A Close Election in a Longtime Republican District
VIRGINIA — Republican Rob Wittman has represented Virginia’s 1st Congressional District for nearly 19 years. On Tuesday, voters will decide whether to give him another term or replace him with Democrat Shannon Taylor, Henrico County’s top prosecutor.
The race has become one of Virginia’s most closely watched congressional contests. Recent polls show a close race, and the result could help determine which party controls the U.S. House.
Wittman has built his campaign on his experience and his record in Congress. Taylor argues that his nearly two decades in Washington are exactly the problem, and that voters should choose someone new.
On Monday, both campaigns made their final appeals to voters.
Taylor’s Closing Message
Taylor, the Henrico County commonwealth’s attorney, held a news conference Monday in the Richmond suburbs. She pointed to voter enthusiasm and to frustration over the cost of living.
“People are mad, and people want to see change,” she said.
In written answers to Zark News on Monday evening, her campaign gave undecided voters a closing message: “Ask yourself if you’re better off than you were two years ago. Families here are paying more for gas, groceries, healthcare and utilities, while Rob Wittman has spent nearly 20 years getting rich in Washington.”
Taylor, a prosecutor for 25 years and Henrico’s top prosecutor since 2012, is making her first run for Congress. She has promised to support a ban on stock trading by members of Congress, and she blames Wittman’s votes — on tariffs, on healthcare and on the war with Iran — for driving up costs.
Asked about the Wittman campaign’s argument that his experience is the reason to keep him, her campaign answered: “Twenty years of experience is exactly the problem.” She accused Wittman of trading stocks for his own benefit, and added: “Experience only matters if you use it to help the people you represent. He’s used his to help himself.”
Those are the Taylor campaign’s accusations. Wittman denies them, and his answer is below.
Wittman’s Case for Another Term
Wittman, an environmental health specialist who first won the seat in a 2007 special election, is the vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He has campaigned on his work on defense and military issues and on help for local communities.
In his final fundraising appeal, he wrote that he has “spent my time in Congress focused on getting things done for Virginia, not chasing headlines.” He has defended the U.S. role in the war with Iran. Taylor says she would vote to end the war and to repeal President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
On the finance allegations, Wittman has answered in a series of interviews. He says he has never personally traded a stock. “I’ve never traded a stock in my entire life,” he told Virginia Scope, explaining that a financial adviser manages his investments and does not discuss individual decisions with him.
He says the growth in his wealth came mostly from inheritances after his parents and his in-laws died. “My parents passed away,” he told the Washington Examiner. “My in-laws passed away. I would much rather have them here rather than have their inheritance. My financial reports bear that now. It’s very clear about where those finances have come from, and everything is transparent.”
His campaign also says he has never used private information to invest, and that he has voted for a bill to limit stock trading in Congress. He rejects Taylor’s claim that he voted to raise his own pay: “My salary today is the same as it was after 2007.”
The disagreement turns on a distinction. Taylor’s campaign accuses Wittman of trading millions of dollars in stocks while serving in Congress. Wittman says he has never personally placed a trade and that a financial adviser manages his investments. Personally placing trades and having investments traded by an adviser are different things, and neither one, by itself, establishes illegal or unethical conduct.
Zark News sent Wittman’s campaign written questions on Monday, with a deadline of 7 p.m. The campaign did not reply by that deadline.
The sharpest fight of the race is over a hospital case. The two candidates have spent about $23.5 million of their own campaign money on advertising, according to Virginia Public Access Project figures reported by The Richmonder — about $15 million by Taylor and $8.5 million by Wittman. Outside groups have spent millions more, most of it against Wittman.
Wittman’s campaign ran an ad blaming Taylor for what happened at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital, where a nurse, Erin Strotman, abused premature babies in the intensive care unit. The ad says Taylor’s office “let her go back to work,” after which more babies were hurt. Taylor answered with her own ad, noting that Strotman later pleaded no contest to nine felony child-abuse counts and was sentenced to three years in prison, and that Taylor backed a new law requiring hospitals to report suspected abuse sooner.
In 2023, investigators could not identify who had hurt the babies, and no charges were filed then. Taylor’s office instead negotiated an agreement requiring cameras and more training at the hospital. The hospital — not Taylor’s office — made the decision to return Strotman to work in September 2024, and Taylor’s criminal case began when Strotman was arrested in January 2025. WWBT’s 12 On Your Side fact-check rated Wittman’s ad false on October 15. WAVY’s Truth Tracker in Hampton Roads rated it false as well.
Wittman’s campaign points to an email exchange from August 2024. The hospital’s lawyer asked Taylor’s office whether it objected to nurses who had been placed on leave returning to work after training. A prosecutor in the office, Alison Martin, replied: “No objection at all.”
Why the District Matters
The district runs from the Richmond suburbs — including parts of Henrico, Hanover and Chesterfield counties — east to the Northern Neck, the Middle Peninsula and the Historic Triangle of Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown.
It has been Republican ground for decades. President Trump won it by about 5 points in 2024, and Wittman won re-election that year with 56 percent of the vote. But Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger carried the district in last year’s governor’s race, and that result is the foundation of Taylor’s campaign. The race is part of a larger national battle for control of the U.S. House, where both parties are competing for closely contested seats.
That is why both parties sent their leaders. House Speaker Mike Johnson campaigned with Wittman on Monday at a breakfast shop in western Henrico County, one stop on a final-week tour of 21 districts as Republicans fight to keep their House majority. On the trail this week, Johnson has argued that the polls are wrong and undercount Republicans. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries campaigned with Taylor in Glen Allen on Friday.
Voters have responded. More than 202,000 people had already voted in the district by Monday, according to the Henrico Citizen — the highest early-vote total among Virginia’s 11 congressional districts. The number shows strong interest. It does not show who is ahead.
What the Polls Show
Recent polls show a close race. Some surveys have Taylor slightly ahead, but the differences are small enough that the polls cannot establish who is leading.
The only independent public poll, by the Washington Post and the Schar School, surveyed 609 likely voters from September 23 to 28 and found Taylor ahead, 50 percent to 46 percent.
Two later polls were paid for by Democratic groups. Public Policy Polling, surveying for House Majority PAC from October 21 to 22, found Taylor ahead 47 percent to 46 percent. An internal poll for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, taken October 24 to 25 among 478 likely voters, found Taylor ahead 48 percent to 47 percent, a one-point gap inside the poll’s margin of error of 4.5 points.
The election forecasters split the same way. The Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball both rate the race a toss-up. Inside Elections rates it as leaning Republican.
What Voters Need to Know
Polls in Virginia are open Tuesday, November 3, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Anyone in line by 7 p.m. can still vote.
Voters can find their polling place through the Virginia Department of Elections. A mail ballot can be dropped off at any polling place on Tuesday. In-person early voting ended Saturday, October 31.
Taylor’s campaign closed its answers to Zark News with the same point both campaigns are making: “Every vote matters in a race this close.”
On Tuesday, the district decides.
