correction
A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to Virginia state Sen. Jen A. Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach) as a delegate. The article has been corrected.
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) announced she would run for reelection in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District on Thursday — specifically, and deliberately, at 1:46 p.m., exactly a year from the moment Luria was evacuated from her office during the Jan. 6 insurrection and learned that police had reported that pipe bombs were found on Capitol Hill.
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Her decision to tie her bid for reelection to this day underscores the significance that her role as a member of the House committee investigating Jan. 6 is likely to play in her campaign, something that she said is among the main drivers motivating her to remain in Congress.
“It’s a very big responsibility and a very big responsibility for our democracy, for my constituents here in the district, and it does motivate me to understand that my service is incredibly important,” Luria said in an interview, “and we can’t allow those who would not uphold the rule of law to take over Congress in the future. That really is the foundation of why I’m motivated to continue this service.”
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The contest in the 2nd Congressional District is likely to be one of the most closely watched in the nation, as Luria seeks to defend the seat she flipped blue in 2018, while national Republicans pour huge resources into seeking to regain it. The district — still anchored in the historically swing-voter-heavy Virginia Beach after redistricting — remains highly competitive. President Biden would have won the district by under 2 percentage points in 2020. But Donald Trump would have won it by 5 points in 2016, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
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The Congressional Leadership Fund — the House GOP’s super PAC — announced this week that it’s backing Virginia state Sen. Jen A. Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach), a former Navy helicopter pilot and registered nurse who leads the Republican field in fundraising.
Behind Kiggans is Jarome Bell, who has fiercely perpetuated Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election and has advocated for the execution of people who commit election fraud. Bell has since been banned from Twitter, and has used some of his $200,000 in campaign donations to fund a lawsuit against Facebook for removing his posts riddled with misinformation.
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“I do feel a responsibility to make sure someone like that cannot represent this or any district in the Congress,” Luria said. “I cannot overemphasize how extreme his views are.”
Larry Thomas Altman III, an Air Force veteran who now owns a tattoo shop in Virginia Beach, and Andy Baan, a Navy veteran and former prosecutor, are also running in the Republican primary.
In the news release Luria sent out announcing her decision to seek reelection, she recounted the moment at 1:46 p.m. last year when she and colleagues evacuated from her office. She said she could hear the crowd outside yelling, along with what at first sounded to her like gunshots or an explosion but turned out to be police flashbangs trying to control the unruly mob.
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“While I listened to the shouts of the throngs of rioters overrunning the capitol,” Luria wrote, “as they attacked both the physical seat of our government and the core foundations of our democracy, I said these words, ‘I don’t recognize our country today and the members of Congress who have supported this anarchy do not deserve to represent their fellow Americans.’ ”
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Luria, a former Navy commander who lives in Norfolk, was drawn into Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott’s (D) 3rd District and said she was still evaluating the logistics of whether to relocate. But she stressed she also owns a home in Virginia Beach, has run a small business based in both Virginia Beach and Norfolk, and in her last tour in the Navy commanded a unit in Virginia Beach. Members of Congress aren’t required to live in the districts they represent.
Military issues are likely to feature heavily in the campaign, especially considering the candidates’ military backgrounds. Luria emphasized her work on funding and equipping the military to confront threats abroad including from China — she was one of the first Democrats to support boosting top-line military funding by $25 billion, despite calls from the liberal wing of the party to slash it.
She has one Democratic challenger in the primary, Neil Smith, who announced his run Sunday saying that he believed competition would be healthy and that Democratic voters deserved to have an alternative to Luria.