Josh Hawkins: VA-1 tests the viability of a lost era of Republican politics
Thanks to the bravery and jurisprudential consistency of Justice D. Arthur Kelsey, Virginia voters will enjoy a real opportunity to participate in competitive elections this November. Virginia’s First Congressional District, which was drawn in a contorted “L” shape under Democrats’ proposed gerrymander, has now reverted to its previous more coherent boundaries. The district, primarily based in the Northern Tidewater region, has been represented by Congressman Rob Wittman (R-VA) since 2007. For the sake of the Republican Party’s future, I implore voters to reelect Wittman and elect more professionals like him.
Wittman, a Republican from small town Montross, Virginia, is not exactly a right-wing firebrand. While many House Republicans waste time complaining on Fox News, Wittman has remained almost laser-focused on moving legislation aimed at his district. As vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, it is hard to overstate the Congressman’s influence in shaping national policy. With defense spending accounting for nearly 10 percent of Virginia’s economy, Wittman gives Virginia an indispensable seat at the table.
VA-1’s boundaries make the riverine constituency a natural fit for the former fisherman, and Wittman generally commands an advantage over Democrats — outrunning President Donald Trump’s margins in 2024. For the first time in 20 years, however, Wittman may spar in a competitive election. Henrico Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor trounced the field in the Democratic primary and is already blasting Wittman personally. He will still likely prevail despite the noise — VA-1 voters appear capable of distinguishing Wittman’s legislative efficacy from Trump’s chicanery. The question is whether Wittman’s personal likability can court enough moderate and conservative Trump skeptics to win decisively. Running as a Republican in 2026 is an ordeal given Trump’s imbecility, but if anyone can — it is Congressman Wittman.
Scarlett Sullivan: Watch for the posture around voting rights restoration
Last of the ballot’s proposed amendments, but certainly not least, voters will decide on Question 3 — an amendment which would potentially restore voting rights to all formerly incarcerated Virginians. Passing such an amendment would pull the Commonwealth out of one of the most restrictive voting regimes in the country, currently enshrined as a lifetime ban on voting for individuals with felonies. Only the governor can manually restore these rights on a case-by-case basis, placing the extent of the policy on par with states like Kentucky and Mississippi. Where out-dated Jim Crow legislation from 1902 fails to find popular support among citizens, Virginia can take swift action this November to move towards automatic restoration of voting rights in line with other states across the country.
What adds broader political importance to the decision made, beyond the amendment passing or failing, is two-fold. First, a previous General Assembly failed to move this resolution onto the ballot in 2022, but a Democratic trifecta primed the runway onto the ballot this year. Despite this success in advocating for it to be on the ballot, Virginia's perception on such a proposal is less set in stone. Limited polling exists, but if supporters of the amendment couch their advocacy in successful policies on voting restoration across comparative states, bipartisan success for the measure is imminent.
Second, Gov. Spanberger exercised the governor-only ability to restore these voting rights, recently enfranchising some 66,000 formerly incarcerated Virginians and staking executive-level support for Question 3. In a topsy-turvy year for Virginia's approval of state government, Question 3 provides a unique opportunity for Spanberger to deliver results for a new voting base — avoiding the more controversial line-items of her first year in office and sticking to common-sense messaging on democracy through enfranchising these citizens. Come November, voters will decide whether Virginia's 1902 framework finally belongs in the past.
Wylie Brunman: The Senate race of Virginian democracy and its malcontents
Virginia’s 2026 candidates for Senate ape what has become an all-too-familiar rut ordaining our politics — a septuagenarian Democrat steeped in decades-long politics against a sycophantic Republican gleeful to take the pilgrimage to MAGA. This microcosm, a contest of the corruptible and the contemptible, is a mockery of our nation’s storied history of democratic ideals. Yet it is with great dejection that I repeat the now-common trope for elections — your decision to vote is a “lesser of two evils,” and Senator Mark Warner is that less weighty foe.
In many ways, the Republican challenger, Bert Mizusawa, is a candidate of traditional policies with a patriotic past. Awarded a Silver Star for leading his company in securing a Soviet defector against enemy fire, Mizusawa supports an active military, along with lower taxes, a simplified tax code, expanded nuclear energy and opportunities for legal immigration.
Yet, these traditional positions are overshadowed by his wolfish allegiance to President Donald Trump. Most concerning among these is his own declaration that he “forwarded an idea to the White House … on how [Trump] could constitutionally serve a third term,” a statement that betrays our nation’s history of ensuring that no President appears more like a king than a man. George Washington, America’s Cincinnatus, Virginia’s son, weeps for his state. This betrayal of tradition — and with it conservatism, law and our republic’s principles — is a black water, tarring the rest of Mizusawa’s candidacy.
Senator Warner has taken millions in PAC money. This will be his fourth reelection, despite an earlier career promise to serve only two terms. These realities are disappointing, but how can they stack up to a candidate following beliefs inimical to our democracy? In supporting Warner this year, I can only hope that soon, after the death knell of the Trump presidency, a new tide of true candidates will emerge — replete with differences on political issues rather than our constitutional grounding.
Michael King: How far does Trump’s influence extend in VA-5?
The test for Trump’s power and influence over the Republican Party will come to a showdown in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, which extends over Charlottesville and Albemarle County. This gargantuan district has been reliably Republican in recent elections, sending Republican Rep. John McGuire, Trump-acolyte extraordinaire, to the House of Representatives with over 57 percent of the vote in 2024. In my mind, there is no doubt McGuire will return for a second term in Congress — the question will be how much his margin of victory is.
A recent poll released by Tom Perriello, McGuire’s Democratic challenger and former congressman for the district in 2009, has 47 percent of voters for McGuire, 44 percent for Perriello and 9 percent undecided. If accurate, this would be a massive swing to the Democrats for a district that voted for Trump by almost 10 points in each of his three tries for the presidency. This development follows negative results for other Trump-backed candidates in Republican primaries this summer, a sign that perhaps Trump’s kingmaking power is not as absolute as was once thought in the spring. If that power does not hold up, McGuire may not have the easy path to victory he enjoyed in 2024.
All in all, Trump’s near-hegemonic grasp on the Republican Party has been all but unchallenged since first winning election in 2016 — perhaps only the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol posed more of a threat to his power. Now, however, a growing affordability crisis, fueled by another deeply unpopular war in the Middle East, might prove to stymie the President in the last two years of his time in Washington. For the election in VA-5 this November, voters will decide just how much Trump’s favor can stretch even as Trump himself has fallen out of favor with Americans.
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