All seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are up for election every two years. There are 435 seats, representing each of the fifty states in rough proportion to their population as recorded in the most recent national census. There are six non-voting delegate seats representing U.S. territories and the District of Columbia.
The Republican Party currently holds a 220-211 majority over the Democratic Party in the House. Four seats are vacant. Virginia has eleven seats, with six held by Democrats and five held by Republicans.
Tenth District
In the race to represent Virginia’s Tenth District in the United States House of Representatives, Mike Clancy (R) and Virginia Senator Suhas Subramanyam (D-32nd) are vying for an open seat. Incumbent Representative Jennifer Wexton (D-VA 10th) is not seeking reelection for health reasons.
The Tenth District encompasses Fauquier County, Loudoun County, Rappahannock County, the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park, and parts of Fairfax and Prince William counties.
Mike Clancy (R)
Mike Clancy (R) stands as the Republican Party nominee for this open seat.
Clancy holds a bachelor’s degree in government and philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, a master’s degree in bioethics from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and a law degree from the George Washington University Law School. He has worked as an attorney with the U.S. Department of the Navy’s Office of General Counsel and at private firms, and now serves as an attorney and senior vice president at the Oracle Corporation. Clancy served on the technology and cybersecurity transition team for Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R), who was then the governor-elect, and contributes political commentary to Newsmax, The Daily Caller, and other media outlets.
Clancy describes himself as a “husband, dad, lawyer, business executive, [and] national media commentator [who is] devoted to his community,” and says he is running for office to “restore America.” If elected, this would be Clancy’s first time holding elected office.
On the issues, Clancy focuses primarily on human rights and the economy. His emphasis on human rights is particularly welcome; the rights to life, liberty, and property have been under decades-long attack, and we have recently taken only a few small, tenuous steps toward repairing the damage. There is much more to do. Clancy acknowledges the right to life—the first and most fundamental human right—but he “does not support federal action on abortion” and would leave the issue to the states, a frustrating but understandable compromise. On matters of liberty, he supports limited government and the separation of powers, the freedoms of speech and religion, self-defense rights, and parental rights. He also seeks to better protect these and other rights by bolstering law enforcement and improving border security.
On economic matters, Clancy correctly diagnoses a major problem facing America today: high inflation due, in part, to incoherent federal policies and profligate deficit spending. He advocates freeing “American innovation, American energy production, and small businesses from . . . stifling regulatory burdens” and working to “restore fiscal sanity in Washington and get our budget back on track,” but provides little detail about how he plans to do this or how he expects to get any plan through a gridlocked Congress.
Regardless, Clancy is right when he says, “The lack of fiscal sanity in D.C. is . . . the most dangerous threat to our nation over the next twenty years,” and that the way the U.S. federal government is spending money is “unsustainable and immoral.”
Suhas Subramanyam (D)
Virginia Senator Suhas Subramanyam (D-32nd) stands as the Democratic Party nominee for this open seat. Incumbent Representative Jennifer Wexton (D-VA 10th), who is in her third term and is not seeking reelection, has endorsed Subramanyam.
Subramanyam holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Tulane University and a law degree from Northwestern University. He served as a legislative assistant for a member of Congress and a law clerk for the Senate Judiciary Committee before entering private practice as an intellectual property attorney. He volunteered with the Center for Wrongful Convictions, served as a policy advisor in President Barack Obama’s (D) White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and has been an entrepreneur and corporate board member.
In 2019, Subramanyam was elected to the 87th District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. He served two terms before being elected to the 32nd District seat in the Virginia Senate in 2023, where he is in the first year of his first term.
Subramanyam says he has “worked tirelessly to improve the health, safety, and prosperity of all Virginians and Americans,” and that he will “continue to take on the tough fights for Virginia families and deliver real results for our community” if elected.
Like so many modern Democratic Party politicians, Subramanyam makes promises that are nice-sounding pabulum, heavy with platitudes and euphemisms. He says he’ll protect women’s healthcare, advocate responsible gun ownership, protect the environment, safeguard democracy, and more. Okay. But the proposals he describes under those headlines, and his legislative record, reveal that he either doesn’t understand what those words mean, or he’s trying to mislead you.
Subramanyam has been consistently opposed to the fundamental human rights. When he talks about “women’s healthcare,” he means abortion, which is a pernicious, violent crime against the humanity. When he says he advocates “responsible gun ownership,” he means he supports polices—like “assault weapons bans”—that violate self-defense and due process rights by penalizing innocents for the crimes of others. When he says he’ll “get money out of politics,” he means he wants to eviscerate the Supreme Court’s “Citizen’s United” ruling, which was a landmark reassertion of the First Amendment’s free association and group speech rights. When he says he wants to “safeguard democracy,” he means he wants to eliminate voter identification laws, which are essential to free and fair elections.
And don’t get me started on his claim that we are in a “climate emergency that poses a grave threat to the future of our planet.” How do people still believe this unscientific, fear-mongering nonsense? How much more counterevidence do they need?
Conclusion
Virginia Senator Suhas Subramanyam (D-32nd) continues to vote in opposition to the right to life, collective speech rights, and self-defense rights. He opposes even the simplest and most essential regulations that would help ensure trustworthy elections. And what does he plan to do about the economy, inflation, and the national debt? I don’t know. He hasn’t told us.
Mike Clancy (R) is running as a doctrinaire modern Republican, focusing on human rights and fiscal responsibility. Sounds good. But there are few concrete policy proposals and no clear plan for how to accomplish his goals. He also appears to be a fairly “Trumpy” candidate, judging by his political commentary, but is softening his rhetoric in the campaign. Even so, the choice is clear.
Vote Mike Clancy for Virginia’s 10th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Special Note
Incumbent Representative Jennifer Wexton (D-VA 10th), who was first elected to the House in 2018 and is serving her third term, is not seeking reelection for health reasons. Wexton announced in April 2023 that she been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Five months later, she announced her diagnosis had changed to progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), and that she would not seek reelection.
PSP is a neurodegenerative disease with no known cure. Wexton described it as “Parkinson’s on steroids.” According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (PDF link), people with the disease become “severely disabled within three to five years of onset.” Few of its victims survive more than a decade after being diagnosed.
This is a difficult, unforgiving illness that I would not wish on my worst enemy. I hope and pray we find a cure, and I wish Wexton the best.
Other Districts
I make the following recommendations for contested House of Representative races in Virginia’s other districts. I have evaluated each race and candidate individually according to the same general criteria described in the endorsement article above.
- First District: Incumbent Representative Rob Wittman (R-VA 1st) is challenged by Leslie Mehta (D). I recommend voting for Rob Wittman.
- Second District: Incumbent Representative Jen Kiggans (R-VA 2nd) is challenged by Missy Cotter Smasal (D) and Robert Reid (I). I recommend voting for Jen Kiggans.
- Third District: Incumbent Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA 3rd) is challenged by John Sitka (R). I recommend voting for John Sitka.
- Fourth District: Incumbent Representative Jennifer McClellan (D-VA 4th) is challenged by Bill Moher (R). I recommend voting for Bill Moher.
- Fifth District: Virginia Senator John McGuire (R-10th) and Gloria Witt (D) stand as candidates for an open seat. I make no recommendation.
- Sixth District: Incumbent Representative Bob Cline (R-VA 6th) is challenged by Ken Mitchell (D) and Robert “Robby” Wells (I). I recommend voting for Bob Cline.
- Seventh District: Derrick Anderson (R) and Eugene Vindman (D) stand as candidates for an open seat. I strongly recommend voting for Derrick Anderson.
- ATTENTION: Eugene Vindman, a former U.S. Army colonel, and his twin brother Alex Vindman, a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, both served on the U.S. National Security Council under former President Donald Trump (R). Alex accused Trump of soliciting election interference from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump and Zelenskyy denied the allegation, which is uncorroborated by other evidence. Trump was later acquitted in an impeachment trial. Alex’s testimony, which Eugene helped him prepare, was likely exaggerated or false. Eugene may not have known it at the time, but he does now. He must. And yet he has not apologized, has not corrected the record, stands by his brother, and even claims on his campaign website—still without evidence—that Trump engaged in “attempted extortion.”
- Eighth District: Incumbent Representative Don Beyer (D-VA 8th) is challenged by Bentley Hensel (I), Dave Kennedy (I), and Jerry Torres (R). I recommend voting for Jerry Torres.
- Ninth District: Incumbent Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA 9th) is challenged by Karen Baker (D). I recommend voting for Morgan Griffith.
- Tenth District: See full-form endorsement above.
- Eleventh District: Incumbent Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA 11th) is challenged by Mike Van Meter (R). I recommend voting for Mike Van Meter.