WASHINGTON – Incumbent U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock has won the Republican primary in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, the Associated Press has declared.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Comstock has 60.71 percent of the vote to Shak Hill’s 39.29 percent.
Comstock will take on state Sen. Jennifer Wexton, the winner of a six-way Democratic primary, in November.
Hill, an Air Force veteran, attacked Comstock as insufficiently conservative, pointing to a vote last year against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
In a statement Tuesday night, her campaign manager, Susan Falconer, cited Comstock’s “strong record of bipartisan accomplishment that are improving the lives of men, women, and children in our district and our country” and called herself “the only candidate in this race who has lived, worked and served in this District for over 35 years.”
She added that Comstock “is the only candidate in this race who has voted to cut our taxes and increase our take home pay and grow jobs; she is the only candidate in this race who has promised to fully fund our military and voted to do so and roll back the sequester cuts; she is the only candidate in this race to have passed two MS-13 anti-gang bills on a bipartisan basis that the President has already committed to sign.”
Falconer pointed to a bill passed with Democratic Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, of New Mexico, combating the opioid crisis. “Congresswoman Comstock gets results for the constituents she serves.”
The national Democratic Party has targeted the 10th District as an opportunity to flip the seat from Republican to Democratic. In 2016, Comstock won reelection with 53 percent of the vote, while Democratic presidential candidate won the district over Republican Donald Trump by 10 percentage points.
Dr. Larry Sabato, of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told WTOP he saw Comstock as “very vulnerable,” saying her margin of victory against Hill, whom he called “a right-wing fringe candidate,” was “a very poor showing.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
