Naval Officers Face Off at 2022 Midterms’ Ground Zero

This naval-officer showdown is one of the tightest congressional races in the country.

Kyle Kondik

of the University of Virginia Center for Politics has said the Second District may be the median House district in the U.S. President Biden carried it by 2 points in 2020. The district flipped parties in 2000, 2008, 2010 and 2018. (It was redrawn before the elections of 2002, 2012 and 2022.) Most everyone has some connection to the Navy, and the common purpose knits a tight social fabric now rare in America. Flipping a seat here is also a no-fail mission if the GOP hopes to regain control of the House.

The Democratic Party would be healthier if Ms. Luria were its median member. Few Democrats think, as Ms. Luria does, that the U.S. needs to return to “Reagan-era defense spending levels” to deal with the threat from China. That would be 5% to 6% of the economy rather than today’s 3%. The House adopted an amendment she put forth with a colleague adding $37 billion to Mr. Biden’s defense budget.

The White House “was not happy” about that proposal, she says in an interview at her campaign office. She was also right when she said this year that banning members of Congress from trading stocks was, in the lingua franca of naval officers, “bulls—.”

But Ms. Luria is for some reason running mainly on the Jan. 6 riots and abortion. A member of the House’s Jan. 6 committee, she ends the debate by telling the audience she is “not your candidate” if you think

Joe Biden

didn’t win in 2020, and “not your candidate” if you “stand with insurrectionists” or if “you think that you know what’s best for women.” She repeats this refrain several times, with various conditions. It is an odd pitch when asking for a vote. Those on the fence may conclude that Ms. Luria is, well, not their candidate.

Ms. Luria doesn’t seem to savor the grind of politics. During the same debate, when the moderator announced he had “two more questions,” Ms. Luria muttered into a hot microphone, “Thank God.”

She was considerably more at ease the following week, off the campaign trail discussing Navy shipbuilding. Ms. Luria talked on a panel with Republican Sen.

Roger Wicker

of Mississippi and

Ronald Reagan’s

Navy secretary,

John Lehman,

about how, for instance, the Navy is set to lose about 1,680 missile launch tubes over the next several years, when China may be most likely to strike Taiwan. She would be a natural Navy secretary under a Democratic president.

Ms. Kiggans says she’s running “to restore American strength,” whether in the economy or the military. That theme is likely to resonate as inflation burns, particularly in a district where voters may have a visceral and enduring distaste for Mr. Biden’s exit from Afghanistan. Ms. Kiggans, a mother of four, is also a formidable casting choice. In a campaign spot on her website, she introduces viewers to some of the most popular accoutrements in American politics: “my helicopter,” “my minivan” and her “Navy fighter pilot husband.”

“No one ever talks to me about things like Jan. 6,” Ms. Kiggans says as we walk briskly around a Virginia Beach neighborhood, knocking on doors. Most of the voters offer the same report: They are unhappy with the economy and the price of gasoline and groceries. Another refrain is chaos at the southern border.

“We live on the beach and the bay,” so voters here also “care about the environment,” Ms. Kiggans adds. They’re moderate on social issues, “they love a strong military,” and “safety and education are important.” One woman we meet says she decamped to the area to escape “the craziness” of Northern Virginia. Such refugees are increasingly common in this part of the Old Dominion.

Ms. Kiggans has been hammering Ms. Luria for voting with Speaker

Nancy Pelosi

“99% of the time.” If Ms. Kiggans “wants to run against the speaker,” Ms. Luria struck back this week, “she should move to San Francisco.” Ms. Luria did vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the multitrillion-dollar blowout known as Build Back Better, which failed to clear the Senate. (Ms. Luria notes to me that she did, however, vote against House Democrats’ $3 trillion Covid-relief proposal known as the Heroes Act of 2020.)

The most recent polling, conducted by Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Civic Leadership, puts Ms. Luria and Ms. Kiggans each at 45% of the vote, with 8% undecided. The redrawn district includes more rural areas, which helps Ms. Kiggans. But so do the issues she’s hitting. Some 39% of voters list the economy and inflation as their top priority, more than double the 17% who list abortion and 14% who list “threats to democracy.” With a roughly 40% approval rating, Mr. Biden is a liability for Ms. Luria.

Another tailwind for Ms. Kiggans: GOP Gov.

Glenn Youngkin

enjoys a 56% approval rating in the district, and Ms. Kiggans draws on the playbook that helped propel him to the governorship last year. “There is going to be another huge red wave across the commonwealth and across the nation,” Mr. Youngkin says while campaigning for Ms. Kiggans at a pumpkin farm on Oct. 24. “And Jen Kiggans, let me just tell you what’s gonna happen: Jen Kiggans is gonna have her surfboard, she’s gonna be on top of that wave.”

Mrs. Odell is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.