Virginia Democrats Host Get-Out-the-Vote Rally in Henrico

Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg barnstormed through the commonwealth, making a stop to support three Virginia Democrat candidates who are attempting to flip tightly contested districts.

Shannon Taylor in the 1st District, Elaine Luria in the 2nd District, and Tom Perriello in the 5th District were all on hand to speak alongside Buttigieg, a potential 2028 Democrat candidate for president.

The event was hosted at the Henrico Theater, which is actually in the 4th District. That’s a safe Democrat seat this year that’s represented by Jennifer McClellan, the first Black woman to represent Virginia in Congress. “The road to a House majority comes right through Virginia,” she told the crowd.

Perriello, a former U.S. representative, said that his internal polling shows him in a tight race with incumbent Rep. John McGuire in a district President Donald Trump carried by 12 points two years ago. He cited many other numbers as well: “$1,200 is the number of dollars out of people’s pockets from this Iran war because of higher gas and grocery prices,” he said.

Perriello also counted out costs related to health care.

“About 30,000 people in my district alone have been forced into in my district alone who’ve been forced into the shadows of the uninsured by the cuts of Medicaid and the cuts to middle class premiums,” Perriello said. “Another number is 15: the number of days we have until we show John McGuire the door.”

The only Washington Post/Schar School poll of the contest showed McGuire leading Perriello 51% to 45% at the end of September.

Taylor focused less on Trump’s policies and more on her opponent, a 10-term Republican incumbent.

“Rob Wittman has used his position to enrich himself, instead of serving the people who elected him,” she claimed, echoing her television ads that blanket the Richmond market. “His net worth has gone as much as 40 times, he’s traded over two-and-a-half million dollars in stock, including companies that his own committee is supposed to regulate.”

The Washington Post poll conducted late last month showed Taylor leading Wittman 50% to 46%. Wittman won the district by 13 points in 2024. Taylor also called for a ban on insider stock trading by members of Congress, a lifetime federal lobbying ban for former members of Congress, and jail time for politicians who break the law.

Luria, a former U.S. representative who lost her seat in 2022 to Republican Jen Kiggans, pointed out that in 2018 she helped flip three Republican seats to Democrat control, making Nancy Pelosi the speaker of the House during the first Trump term.

Luria also turned the spotlight on her opponent.

“[Kiggans] voted 100% of the time with Trump and voted to cut veterans benefits by 22%,” she said. “She voted for the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that’s going to gut Medicaid from 21,000 people in our district, and on top of that, she voted against extending the [Affordable Care Act] subsidies that I worked to pass when I was in Congress.”

Christopher Newport University’s recent poll showed the contest in Virginia’s 2nd District is within the margin of error, although Luria held a narrow, three-point edge in that survey.

The main attraction was Buttigieg, who took jabs at Trump’s administration.

“We’re going to win because this congressional GOP and this president have failed even by the mark that they set for themselves.” he said. “They came into office promising that they were going to make life more affordable. Remember they said they were going to cut costs on day one. Groceries and everything else were going to get cheaper on day one, that’s what Donald Trump promised. It is day 638.”

In a spirited 15-minute speech, Buttigieg also vowed to “ban partisan gerrymandering once and for all” if Democrats can win in November. Democrats in the General Assembly scheduled a special election in April to attempt to write a gerrymandering amendment into the state constitution. That measure passed but was struck down on technical grounds by the Virginia Supreme Court.

If all three of these candidates prevail, however, Democrats would control at least nine of the state’s 11 seats even without the gerrymander.

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