Democratic Representative Elaine Luria, a member of the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot at the Capitol, lost her race in Virginia’s 2nd district on Tuesday evening.
Ms Luria faced state Senator Jen Kiggans in a highly-contested race in a district that includes US Naval bases. Both candidates served in the branch. Republicans went into overdrive to win the seat that Ms Luria had flipped in the 2018 midterm election.
But the district became significantly more Republican after redistricting, giving Republicans a six-point advantage. With almost all precincts reporting both their Election Day and early voting precinct numbers, Ms Kiggans had received roughly 52 per cent of the vote compared to Ms Luria’s 47.86 per cent.
Ms Luria was the sole member running in a swing district. Representative Stephanie Murphy of Florida opted to retire.
The two-term moderate Democrat made defending democracy a hallmark of her re-election campaign. In many ads, she highlighted her military service in the US Navy.
“If standing up for what’s right, means losing an election, so be it,” she said in an ad.
But at the same time, she faced difficulty as inflation continued to hit voters hard. After one of her debates, she tried to emphasise why defending democracy should be at the front of voters’ mind despite rising prices.
“I understand gas prices are rising – food prices,” she said, CBS News’s Scott MacFarlane reported last month. “But when I talk about existential threats – and we have someone who tried to overturn results – that’s the end of America as we know it.”
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rated her race as a “toss up” and Republicans spent tons of money to unseat her.
Ms Luria first won her district in 2018 when she beat incumbent Republican Scott Taylor and held it again in a rematch in 2020. But the district became significantly more Republican after redistricting and Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin won large chunks of it in 2021.
The news comes despite the fact that Democratic Representatives Abigail Spanberger in Virgina’s 7th and Jennifer Wexton in Virginia’s 10th triumphed despite difficult races.
