicated if Democratic redistricting efforts are passed by voters in April and upheld by the Virginia Supreme Court.

In that case, Albemarle County and Charlottesville would move into the 6th District, and so would former Congressman Tom Perriello, currently running in the 5th, setting up a three-way race between Barlow, Macy and Perriello.

“I have a lot of respect for both of their backgrounds,” Barlow said. ” Tom has really proven his mettle in multiple areas, as has Beth. She has raised the specter of the opioid epidemic. She speaks to real working-class issues. I appreciate what they both have contributed. I think that my particular value in this race is the fact that, I’m a 10th generation Western Virginian. I’m a 15th generation Virginian. I understand what’s at stake.

“But I also believe that we need to be able to talk across party lines and I’ve shown that I can do that in my background.”

Barlow said his work in federal government over 15 years has him well suited to work with both Democrats and Republicans, and his backgrounds in farming, healthcare and conservation prepare him to tackle some of the key issues facing the region and the country.

He said building back federal agencies, including FEMA and USAID, that “are being torched right now” by the Trump administration will be an important part of his platform.

Barlow said Augusta County and other rural parts of the Commonwealth are seeing healthcare clinics close because of cuts caused by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill budget act.

He said Trump’s tariffs have cost Virginians an average of $1,300 and that Congress needs to reclaim.

Barlow bemoaned the proliferation of data centers in Virginia at the expense of farms.

“We already saw 400 Virginia farms vanish in 2025 alone,” he said. “Our acreage is being swallowed up by development already, but data centers are going to be really a death knell for prosperous farming in this area.”

He said data center expansion is “unsustainable” without “guardrails,” including mandating closed-loop cooling.

Barlow also said he’ll advocate for incentives for first-time home buyers.

“We need to make sure that we are looking out for younger people,” he said. “Because they’re really getting screwed by this administration right now.”

Barlow said Cline has a track record of voting against measures that would help the people in the 6th District, including improvements to Interstate 81 and bills that would benefit and add protections for dairy and beef farmers by bringing local processing centers to the region.

“That’s something he could have done years ago,” Barlow said. “But he’s been sitting on his hands on the appropriations subcommittee. He could be actually getting us real resources for local solutions, but he’s not doing that.”

Barlow said Cline is more concerned with fitting in on the national Republican scene than working for local voters.

“Ben Cline is adding to the division that we hear coming out of this partisan administration,” Barlow said. “He’s ceding the power of the purse to the executive branch. He’s ceding the due process and habeas corpus, the tariff authority that Congress has, he ceded all of that, along with all of his cronies, to this administration. He’s a career politician. I just think that he is not doing his job.”