Robert Wittman

I wrote to my congressman, 19-year incumbent Republican Rob Wittman. I asked him why he voted for President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill and supported other Trump initiatives that seemed to be hurting his constituents.

I asked the question directly because with early voting underway in Virginia in the 2026 midterm elections, Wittman still has not answered those questions. To the extent that any journalist can get a one-on-one interview with Wittman, the congressman responds to queries with talking points or ignores tough questions entirely.

For example, NBC correspondent Ryan Nobles asked repeatedly if Wittman was going to invite Trump to campaign with him in Virginia. Wittman never answered the question. He talked instead about connecting with people in the district. After his third attempt asking Wittman about inviting Trump, whose lousy approval ratings could make him a liability, Nobles ran out of time for the TV segment. It ended without pinning Wittman down on whether the congressman would invite Trump to campaign with him.

Exasperated, Nobles tried for a clever wrap-up. “We’ll mark that down as ‘Not yes,’” he quipped.

This produced a good soundbite. It made the rounds on the internet and inspired some chuckles at Wittman’s expense. But the congressman has had the last laugh. He never answered the question.

In a recent telephone endorsement that did not allow questions, Trump called Wittman a “spectacular warrior.” You won’t find that praise featured on Wittman’s campaign website.

Insight on why Wittman blindly supported Trump on issues the congressman should have known would hurt his constituents is in short supply. The only reasonable explanation is that Wittman wants it that way.

He has yet to explain how his vote for the Big Beautiful Bill improved the lives of his constituents. The federal budget Wittman approved gave America’s richest citizens and corporations permanent tax breaks that will blow up the national deficit over the next decade. How did that help the citizens of Virginia’s 1st Congressional District?

The budget heaped cost-of-living increases on Virginia’s middle class with tariffs and inflation. How was that a good thing for the folks Wittman represents?

The budget has already reduced the number of Virginians receiving food stamps by more than 100,000 and priced several hundred thousand more out of health insurance. Soon the budget will change Medicaid eligibility rules in ways purposely designed to reduce the number of low-income people who qualify for government healthcare payments. Those people are still going to get sick, but now they will lack the means to pay. They will either get sicker, die or flood emergency rooms, which is one of the costliest forms of medical treatment, leaving unpaid bills.

How does a budget that consciously creates a healthcare crisis serve the citizens of the 1st District?

Wittman voted several times to support Trump after the president flouted the Constitution and started a war with Iran without getting Congress’ approval. That war costs U.S. taxpayers $2 billion to $3 billion a month, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Because of the war, gasoline costs over $4 per gallon, and diesel fuel averages over $6 per gallon across Virginia. Is that constituent service?

What about supporting a budget that killed 6,300 federal civilian jobs in Hampton Roads in 2025 and tens of thousands in the state? Economists at Old Dominion University estimate that it will take two new private sector jobs to make up for the pay and benefits of each lost federal job.

Wittman answered my inquiry about supporting Trump to the detriment of his constituents. But my congressman offered me the same political pablum he offered Ryan Nobles and everybody else who has asked tough questions in this campaign. This is Wittman’s reelection strategy: Duck, dodge and say nothing specific.

I strongly suspect what I got from Wittman was a form letter. Even if it was not, the vanilla content melted quickly into a pool of platitudes that presumed the congressman could play me, his constituent, for a fool.

Wittman voted for a budget expected to grow the national debt to 120% of the United States’ annual gross domestic product by 2036, the Congressional Budget Office reported. Yet the congressman had the audacity to inform me in writing that “it is imperative that we get our nation’s fiscal house in order.”

Apparently hoping I was too disengaged to understand that the Federal Reserve had to raise interest rates to forestall an economic collapse caused by the inflation he helped create, Wittman lectured me: “High levels of debt translate to much lower levels of economic growth, and those same high levels of debt mean that our taxpayer dollars are wasted on paying higher interest.”

He pontificated that “we can’t continue to find ourselves in these completely avoidable crisis situations.”

On May 22, 2025, the federal budget passed the House of Representatives 215 to 214 with Wittman’s support. If he had voted no, he could have stopped an “avoidable crisis” to his constituents and the country.

He did the opposite, and the engine of economic injury hurtled on.

In his letter to me, Wittman promised, without a shred of irony, that he will hold “members of Congress accountable.”

That’s like the engineer who caused the train wreck telling first responders how to extract victims from the rubble.

Politician, heal thyself.

Jim Spencer of Williamsburg started his career at The Virginia Gazette in 1975 and worked at the Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, Minnesota Star Tribune, Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot.