RICHMOND, Va.—Out of the three toss-up House races in Virginia that could decide the next House majority, both Democrats and Republicans have kept their current territories.
Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) won re-election in the Virginia Beach-anchored 2nd congressional district; Democrat candidates Eugene Vindman and Suhas Subramanyam won the open seats in northern Virginia’s highly contested 7th and 10th congressional districts, respectively.
First-term congresswoman Kiggans, a former Virginia state Senator and retired Navy helicopter pilot, defeated her Democratic challenger Missy Cotter Smasal, a retired Navy officer and former small business owner, by 4.1 points.
The 2nd district, which has an outsized military presence due to the world’s largest naval base nearby, has twice changed hands between the major political parties in the past six years. Kiggans defeated the Democratic incumbent by 3.4 percent in 2022.
The 7th Congressional District, representing Prince William, Stafford, and Spotsylvania counties in the Commonwealth, has been highly competitive since incumbent Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), a former CIA officer, turned the traditionally red territory blue in 2018. She defended her seat twice with a two-point and a five-point margin in 2020 and 2022. Spanberger has decided to run for the governor in 2025, leaving the seat open.
Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin won the district by less than 5 percent in 2021.
Democrat Eugene Vindman won the district by 2.2 points, defeating Republican Derrick Anderson. Both are Army veterans and lawyers. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonprofit watchdog, Vindman raised nearly $16 million, and Anderson raised nearly $3 million.
Vindman is known for his role during President Donald Trump’s first impeachment. Along with his twin brother Alexander Vindman, he reported that the president had pressed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden during a call in July 2019, which led to the first impeachment inquiry. The GOP-controlled Senate acquitted Trump in February 2020 after the House voted to impeach him along partisan lines. The Vindman brothers later lost their jobs with the National Security Council.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) campaigned for their candidates in the two districts.
“We are doing political combat now in Washington, OK?” Johnson said at Anderson’s campaign headquarters on election eve. “I need Derrick Anderson at the table.”
While stumping for Vindman at the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Triangle, Jeffries told the rally attendees, “We’re just four seats from taking back control of the House ... This is an important seat.”
Real Clear Politics moved the 10th district race to a “tossup” shortly before Election Day. Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.), the incumbent who won by beating her Republican challenger, retired Navy captain Hung Cao, by 6.5 percent in 2022, announced her retirement due to health reasons.
Mike Clancy, a business executive, and Virginia state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam competed for the open seat. Subramanyam won by 4.2 points.
Cao lost to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) in a U.S. Senate race Tuesday.
