When 3rd District Congressman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) hosted his first Labor Day cookout in 1977, about 50 people showed up.

This year the popular annual gathering in Newport News at Rep. Scott’s family home drew more than 1,100 people.

“It’s gotten bigger each year,” said Rep. Scott.

Several Richmond-area residents and political figures made the 70-mile trek to see what fellow Democrats are doing and, more importantly, what they are saying.

A day after the cookout (the menu, by the way, remains basic: hamburgers and hotdogs), Rep. Scott was still excited about the many local, state and national politicians he’d welcomed the day before, most notably former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation’s first Black governor.

Minority Leader Rep. Don L. Scott Jr., D-Portsmouth, U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, who seemingly is everywhere at once, came to the cookout, and state Sen. Louise Lucas, state Sen. Mamie Locke and U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger.

In addition to those elected officials, several candidates whose names will be on this November’s ballots made the Bobby Scott Labor Day Cookout pilgrimage, along with Democratic party officials, such as Susan Swecker.

Rep. Scott hosted his first Labor Day Cookout in 1977 when he was running for the House of Delegates.

“We wanted to thank our volunteers, so we had a little cookout and a few people came out,” he recalled. “And then the next year we decided to do it again, and the following year I was back on the ballot, so of course, we had to do it again ... and then it just became a tradition.”

Although the COVID-19 pandemic paused the annual cookout in 2020, it became a virtual event that year. The rise of the delta variant led to its cancellation in 2021.

While Rep. Scott cherishes all of his end-of-summer events, he is particularly proud of when former President Bill Clinton was among his cookout guests while still president in the late 1990s.

The former president was the perfect guest, he said, and mingled with the crowd throughout the afternoon. He stepped away once, for about 15 minutes, Rep. Scott said, to take a call from Kofi Annan, then secretary general of the United Nations. When asked about the United States’ current president, Joe Biden, Rep. Scott was quick to show his ongoing support, touting President Biden’s success in stabilizing the economy, creating more jobs, shepherding a 40% decrease in child poverty and lowering credit card delinquencies.

He also scoffed at suggestions that President Biden is too old to seek re-election. “Who’s going to do better,” Rep. Scott asked. “If he’s getting the job done, who can do better?”