Dumfries — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, DN.Y.came to a democratic rally here on Sunday Eugene VindmanHe made a bid to represent the 7th Congressional District, but it became a bipartisan affair.
Former Republican Congresswoman Barbara ComstockWindman and Vice President Kamala Harris are among the ranks of R-10th Virginia Democrats who have endorsed her for president, including Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th; U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-W.; and Virginia Speaker of the House Don Scott Jr.D-Portsmouth, is seeking Democratic control of Congress.
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Warner introduced Comstock on stage, and Spanberger thanked him for “doing the right thing for our country.”
“Democracy is on the way,” Comstock said after the rally. “I think this is the most important election of my life.”
Jeffries is counting votes in the upcoming election as Democrats seek to regain the majority and elect him as the first black speaker of the US House of Representatives.
“We’re four seats away from taking back control of the House,” he told a congregation at Mount Zion Baptist Church in nearby Triangle on Sunday morning, along with Windman and Spanberger. “This is an important place.”
Spanberger first won the seat in 2018 and retained it in two subsequent elections. He is running for governor next year instead of running for re-election. Jeffries called him “a strong, deep, principled, pragmatic public servant, and one who, with your help, I find to be the next governor of the great commonwealth of Virginia.”
Jeffrey appeared Thursday in the 2nd Congressional District in Hampton Roads, where Missy Cotter Smasal is running against Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-2nd, in an election that suddenly looks close to the Republican incumbent. A poll released last week by Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Public Policy put Kiggans ahead by 1 percentage point within the poll’s margin of error.
“neck to neck”
No independent polls were released on the 7th, but Republican Derrick Anderson released a number of internal polls commissioned by his campaign, including one that showed Windman leading by 2 percentage points less than two weeks before the election. Democrats have not released any independent polling data, but admit the race is tight.
“Eugene Vindman is in a neck-and-neck race, but all the bases seem to be in his favor,” Jeffries told the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Sunday morning. “We’ve got to get him across the finish line.”
Anderson is getting strong support from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who will run with him in Spotsylvania County on Nov. 4, a day before the election. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, accompanied Anderson to a get-out-the-vote rally in Orange County on Saturday.
Jordan failed to become speaker after 5th Rep. Bob Hood and seven other conservatives voted to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who struck a deal with House Democrats in California last fall to prevent a government funding package. federal shutdown.
Windman, who noted that Jordan was with Anderson, called the Republican House “the least productive Congress in living memory.”
“We have work to do,” he said.
Jeffries noted the contrast between Jordan and Spanberger, who served as his adviser in Virginia’s battleground political districts like the 7th and 2nd.
Scott, who became the first black speaker of the House this year, mocked Jordan by saying, “Mr. Government shutdown, protecting the government.”
Federal employees
Jeffries said the stakes are particularly high for federal employees, contractors and military veterans, who are concentrated in the 7th District, east of Prince William County and the Fredericksburg area, but stretching west into the Blue Ridge Mountains. to the south by Caroline County.
The House faces a political challenge ahead of Christmas as the lame-duck Congress faces another budget deadline to fund the government. Congress postponed a spending freeze until the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
During the campaign, Windman highlighted the implications for the 7th District if Republicans hold on to the House majority and win control of the Senate and the White House.
Former President Donald Trump has promised to restore Schedule F, an executive order signed late in his term to expand partisan oversight of federal employees and repealed by President Joe Biden. He also promised to move 100,000 federal workers out of Northern Virginia and the rest of Washington, an area economically dependent on it.
Anderson has vowed to oppose any legislation or executive action to drive jobs out of the region. Democrats have also raised the specter of Project 2025, a plan created by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups for another Trump presidency. Anderson dropped the plan, but Democrats are still trying to tie him to it.
“One of the reasons for electing Yevgeny Vindman is that we need to change control of the US House of Representatives – we’re going to stop Project 2025 in its tracks,” Jeffries said at the rally.
“It’s also about Virginia,” said Comstock, who lives in McLean, Fairfax County. This is Northern Virginia.”
He praised Windman for his role in Trump’s first impeachment as White House National Security Council ethics adviser.
“He’s a very nice person, and I think he really represents the area,” Comstock said.
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