(WASHINGTON) — Overturning a new congressional map in Virginia that would have favored Democrats has had an outsized impact on the state’s U.S. House primaries, with at least four high-profile candidates so far suspending their campaigns.
With Virginia keeping its current congressional map, which currently has six Democrats and five Republicans, Democratic candidates face the prospect of either running in a GOP-leaning district or of mounting primary bids to incumbent Democrats.
Virginia’s primaries are Aug. 4, having been changed from their original date of June 16. The state had also moved its candidate filing deadline to May 26, so candidates can still get on the ballot ahead of the primary.
Col. Bree Fram, a transgender woman who came out and transitioned while serving in the Air Force and who had joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its ban on transgender individuals in the military, suspended her campaign for the proposed 11th District. She would have been mounting a primary challenge to incumbent Rep. James Walkinshaw regardless of which map was in place.
“With only five weeks before early primary voting, the ruling left this campaign without sufficient time and resources to meaningfully pivot to the previous district and have the kind of substantive debate voters deserve,” Fram wrote.
Dorothy McAuliffe, the former first lady of Virginia who was running in the redrawn 7th District, announced last Saturday that she will similarly suspend her campaign. The 7th District is represented by Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman.
“For me, representing Virginia in Congress was an opportunity to do good, make government deliver, protect fundamental freedoms, lower costs, defend democracy, and fight for those too often ignored,” said McAuliffe, who is married to former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
J.P. Cooney, who had launched a bid for the 7th District and was the top deputy for former special counsel Jack Smith, who led investigations into President Donald Trump’s alleged interference in the 2020 election and alleged mishandling of classified documents, suspended his campaign last Friday.
“I am disappointed that the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision at the expense of the Commonwealth’s voters is now final. Although this means the end of my congressional campaign, our movement to fight corruption and lawlessness is just beginning,” Cooney wrote on X.
Dan Helmer, a Virginia state delegate who had also launched a bid for the redrawn 7th District, said last Friday he had ended his campaign.
“While I’m incredibly disappointed at tonight’s news, I can’t say I’m surprised. The MAGA playbook is straightforward: if you can’t win at the ballot box, pack the courts… While our candidacy for Congress has ended, the path forward is clear: as I’ve said consistently, we need reform of the courts, here in Virginia, and in the federal judiciary,” he wrote in a statement on X.
One major name has not yet confirmed her plans.
Olivia Troye, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence who changed parties and was running as a Democrat in the proposed 7th District, wrote in a blog post last Wednesday that she had visited an ICE detention facility on the day of the Virginia Supreme Court decision, and that both that visit and the court decision “made me more certain than ever that I cannot walk away from this fight.”
Troye has not confirmed if she plans to withdraw from the race. ABC News has reached out to Troye and her campaign. Troye was among the highest-profile Trump administration officials to become a critic of the president during his first term.
One candidate has said he’s staying in the race even with the Democratic-favoring map thrown out.
Tom Perriello, a former member of Congress who had planned to run in the redrawn 5th District, said the day the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling dropped that he is still going to run for Congress but is shifting to the current 5th District to try to unseat incumbent GOP Rep. John McGuire. Perriello represented the 5th from 2009 to 2011.
“We are obviously aware of the Virginia Supreme Court decision, and as we said from the launch of the campaign, we will respect the will of the voters and the courts … having done hundreds of listening sessions across Central and Southside Virginia over the last few months, I can say one thing that people on the right, left and center, seem to agree on is that McGuire needs to be fired and replaced by somebody who actually cares about Central and South Side Virginia,” he told reporters on Friday, just hours after the seismic court decision.
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