Two Army veterans will face off for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, setting up what is expected to be an expensive and contentious race for a seat in a swing district.
Republicans chose Derrick Anderson, 39, a lawyer and former Army Green Beret who was supported by House GOP leaders in the bitter six-candidate intraparty fight.
Democrats chose retired Army Col. Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, 49, one of the twin Army officers involved in former President Trump’s first impeachment trial.
The two are competing to succeed Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D), who has chosen to run for governor of Virginia next year.
“It will be one of the most striking national elections this fall,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political analyst at the University of Mary Washington.
“Because it’s close to [Washington, D.C.], both parties will pay close attention to this race. It’s going to get a lot of money, a lot of national attention, and people are going to look at it as sort of an indicator of swing districts across the country.”
In few places are military issues more likely to dominate than in Virginia’s 7th District, the strip of land that lies between Alexandria and Richmond and hugs the shore of the Potomac River to the east and the foothills of Shenandoah National Park, the west. The area is home to several defense contractors, a sizable concentration of military veterans, Marine Corps Base Quantico, and Army Garrison Fort AP Hill.
Both candidates leaned heavily on their military records during their respective primaries, with the same message expected to be conveyed by November.
“This is a district where national security-oriented candidates do well, and both Republicans and Democrats have chosen people with extensive national security experience, biographies tailor-made for this district,” Farnsworth said.
“We’re talking about a district that is filled with defense contractors, active military, retired military, retired federal employees, all looking at national security credentials as an important asset.”
Anderson, who served in the Army from 2006 to 2014, received the Bronze Star at just 29 and deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Jordan and Lebanon. The top fundraiser in his crowded race, he won the state’s primary on June 18 and gained Trump’s endorsement last week.
“Derrick is America First, and he’s running against a weak, pathetic Democrat named Yevgeny ‘Eugene’ Vindman who… lied to promote the Ukraine impeachment rumor, a continuation of the largest and most dangerous political WITCH HUNT of our country’s history,” Trump wrote.
This is Anderson’s second time seeking a seat in Congress, with his first bid in 2022 ending in a narrow defeat in the Republican primary.
This time, Anderson’s race was just as close, with the former Green Beret getting about 45 percent of the vote but defeating his closest competitor, Cameron Hamilton — a former Navy SEAL backed by the House Freedom Caucus — by just 2,891 wishes.
The Republican candidate’s first general election TV ad, shown on June 27 during the presidential debate, highlighted his military background.
“We hear this every day. America is more divided than ever. When I led men and women in combat, no one wore a red or blue shirt. We all wear America’s uniform with pride. I know what leadership really means,” Anderson says in the ad.
Vindman, a first-time candidate, served in the Army for more than 25 years. He easily defeated his competitors by getting just over 49% of the vote after a huge fundraiser, with his closest competitor, Elizabeth Guzman, getting just 15%.
Former deputy legal advisor to Trump’s National Security Council, Eugene Vindman and his brother, Alexander, were expelled from the administration after Alexander testified before Congress about the July 2019 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky . The call, during which Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate then-former Vice President Biden and his son, Hunter, in exchange for military aid, ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Vindman, a Ukrainian immigrant who in recent years has been involved in advocacy work for U.S. support for Ukraine — and has made continued alliance with Ukraine a campaign issue — has used his name recognition to his fundraising advantage.
In a November 2023 interview with military timesVindman said he also planned to focus on improving programs for veterans and keeping the military apolitical.
“The last time Trump ran, I was in uniform, I wasn’t in a position to do anything political. This time, I want to juxtapose what integrity is, what the Army’s values are versus what Trump is presenting,” he said at the time.
Vindman may face headwinds in the race due to President Biden’s difficult debate performance in Atlanta last week, which raised fears of a negative vote.
Several Democrats running in competitive House districts this cycle have already broken ranks with the president over the issue.
Farnsworth, however, said Biden’s poor debate performance — or Trump’s conviction for trying to hide a payment to a porn star during his 2016 campaign — may matter less in the 7th District than in some places.
“There are so many people with fixed partisan views in this country that a bad debate performance, a conviction for a crime, doesn’t seem to move public opinion very much,” he told The Hill.
And Trump has traditionally struggled in suburban areas of Virginia, making him less valuable on the Seventh Day than he would be in more rural areas.
Seth Lynn, founder of the nonpartisan Veterans Campaign, an organization that trains veterans running for public office, told The Hill that in swing districts veteran status can give candidates an edge over their non-veteran competitors.
In the case of Virginia’s 7th District, however, the two candidates are on more equal terms.
“In swing districts that really could go either way, having something else, a record that has some appeal across party lines, I think Vindman fits that very well,” Lynn said.
The fight between two veterans for a seat in Congress is not unprecedented, with the 2022 election cycle featuring a wave of former military personnel from the wars of the 1990s and those following the 9/11 attacks.
Numerous midterm House and Senate races involved two veterans, including in Indiana, where incumbent Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), a Naval Academy graduate who served in the Marine Corps and is now a senator, defeated Thomas McDermott Jr., who served in the Navy aboard a nuclear submarine.
And in Virginia’s 2nd District, then-Rep. Elaine Luria (D), a 20-year Navy veteran and prominent member of the House Armed Services Committee, was defeated by former Navy helicopter pilot Jen Kiggans, a Republican senator of the state of Virginia.
But the 7th District promises to be a particularly bruising race, with both parties viewing the race as winnable in a tight race for the House majority.
“I think the RNC will view the 7th as the most likely recovery in Virginia,” said political analyst Bob Holsworth. “I expect it to be highly competitive, I expect a lot of money to be raised, and it is crucial for Democrats, if they want to carry the House, to keep this seat.”
The race has already become personal. Anderson on Tuesday accused Vindman of running “to pursue a personal vendetta,” claiming he was a newcomer to the district and not focused on local issues, according to a post on his campaign’s Facebook page.
Anderson, who filed as the local candidate, grew up in Spotsylvania County and has since returned after graduating from Georgetown University Law Center in 2019, according to his campaign page.
Vindman, who grew up in New York City after his family fled the Soviet Union in 1979, settled in Dale City, Virginia, in 2016 when he was assigned to the Pentagon.
Farnsworth predicted that both campaigns will be heavily funded “given that both parties want bragging rights, and that is in the Washington media market. So it will be an expensive race, one of the most expensive races in the country.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
