When Virginia voters head to the polls Tuesday, they’ll be selecting nominees in some of the most consequential congressional races this year, shaping the direction that the GOP will take in Virginia as the party tries to win control of Congress.
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Republicans will pick candidates in Virginia’s 2nd and 7th congressional districts who in November will take on two vulnerable incumbents, Democrats Elaine Luria and Abigail Spanberger — races that political analysts have rated as “tossups” in districts that voted for both President Biden and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R). Those are two key districts that Republicans see as part of a winning formula to taking back the House.
In other races that are less competitive, Rep. Ben Cline (R) faces a primary challenge from Navy veteran Merritt Hale in Virginia’s 6th District, and two Republicans — Ted W. Engquist and Terry T. Namkung — are vying for the chance to take on Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D) in the 3rd District, which Biden won by roughly 36 points.
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Democrats’ only primary this year is in Virginia’s 8th District, where political newcomer Victoria Virasingh is challenging veteran Rep. Donald S. Beyer (D) — his first primary challenge since taking office in 2016.
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A ‘jump ball’ in Virginia’s 7th
In the competitive six-way 7th District race, three candidates have broken out as top contenders who each represent an opportunity for Republicans, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington.
Those three are state Sen. Bryce E. Reeves (R-Spotsylvania), an Army veteran and former Prince William narcotics officer; Prince William Board Supervisor Yesli Vega, who previously co-chaired Latinos for Youngkin; and former Green Beret Derrick Anderson.
“The 7th District Republican nomination is really the equivalent of a jump ball,” Farnsworth said. “You have individual candidates popular with individual slices of the Republican electorate or portions of the districts. So it would be a very difficult race to handicap at this point. … It seems to be all three of the leading candidates have a compelling case they could make."
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Spotsylvania County Board Supervisor David Ross, Stafford County Board Chair Crystal Vanuch and former teacher Gina Ciarcia are also seeking the nomination.
In Virginia's 7th, race to take on Abigail Spanberger is anybody's game
Reeves has campaigned on his decade of experience in the Virginia General Assembly, stressing his work on veterans’ causes, expanding gun rights and overhauling the foster-care system, among other things. With no public office experience, Anderson has taken the opposite strategy, framing himself as the “political outsider” and competing with Reeves to some extent for support from veterans. Anderson argues that his combat experience makes him best qualified to go toe-to-toe with Spanberger, a former CIA officer, on national security.
Vega, meanwhile, has touted her get-out-the-vote work for Youngkin among Hispanic voters, while angling to put prominent far-right figures in her corner to rile up the base. She has held events with firebrand Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) and Bob Good (R-Va.) — among the most conservative lawmakers in the House and members of the House Freedom Caucus — and has also received endorsements from figures including Corey Stewart and Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas under scrutiny for efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
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“If it’s Reeves or Anderson who wins, you can expect a significant national security conversation, whereas if Vega becomes the nominee, you can expect a more aggressive conservative message designed to motivate the Republican base first and foremost," Farnsworth said. “Vega’s focus on bringing hardcore conservatives into her campaign is a good nomination strategy. Turnout in a primary is quite low and often involves the most committed ideologically intense voices among the electorate. But Ginni Thomas and other conservative voices will be a liability in the general election in a swing district like this.”
Joe Szymanski — the chairman of George Mason University College Republicans, who also leads elections coverage and race ratings at Elections Daily, an affiliate of Decision Desk HQ — said he thought Vega, 36, best fit "the future of the party: “a younger candidate, a female candidate, a Hispanic candidate.”
“Trying to reach and connect more with Hispanic voters everywhere is a key goal of Republicans across the country,” he said.
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Plus, Szymanski said, after three Democratic women flipped Virginia’s 2nd, 7th and 10th districts blue in 2018, he thought women would be Republicans’ best bet to go up against them to flip the districts red again.
Kiggans takes on three opponents
In Virginia’s 2nd District, Szymanski said, that candidate is state Sen. Jen A. Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach), whose profile as a Navy veteran and geriatric nurse practitioner “fits the area perfectly.”
Republicans have long viewed Kiggans as the presumed front-runner in the Virginia Beach-anchored, military-heavy 2nd District represented by Luria, a 25-year Navy veteran who retired as a commander, and member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Szymanski noted Kiggans’s proven ability to run in a competitive district after she narrowly defeated her Democratic opponent in a state Senate race in 2019 by less than one percentage point, in a district that Donald Trump had lost and in a year when Republicans performed poorly.
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Kiggans is taking on three opponents, including Jarome Bell, a far-right Navy veteran angling for the Trump base; Tommy Altman, an Air Force veteran and tattoo shop owner; and Andy Baan, a Navy veteran and former prosecutor.
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In her latest ad, Kiggans campaigned on her work in the state Senate leading three bills: one cleaning up voter rolls more frequently, and another “protect[ing] our kids from transgender policy and CRT,” or critical race theory. She appeared to be referring to two unsuccessful bills she led to prohibit transgender girls from playing girls’ sports and prohibit schools from teaching “inherently divisive concepts.”
In the home stretch of the race, the Virginia Democratic Party has inserted itself in the GOP nomination race by putting out mailers about Bell. The mailers describe him as “a copy of Trump," “a MAGA Republican who believes the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen" and “would do whatever President Trump wants.”
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Framed like attacks, they are all attributes that Bell has worn proudly throughout the race.
Farnsworth said it appears Virginia Democrats are engaging in an old political trick of meddling in the other party’s primary in effort to boost the candidate they think would be weakest against the incumbent in the general election. But he noted that comes with an asterisk: “When there’s a wave election, those quote ‘unelectable’ Republicans end up in office.”
A spokesman for the Virginia Democratic Party declined to comment about the mailers.
In response to a request for comment, Bell said in a text message: “They are doing whatever they have to do whatever that is.”
Trump’s influence casts shadow in the Virginia 2nd District race
A spokesman for Kiggans, Bryan Piligra, said the Democratic meddling in the race “shows how scared they are to face Jen in the general election — and they absolutely should be.”
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“No amount of money, lies or desperate tactics the Democrats resort to will convince 2nd District voters to send Elaine back to Congress in November,” he said.
A separate group that has previously backed Democrats, Patriot Majority PAC, put out an ad explicitly trumpeting Bell as an “America First” conservative who “supports Trump’s election audit in all 50 states" and whose victory would represent a win for Trump. The PAC did not respond to a request for comment.