This coming Tuesday is Election Day. Most pundits and pollsters are calling for Republican gains of varying degrees. It appears that Republicans will take the majority in the House of Representatives, while the Senate is up for grabs.
Virginia’s eleven congressional districts are on the ballot. There is an incumbent running for re-election in all eleven districts, with eight of the races as fairly safe and three which are tracking as competitive. There is no race for US Senate in Virginia this year. This election is the first one under the new congressional district lines drawn by court-ordered special masters, which creates an odd scenario where a lot of voters will be voting for an incumbent for the first time.
Safe Districts
Republican Reps. Rob Wittman in the 1st, Bob Good in the 5th, Ben Cline in the 6th, and Morgan Griffith in the 9th are all safe. Democrat Reps. Bobby Scott in 3rd, Don McEachin in the 4th, Don Beyer in the 8th, and Gerry Connolly in the 11th are also safe.
Competitive Races
Three races in Virginia are competitive. All three are held by Democrats. The messages in those races have mostly been the same. Republican challengers have charged their Democrat incumbents with mishandling the nation’s economy, restricting parents in education decisions for their children, and eroding states’ rights through increased nationalization/centralization of a wide range of industries. Democrat incumbents counter by listing legislative accomplishments such as spending billions on climate change and lowering the cost of insulin, promising to codify Roe after 50 years, and something about how democracy will end.
VA02 has Democrat Rep. Elaine Luria defending her seat against Republican State Senator Jen Kiggans. Both candidates in this race are Navy veterans, which is very fitting for Virginia’s 2nd District.
CBS recently did a story on this race. Their reporter was surprised to see that Rep. Luria’s work on the Jan. 6th Committee has had little impact on voters in this race. People are more concerned with record high inflation and prices at the grocery store and gas pump than about exacting revenge on the last administration.
VA07 is once again a highly competitive race. Democrat Rep. Abigail Spanberger is running for her third term against Prince William County Board of Supervisors member Yesli Vega.
Rep. Spanberger always runs as a national security expert and a moderate, but then votes with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi down the line. With her war chest of millions for re-election, she didn’t need Pelosi’s money so Spanberger was free to wander away from national Democratic figures and pretend that she’s not another DNC lackey. Vega had little campaign cash to compete with, so she had to champion Rep. Kevin McCarthy as the next House Speaker. That is a tremendous disappointment for two reasons. First, McCarthy would be a terrible mistake as Speaker, he doesn’t deserve the promotion. Next, and probably more importantly, is that during her competitive primary Vega told voters she would not support McCarthy for Speaker. She changed tune after the primary and was quickly rewarded with Young Guns status and resources.
The odd thing about this race is neither candidate lives in the district. Vega lives very close to the district, but Rep. Spanberger lives an hour away from the new lines. While this is constitutional, it is just weird. With Prince William County making up such a large portion of the new 7th, Vega’s position on the county board makes her much more of a representative of this community than someone who lives an hour away. We hope voters will see that Vega is currently working for the community of the 7th District, while Rep. Spanberger is in a rather desperate attempt to hold on to a seat that has already left her behind.
VA10 has been interesting to watch this year. Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton is running for re-election against Republican Hung Cao.
Rep. Wexton’s biggest headlines in congress came when she replaced the MIA/POW flag outside her DC office with the Alphabet Soup pride flag. That was inappropriate and a move that did not properly reflect Virginia’s 10th Congressional District. Now she is running against Cao, an immigrant from Vietnam who graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School and the US Naval Academy.
Cao is more qualified, but that incumbency advantage is hard to topple.
