{"id":356605,"date":"2026-05-18T17:42:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/at-least-4-virginia-democratic-house-candidates-drop-out-after-courts-toss-new-map"},"modified":"2026-05-18T17:42:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:42:54","slug":"at-least-4-virginia-democratic-house-candidates-drop-out-after-courts-toss-new-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/at-least-4-virginia-democratic-house-candidates-drop-out-after-courts-toss-new-map","title":{"rendered":"A minimum of 4 Virginia Democratic Home candidates drop out after courts toss new map"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Overturning a\u00a0new congressional map\u00a0in Virginia<\/a>\u00a0that would have favored Democrats has had an outsized impact on the state\u2019s U.S. House primaries, with at least four high-profile candidates so far suspending their campaigns.<\/p>\n

With Virginia keeping its current congressional map, which currently has six Democrats and five Republicans, Democratic candidates face the prospect of either running in a GOP-leaning district or of mounting primary bids to incumbent Democrats.<\/p>\n

Virginia\u2019s primaries are Aug. 4, having been changed from their original date of June 16. The state had also moved its candidate filing deadline to May 26, so candidates can still get on the ballot ahead of the primary.<\/p>\n

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Col. Bree Fram poses at her home on March 9, 2025 in Reston, Virginia.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Daniel Woolfolk\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Col. Bree Fram<\/strong>, a transgender woman who came out and transitioned while serving in the Air Force and who had joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its ban on transgender individuals in the military, suspended her campaign for the proposed 11th District. She would have been mounting a primary challenge to incumbent Rep. James Walkinshaw regardless of which map was in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith only five weeks before early primary voting, the ruling left this campaign without sufficient time and resources to meaningfully pivot to the previous district and have the kind of substantive debate voters deserve,\u201d Fram wrote.<\/p>\n

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Dorothy Mcauliffe speaks onstage at the 2023 Concordia Annual Summit at Sheraton New York on September 19, 2023 in New York City.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Riccardo Savi\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0Dorothy McAuliffe<\/strong>, the former first lady of Virginia who was running in the redrawn 7th District,\u00a0announced last Saturday<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that she will similarly suspend her campaign. The 7th District is represented by Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman.<\/p>\n

“For me, representing Virginia in Congress was an opportunity to do good, make government deliver, protect fundamental freedoms, lower costs, defend democracy, and fight for those too often ignored,\u201d said McAuliffe, who is married to former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.<\/p>\n

J.P. Cooney,<\/strong>\u00a0who had launched a bid for the 7th District<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and was the top deputy for former special counsel Jack Smith, who led investigations into President Donald Trump’s\u00a0alleged interference<\/a>\u00a0in the 2020 election and alleged\u00a0mishandling of classified documents<\/a>, suspended his campaign last Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am disappointed that the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision at the expense of the Commonwealth’s voters is now final. Although this means the end of my congressional campaign, our movement to fight corruption and lawlessness is just beginning,\u201d Cooney wrote on X<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dan Helmer,<\/strong>\u00a0a Virginia state delegate who had also launched a bid for the redrawn 7th District, said last Friday he had ended his campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I’m incredibly disappointed at tonight’s news, I can’t say I’m surprised. The MAGA playbook is straightforward: if you can’t win at the ballot box, pack the courts\u2026 While our candidacy for Congress has ended, the path forward is clear: as I’ve said consistently, we need reform of the courts, here in Virginia, and in the federal judiciary,\u201d he wrote in a statement on X<\/u><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One major name has not yet confirmed her plans.<\/p>\n

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Olivia Troye speaks on the third day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on August 21, 2024.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Saul Loeb\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Olivia Troye<\/strong>, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence who changed parties and was running as a Democrat in the proposed 7th District,\u00a0wrote in a blog post last Wednesday<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that she had visited an ICE detention facility on the day of the Virginia Supreme Court decision, and that both that visit and the court decision \u201cmade me more certain than ever that I cannot walk away from this fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Troye has not confirmed if she plans to withdraw from the race. ABC News has reached out to Troye and her campaign. Troye was among the highest-profile Trump administration officials to become a critic of the president during his first term.<\/p>\n

One candidate has said he\u2019s staying in the race even with the Democratic-favoring map thrown out.<\/p>\n

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Tom Perriello addresses a press conference at the end of Sudan ceasefire talks, in Geneva on August 23, 2024.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Fabrice Coffrini\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Tom Perriello<\/strong>, a former member of Congress who had planned to run in the redrawn 5th District, said the day the Virginia Supreme Court\u2019s ruling dropped that he is still going to run for Congress but is shifting to the current 5th District to try to unseat incumbent GOP Rep. John McGuire. Perriello represented the 5th from 2009 to 2011.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are obviously aware of the Virginia Supreme Court decision, and as we said from the launch of the campaign, we will respect the will of the voters and the courts … having done hundreds of listening sessions across Central and Southside Virginia over the last few months, I can say one thing that people on the right, left and center, seem to agree on is that McGuire needs to be fired and replaced by somebody who actually cares about Central and South Side Virginia,\u201d he told reporters on Friday, just hours after the seismic court decision.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Overturning a\u00a0new congressional map\u00a0in Virginia\u00a0that would have favored Democrats has had an outsized impact on the state\u2019s U.S. House primaries, with at least four high-profile […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":354614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6756,1674,5221,7364,2697,21567,21726,7112,1425,32397,4914],"class_list":["post-356605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-colonel","tag-congress","tag-counsel","tag-geneva","tag-governor","tag-j-p-cooney","tag-james-walkinshaw","tag-primaries","tag-republican-party","tag-tom-perriello","tag-trump-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356605"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":356607,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356605\/revisions\/356607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}