| The New York Times spoke directly with voters in Virginia Beach, and what they heard is clear: they are fed up with Jen Kiggans for supporting Donald Trump’s reckless war of choice in Iran.
A military spouse in Chic’s Beach lamented that “[Kiggans] has been up the president’s butt with everything that he is trying in Iran.” She told the Times that she would be voting for Elaine Luria.
A former Navy civilian and “self-identified independent” told the Times that he planned to back Democrats on the ballot in November.
And a retired business owner went as far as saying, “We’re usually Republicans… Now with this president, I don’t know.”
As for Kiggans? “Her campaign declined multiple interview requests.”
Read the highlights below:
- “We’re usually Republicans,” Ms. Evans, a retired business owner, said as the water crept up to her sneakers. “Now with this president, I don’t know.”
- The war with Iran was weighing heavily on Ms. Evans, the mother of a Marine veteran, as it is for many voters in Virginia’s Second Congressional District, where on any given day, sailors in uniform walk the streets and jet planes dot the skies. The Navy-heavy district is deeply intertwined with the country’s Atlantic Fleet, which has shouldered a significant share of the branch’s deployments to the Middle East. It is the kind of place where defense policies carry weight with voters, and conflicts abroad have a direct line to home.
- Now it is Ms. Kiggans’s support of Mr. Trump and his actions abroad that have become potent attack lines for Ms. Luria in her campaign to win back the seat. And Ms. Kiggans has the double-barreled task of distancing herself from Mr. Trump’s unpopular policies, from which she has rarely broken during her time in Congress, while staying in good favor with a president known to punish members for opposing him, including on the war.
- Key to [Luria’s] pitch is hitting Ms. Kiggans, a former Navy helicopter pilot, for failing to break with the president on the conflict. The Republican has voted seven times against resolutions directing Mr. Trump to end the war in Iran or seek explicit authorization from Congress to continue it.
- More recently, Ms. Kiggans followed Mr. Trump’s lead in dismissing reports about food shortages and grim conditions aboard the Abraham Lincoln, a San Diego-based aircraft carrier that is returning home after being deployed for nearly nine months, that captured the attention of voters in the district. Mr. Trump called media reports about the Lincoln “fake news,” and Ms. Kiggans echoed him, writing on social media, “The media has got to stop spreading the democrat lies and misinformation about our great Navy.”
- Ms. Luria has said that voters see Ms. Kiggans, along with Mr. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as “having zero compassion or concern for those sailors” aboard the Lincoln. And last Thursday, when Ms. Luria hosted a group of veterans at a brewery a mile up the road from Naval Air Station Oceana, the shipmates languishing on warships near the Strait of Hormuz became a focal point of conversation over the conflict.
- “I served for 22 years, and I am starting to lose sight of why,” said John Quillin, a Democrat and retired Navy fuels chief. “I’m kind of embarrassed.” He was backing Ms. Luria.
- Ms. Luria, a former Navy surface warfare officer, chimed in: “I think it matters that you believe in what you’re doing, and I just can’t imagine that everyone out there believes.”
- “Republicans in Congress aren’t asking any of these questions; they’re just standing with Trump and supporting this war,” she said in an interview.
- Ms. Kiggans through her campaign declined multiple interview requests.
- While glancing at the Cape Charles-area gas pumps, with prices ranging from $3.98 to $4.89 per gallon, Ms. Luria painted a different picture.
- “There’s no end in sight to this,” she said.
- In Chic’s Beach, a laid-back Virginia Beach neighborhood in a precinct that Ms. Kiggans won by 226 votes in 2022, there were a few yard signs for Ms. Kiggans and Ms. Luria. Rosemarie Herrity, a military spouse whose late husband served 32 years, put up two Luria jumbo signs on her house’s corner lot. Ms. Herrity said that she had long backed Democrats but that the Iran war had further cemented her frustration with Ms. Kiggans.
- “She has been up the president’s butt with everything that he is trying in Iran,” Ms. Herrity said, adding, “She should know better.”
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