For all the latest developments in Congress, follow WTOP Capitol Hill correspondent Mitchell Miller at Today on the Hill.
The Virginia primary had light voter turnout, but it sets up midterm elections with weighty political implications for control of Congress.
Voters this fall will consider candidates for all the state’s congressional seats, as well as a race for U.S. Senate. The battle for control of the U.S. House will turn on just a few dozen races nationwide, so every contest counts.
House Republicans now have a 218-212 edge, with one independent and four seats currently unfilled.
Virginia Democrats had hoped to get a big boost in their congressional delegation from a redistricting referendum, potentially gaining four seats, for a 10-1 advantage. Voters initially approved it, but the state Supreme Court later rejected the referendum.
So instead of potentially picking up four seats, political analysts say Virginia Democrats have a realistic shot of flipping two seats. Republicans, in turn, hope to flip a Democratic seat.
2nd District House race is a bellwether
Former congresswoman Elaine Luria again won the Democratic nomination for the 2nd District House seat in the Virginia Beach area on Tuesday, setting up a rematch with GOP Rep. Jen Kiggans.
Kiggans is considered the most vulnerable Republican lawmaker in Virginia. She defeated Luria in 2022.
Voters in the district swing between the two parties. Since 2008, the party of the candidate that won the race in the 2nd District also won control of the House, making it a reliable bellwether for the broader election.
In the 1st District, Republican Rep. Rob Wittman will seek reelection against former Henrico County prosecutor Shannon Taylor.
Taylor is a former candidate for attorney general and has name recognition in the Richmond area.
While Wittman has held the seat for close to two decades, Democrats believe they can defeat him.
“Even though Democrats were thwarted in their plans to come up with a net gain of four seats in Virginia, the difficult environment for Republicans this cycle, because of the president, does create the possibility that there may be two seats, particularly Congressional District 1 and 2 … could be pickups anyway,” said Stephen Farnsworth, political scientist at Mary Washington University.
As for Republicans, they hope GOP nominee Douglas Ollivant can knock off Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman in Virginia’s 7th District. Ollivant, like Vindman, has served on the White House National Security Council.
Republicans believe he has a strong chance of flipping the seat, since Vindman only beat his GOP opponent in 2024 by less than three points.
Final race for U.S. Sen. Mark Warner
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner will face retired Army Maj. Gen. Bert Mizusawa, who cruised to a victory in the GOP primary. Warner has said it will be his last Senate campaign, as he seeks a fourth term.
Mizusawa acknowledged he’ll need to raise a lot more money as he takes on an incumbent who has a more than $25 million campaign war chest.
“Mark Warner is pretty much well-defined in the minds of most voters,” Mizusawa said in an interview with WTOP. “I think every dollar that I raise will go 10 times farther than the dollars he has, because I am a relative unknown.”
Mizusawa outraised his two GOP opponents in the primary, but the total money brought in by all of them was only about $620,000.
Democrats are confident Warner will hold his seat and they can’t afford any political slipups as they try to regain control of the Senate.
The victory of progressive Abdul El-Sayed in Tuesday’s Democratic Senate primary in Michigan over Rep. Haley Stevens sets up a big race against former GOP congressman Mike Rogers. Many establishment Democrats are concerned that El-Sayed will have a tough time beating Rogers in the fall election.
Democrats need to retain control of the Michigan seat if they are to have a solid chance of retaking the Senate. Democratic U.S. Sen. Gary Peters is retiring, which opened up the seat.
The Democratic Senate primary in Michigan had a strong turnout, with more than 1.5 million votes cast. By comparison, fewer than 250,000 voted in Virginia’s GOP Senate primary.
Republicans currently have a 53-47 majority in the Senate and Democrats need to net four seats to return to power in the upper chamber. Senate races that Democrats hope to flip include those in Alaska, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio.
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