Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, located in suburban Washington, was never intended to be a linchpin in the fight for control of the House of Representatives. But with the ugliest Democratic primary of 2024 finally over, national Democrats may be watching nervously as the results are announced Tuesday night.
The leading candidate, state Rep. Dan Helmer, is fending off a last-minute accusation of sexual harassment, which he strenuously denies. Another leading candidate, Eileen Filler-Corn, was attacked by a progressive political action committee over a donation to a pro-Israel group that she then supported.
Krystle Kaul, one of the industry’s top fundraisers, is accused of embellishing her resume far beyond the usual flourishes of a political campaign. And amid the mud stirred up, another top candidate, state Senator Suhas Subramanyam, denied a report that he had wrongly placed members of his Senate staff on his campaign’s payroll, an allegation he says is categorically false.
All of this is a surprisingly brutal conclusion to the political saga of Rep. Jennifer Wexton, the current Democratic representative who flipped a Republican seat in the 2018 election wave and then announced her retirement last year after being diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder for which it is one gives no effective treatment.
A dozen Democrats are in the running to replace her, many with distinguished political resumes. Ms. Filler-Corn was the first woman and the first Jewish Speaker of the Virginia State House. Mr. Subramanyam is currently the senator for much of the district. Mr. Helmer is a Rhodes Scholar and an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, Iraq and as a member of the Virginia House.
But those backgrounds and ambitions laid the foundation for a campaign that burned the soil of what was once Republican horse country and is now a diverse suburban landscape. Many of the candidates know each other — Mr. Helmer was among a group of Democrats in the Virginia State House who ousted Ms. Filler-Corn as their leader in 2022 after the party lost control of the chamber. And much to the dismay of local party leaders, many of the bigger names refused to drop out and rally around a rival to consolidate the field.
None of this would matter much if the district were overwhelmingly Democratic (which it isn’t) or control of the House wasn’t on a knife’s edge (it is). Until Republican Barbara Comstock’s defeat in 2018, Virginia’s 10th District had been reliably red for nearly 40 years, and control of the chamber next year could depend on just a handful of races across the country. With the Senate map favoring Republicans and former President Donald J. Trump leading in most polls, the House race has taken on outsized importance.
“We need a candidate who won’t put this seat at risk, and this is not a Democratic slam dunk,” Subramanyam said on Monday. “We cannot harm our ability to win back the House of Representatives, which could be the last barrier to protecting democracy for future generations.”
Ms. Wexton endorsed Mr. Subramanyam in May, hoping to mobilize Democrats and win the field. Two days later, the Washington Post endorsed Mr. Helmer, causing another stir.
Then last week, an anonymous Democratic official, through her lawyer, accused Mr. Helmer of groping her and later making sexually crude comments. On June 10, three former Loudon County Democratic Party chairs and current vice chairs supported the accuser, releasing a statement saying the party had revised its sexual harassment policies in response to the “egregious harassment” of a party member Loudon County developed by Mr. Helmer.
Shortly thereafter, the Virginia chapter of the National Organization for Women, Ms. Filler-Corn, Ms. Kaul, Mayor Michele Davis Young of Manassas, Va., and others called on Mr. Helmer to drop out of the race. Mr. Helmer refused, denouncing “baseless allegations” made “a week before an election by people who supported my opponents.”
National Republicans, for their part, have watched with barely concealed joy.
“We would never comment before the primary about a Democrat with serious ethical baggage that would lead to devastating political attack ads and anger a large bloc of independents and base Democratic voters,” said Will Reinert, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “That would be presumptuous.”
Democratic voters in the district, overwhelmed with texts attacking Mr. Helmer, could be forgiven for not knowing where to turn. Ms. Filler-Corn was also bombarded with negative publicity from the liberal Virginia Democratic Action Political Action Committee, which called her a “bad Democrat.” The group also filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission saying its state political action committee transferred $110,000 to the Democratic Majority for Israel the day after the PAC endorsed it for Congress.
Ms. Filler-Corn responded defiantly: “It is shameful that as the woman best positioned to win this primary, I am facing hundreds of thousands of baseless attack ads funded by donors to other candidates in this race,” she said she.
Ms. Kaul, one of the top three fundraisers in the race, faced questions from rivals and some district voters, particularly about where she got more than $552,000 for her campaign and how she was able to leverage her brief career as a military contractor and communications professional in the campaign’s claim to “help direct U.S. intelligence and defense operations at the CIA, United States Central Command and the broader Department of Defense.”
Ms Kaul denied any intention to inflate her work. And she said her personal involvement in her campaign was a testament to the seriousness of her first attempt at running for office.
Then late last month, a local news outlet reported that four of the five people on Mr. Subramanyam’s campaign staff were also taxpayer-funded members of his Senate staff in Virginia. Mr Subramanyam said he “double- and triple-checked” to ensure no taxpayer money was used for campaign work.
He also said, “We’re one of many campaigns that have someone on the legislative side and on the campaign trail. “That’s pretty common in Virginia.”
Meanwhile, the field of eight Republican candidates has shrunk to four, including Aliscia Andrews, a Marine Corps veteran, and Alexander Isaac, a retired Army lieutenant colonel.
Such credible Republicans were a big reason why Avram Fechter, a former chairman of the Loudoun County Democratic Committee, said he spearheaded the public letter calling out Mr. Helmer.
A Republican could well win the seat, he said, adding that he believed his party would be taking a risk by nominating Mr. Helmer in November.
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2024-06-18 09:03:34
www.nytimes.com
