Jen Kiggans (VA-02) Research Report

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• Kiggans said she would not support a budget that included Medicaid cuts, and stressed the need to protect Medicaid and hospitals.
  • Kiggans signed a letter saying she “cannot and will not support a final reconciliation bill that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations.”
• Kiggans ultimately “folded” and voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill, the largest cut to Medicaid in history, which would kick more than 21,000 people in VA-02 off their health insurance.
  • Kiggans cast the deciding vote to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill.

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• Kiggans’ vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill cut nearly $800 million in expected annual revenue from Virginia hospitals, including more than $44 million from hospitals in VA-02.
• Three health clinics in Western Virginia were closed due to Kiggans backing The One Big Beautiful Bill.
  • Kiggans signed a letter to Republican leadership that stressed the “critical need” to protect Medicaid and hospitals.
• October 2025: Kiggans visited one of Bon Secours’ medical facilities touting “investments” for rural hospitals after voting to cut their Medicaid revenue, leaving one of Bon Secours’ other facilities in her district “at risk” of closing.
  • Southampton Memorial Hospital in Kiggans’ district was expected to see more than $1.3 million in revenue cuts following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, and the hospital was flagged as being “at risk” of closure.
• Kiggans’ vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill cut nearly $3 billion in health care funding for Virginia, but she still touted the Rural Health Transformation Program, which only provided the state about $189 million.

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• Kiggans voted multiple times to not extend Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits, leaving more than 30,000 people in VA-02 to face skyrocketing monthly premiums.
  • Kiggans was not among four Republicans who signed a discharge petition to force the vote on ACA tax credit extension.
  • Failure to extend the ACA tax credits would increase health care premiums for certain groups of VA-02 beneficiaries by nearly $1,000 a month.
  • Kiggans admitted she would not fight her party on extending the ACA tax credits.
• Kiggans opposed several bills that would expand affordable health care while in the Virginia State Senate.
• Kiggans’ largest donors in 2019 were either closely connected with big pharma companies or acted in their interests.

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• The One Big Beautiful Bill enacted the largest SNAP cut in the program’s history, threatening to take away food assistance for more than 22,000 households in VA-02.
• Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy: The One Big Beautiful Bill would give the richest 1% of Americans $117 billion in net tax cuts in 2026.
• The One Big Beautiful Bill’s biggest tax cuts benefited the wealthiest, giving them tax cuts three times greater than for working Americans.
• The One Big Beautiful Bill was expected to make poor Americans even poorer while padding the wallets of the highest earners.

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• Kiggans wrote a letter “voicing [her] support” for the clean energy tax credits and warned cutting them would raise energy costs.
• Kiggans represented a district which had “an offshore wind project, [and] that has some solar panel projects.”
• Kiggans said the tax credits had led to an increase in clean energy production and domestic manufacturing in her district.
• Kiggans warned that cutting clean energy tax credits could lead to higher energy bills for Virginians.
• Kiggans said clean energy investments would bring $37 billion to Virginia by 2035.
• Despite warning that cutting the credits would increase energy prices and threatened billions in clean energy investments in her district and across Virginia, Kiggans voted to cut them anyway.
• After she was the deciding vote to pass the house reconciliation bill gutting clean energy tax credits, Kiggans led a letter to the Senate asking them to “mitigate” the bill’s impacts on clean energy investments.

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• Kiggans said “That’s right. Ditto. Yes. Yes to that” in response to a radio host saying Hakeem Jeffries should keep his “cotton picking-hands” out of Virginia.
• Kiggans did not apologize for agreeing with the radio host’s racist remarks about Jeffries and denied any wrongdoing.
  • Kiggans did not apologize for agreeing with the host’s remarks, saying Democrats were using the controversy to distract from their loss in court.
• Kiggans reacted defensively and attacked Democrats instead of taking accountability for agreeing with the radio host’s racist language.
  • Kiggans claimed she was agreeing that Hakeem Jeffries should stay out of Virginia, and not with the host’s racist remarks, saying “This is precisely what’s wrong with Democrats.”
  • Later in the day, a journalist asked Kiggans whether she wished she had confronted the radio host in the moment for using the racist language, and Kiggans stuttered, said yes, but qualified her answer.
• Mike Johnson and the NRCC defended Kiggans, claiming she misspoke and calling the situation a “nothing-burger.”
• Kiggans declined to comment and quickly walked away when asked by a reporter about her agreement with the radio host’s racist comment about Hakeem Jeffries.
• Jeffries’ spokesperson said Kiggans doubled down on her refusal to disavow the racist comments from the radio host, and Elaine Luria called Kiggans’ remarks “disgusting and beneath any elected official.”
• The podcast segment where Herrera interviewed Kiggans was removed from the radio show’s page on Apple Podcasts.

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• April 2026: Kiggans continued to cheerlead the war in Iran, saying she “couldn’t be a stauncher supporter” of the war.
  • Kiggans: “I couldn’t be a stauncher supporter of the action that we’re taking against Iran.”
  • Kiggans: “I look forward to just continuing to support… the actions of the administration.”
• Even as Kiggans continued to cheerlead the war in Iran, she acknowledged it was raising gas prices on Virginians.
  • Kiggans: “I need gas prices to come back down. I too am tired of paying high prices at the pump… I know that the Iran conflict has a little bit to do with it… we need that to come down before the midterms.”
• The Iran War drove up gas prices for Virginians significantly, with some blaming Kiggans’ support for the war.
  • May 2026: Average gas prices in Norfolk-Virginia Beach were up significantly, from under $3 a year prior to close to $4.50.
  • May 2026: The Iran War drove gas prices up for Virginians, with some unable to fill their tanks all the way due to the price.
  • One community advocate said of Kiggans and her support for the war, “She’s literally making the cost of things unaffordable for not only the people we interact with, but for people all across Hampton Roads.”
• Thousands of military personnel from installations in Kiggans’ district were deployed to support the war effort.
• August 2025: Kiggans supported Trump’s previous actions in Iran and namechecked the large military installations in her district.

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• Kiggans backed Trump’s tariffs and dismissed people’s concerns about rising costs as “fear mongering.”
  • Kiggans on tariffs: “I know that there’s a lot of, you know, concern, anxiety. I almost want to say fear mongering.”
• 2025-2026: Kiggans voted eight times to protect Trump’s tariffs, including casting the deciding vote to prevent the House from exercising any control over reckless tariffs.
• Tariffs were projected to raise prices for Virginians, including drug costs, energy prices, and consumer goods.
• Tariffs were a tax on American consumers and resulted in price increases across the country.

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• Kiggans represented nearly 35,000 federal workers living in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District.
• Kiggans claimed to fight for Virginia workers, especially federal workers.
  • March 2025: Kiggans said she had “communicated with the administration advocating for federal workers.”
• March-August 2025: Trump signed two executive orders to strip collective bargaining rights for nearly half a million federal workers across agencies in a move a nurses’ union called “union busting, plain and simple.”
• Kiggans voted against a bipartisan bill to nullify Trump’s executive order and refused to join a discharge petition that got the bill to the floor.
• Kiggans sided with union busters over the nearly 35,000 federal workers living in her district.

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• Kiggans supported DOGE and called it “so necessary.”
• February 2025: Kiggans patronized federal workers in her district, telling them “to take a deep breath” regarding DOGE cuts.
• September 2025: Kiggans told federal workers who were experiencing joblessness due to DOGE cuts that there were jobs, and they just needed “to go out and get them.”
• June 2025: Kiggans voted for $9.4 billion in DOGE cuts.
• Workers in Kiggans’ district, and across the state of Virginia, were adversely impacted by DOGE cuts.
• DOGE terminated more than $8.3 million in projects in Kiggans’ district and more than $301 million in Virginia statewide programs.
• Virginia’s economy was negatively affected by DOGE cuts leading to rising unemployment rates in the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News area and statewide.
• Virginia was one of the states most affected by job losses from Trump’s DOGE cuts including a DOGE-canceled flood zone project in Hampton Roads.
• Reuters: “DOGE impact” was the leading reason for job cuts in 2025.
• DOGE cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs were expected to negatively impact care for veterans – who made up a sizable portion of Kiggans’ district.

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• Kiggans made numerous extreme comments about abortion, including comparing it to “infanticide.”
  • 2021: Kiggans said she opposed abortion “at all stages from conception to natural death.”
  • 2020: Kiggans said the expansion of abortion access was “harmful” and “not in the best interest of women nor women’s health.”
  • Kiggans said she had a patient who committed suicide over the guilt of having had an abortion 20 years earlier.
  • Kiggans compared abortion to “infanticide” on multiple occasions, and even appeared to scrub the “infanticide” language from her state senate campaign website.
• Kiggans supported allowing states to ban abortion with no exceptions.
  • 2022: Kiggans said she “applauds the decision to overturn Roe.”
  • The overturning of Roe V. Wade allowed states to ban abortion, even for survivors of rape and incest, or even to save the life of the woman.
• Kiggans expressed support for a national 15-week abortion ban.
• Kiggans voted multiple times to restrict abortion access since being in Congress.
• Kiggans voted multiple times against abortion access in the Virginia State Senate.
  • 2020: Kiggans voted for TRAP restrictions on abortion clinics, like ultrasound requirements, and 24-hour waiting periods.
• Kiggans agreed with Senator Tommy Tuberville’s stance that federal funds should not be used for abortions, despite him purposely holding up more than 300 military promotions in protest.
• Kiggans supported Mike Johnson, an anti-abortion extremist, in his race to become Speaker of the House.
• Kiggans endorsed Winsome Earle-Sears for governor of Virginia, an anti-abortion extremist who said abortion was “wicked,” “genocide,” and blamed school shootings on abortion.
• Kiggans said that she and Marjorie Taylor Greene, an anti-abortion extremist, “want the same things.”
• Kiggans said she was “honored” to be endorsed by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an extreme anti-abortion group whose mission was to end abortion with no exceptions.

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• Kiggans voted for the Republican led debt ceiling plan that the VA said would lead to cuts in services and staff.
• Kiggans was a co-sponsor of restore Veterans Affairs (VA) Accountability Act of 2023 which could “jeopardize the quality of care provided to our nation’s heroes and undermine the rights and job security of dedicated VA workers.”
• Kiggans complained about the conditions of military housing but voted to cut military construction and said she missed opportunities to get money to fix local military housing.

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• Kiggans said “military issues were not partisan to her” and called using veterans, the military, and troops as pawns wrong…
• …But in 2022 the RNC set up a veterans center with few veterans’ services to help get Kiggans elected to Congress.
• Kiggans voted for “a deeply partisan defense bill” that harmed abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, inclusion, and banned books.
• Kiggans voted for controversial social issue amendments that politicized the military construction-VA appropriations bill, usually considered one of the least controversial pieces of annual spending.

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• April 2020: As a State Senator, Kiggans voted against the Virginia Fairness In Lending Act, which fought predatory lending.
• Kiggans said she never took money from payday lenders, but she accepted thousands of dollars from a PAC funded by the payday loan industry during her state senate and congressional races.
• Predatory lending, including payday lending practices, disproportionately hurt military families.
• Months prior to voting against the Virginia Fairness In Lending Act, Kiggans accepted a gift from PRA Group, a debt collection lobbying group that was fined millions by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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• Kiggans voted against raising Virginia’s minimum wage gradually over six years to $15/hour.
• Kiggans called for halting laws raising Virginia’s minimum wage and implementing labor protections during the COVID pandemic.
• Kiggans said voting on issues, including increasing the minimum wage, made her feel like she was legislating in Democratic-run states like California and New York.
• Kiggans was one of only four Republican state senators to vote against eliminating domestic workers’ exclusion in Virginia’s Minimum Wage Act.
• Kiggans voted against paying a fair wage to workers on public works contracts and transportation projects.
• Kiggans said Virginia’s increase in minimum wage made it harder for high school students, like her son, to find summer jobs.

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• Kiggans supported Elon Musk’s DOGE program, calling it “very necessary,” even as it haphazardly cut $811 million in federal funds and left local law enforcement scrambling to replace funds they depended on to keep people safe.
  • A DOGE staffer made $811 million in haphazard cuts to DOJ funds that helped local police and supported crime victims.
  • The funds that were cut had supported local violence reduction, juvenile justice and child protection, drug and mental health treatment, and state and local public safety.
  • DOJ cuts to public safety grants left police and local law enforcement agencies scrambling to replace dollars and threatened layoffs for people who fight crime at the local level.
• Kiggans said she worked tirelessly to make sure law enforcement was “fully” funded and well trained and would continue to support law enforcement in Congress…
• … But in the Virginia Senate, Kiggans repeatedly voted against raises or bonuses for law enforcement officers and voted against a bill that gave law enforcement more training in de-escalation and guidelines for use of deadly force.
• In Congress, Kiggans voted to defund the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in a Republican-led continuing resolution, and Kiggans voted for an amendment by Matt Gaetz to defund the FBI headquarters.

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• In the Virginia State Senate, Kiggans voted against banning conversion therapy for minors.
• 2022: Kiggans introduced a bill in the Virginia General Assembly banning “inherently divisive concepts” in schools which was criticized by the ACLU for having “vague” language and restricting teachers’ ability to teach about LGBTQ issues and Black history.
• Kiggans said she “believes in equality” and “nondiscrimination” and would make mindful decisions about discrimination including for the LGBTQ community…
• … But Kiggans voted for the Parents Bill of Rights Act that contained multiple amendments harmful to LGBTQ+ students that a Republican colleague said could put “vulnerable children at greater risk.”
• Kiggans voted for partisan amendments to the FY2024 NDAA that harmed LGBTQ+ rights.

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• 2025-2026: Kiggans voted with Trump 100% of the time, and voted with Republicans more than 94% of the time.
• 2024: Kiggans endorsed Trump for president.
• 2022: Kiggans said, the country was in a better place under Trump and “if Trump's in there, i'm happy to support him.”
• 2019: Kiggans Said she was a “big supporter” of Trump and called him a “genius.”

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• 2022: Kiggans would not directly answer when asked if she believed Biden won the 2020 election and repeatedly ran away from reporters when asked.
• 2021: The New York Times said Kiggans was among the Republicans “trying to deflect the question of Mr. Biden’s legitimacy.”
• February 2022: Kiggans was one of four Republicans in the Virginia State Senate who voted for a $70 million “full forensic audit” of the 2020 presidential election led by “wackadoodle” State Sen. Amanda Chase.
• Kiggans said restoring voter confidence and election integrity was a priority of hers.

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• Kiggans said she opposed offshore drilling, but then voted against an offshore drilling ban in the Virginia State Senate and deleted any mention of her opposition to drilling from her website.
• Kiggans claimed she was a conservative who was “mindful of our environment” and said she backed sustainable and renewable energy…
• … But during her time in the State Senate she voted against removing barriers to homeowners and businesses generating solar power, and voted against the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA).
• In Congress, Kiggans voted against amendments to prevent offshore drilling off the coast of Virginia.
• Kiggans said she supported offshore wind energy development…
• … But voted to repeal climate-focused tax credits, including repealing new credits for solar and wind projects.
• Kiggans voted for prohibiting funds for use on climate change and promoting clean energy and voted for Republican amendments that harmed the environment.
• Kiggans voted for a bill to roll back Biden Administration climate efforts, doubled the cost of energy efficiency upgrades, eliminated the methane emissions reduction.

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• Kiggans regularly accepted campaign donations from the NRA and touted an “A” rating from the organization.
• Kiggans received a “very pro-gun” survey grade from pro-gun PAC Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc., accepted a $3,500 campaign contribution from the same group, and voted in line with their values as a state senator.
• Within weeks of joinin the Virginia State Senate, Kiggans admitted she was abandoning her campaign promise to reach across the aisle in order to vote against gun control legislation.
• Kiggans said addressing mental health with more health care providers was her preferred solution to gun violence, but voted against funding for anti-violence initiatives and mental health intervention from health professionals in the Virgina State Senate.

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• Kiggans plagiarized former Rep. Luria’s arguments on national security threats posed by China in a fundraising email that attempted to attack Luria with “almost verbatim” quotes from her op-ed.
• Kiggans’ effort to misrepresent Luria’s position on China while lifting key phrases from her op-ed placed her in “an entirely different universe of hypocrisy.”
• Kiggans’ primary opponent, Jarome Bell, said there was nothing original about Kiggans and likened her to a knock-off Elaine Luria for plagiarizing her China talking points.

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• 2024-2026: Kiggans failed to pass a single bill into law during her time in Congress.