Virginia — 1st District

The race in Virginia’s 1st Congressional District is one of the most closely contested in the country. Currently, the Cook Political Report lists the district as likely to “Lean Republican,” though Larry Sabato with the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics recently shifted the race from “Leans Republican” to “Toss-up.”

Democrat Shannon Taylor, who has served as Henrico County’s commonwealth’s attorney for 14 years, ran an unsuccessful primary bid to become the Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general last year — and is now hoping to flip the seat.

Republican Rep. Rob Wittman first represented the district in 2007, and has handily won reelection ever since.

Due to the close nature of the campaign, VPM News State Politics Reporter Jahd Khalil reached out to both Taylor and Wittman to discuss the issues relevant to this year’s campaign. VPM News sat down for a conversation in late September with Taylor at her Henrico County campaign office.

Click here to watch VPM News’ interview with Congressman Rob Wittman.

This interview has been lightly edited for style and clarity.

Jahd Khalil: What is your top priority if you’re elected?

Shannon Taylor: As the top prosecutor in Henrico County, my job is to make sure that my community is safe, and we do that every day by holding people accountable for their actions; going after and holding people accountable for violent crimes, those human trafficking offenses, and making sure that we are holding people accountable for the harms for our vulnerable communities, like our seniors and our children.

I’m seeing a different type of harm that’s happening here in my district, and that’s the harm that is happening from bad policies and bad laws, and actions from the corruption in DC that has allowed politicians like Rob Wittman to not focus on their job.

Rob Wittman has had an opportunity to do right by the people here in the 1st District, but he hasn’t. He’s been focusing on himself; the self-enrichment, having his net worth go up 40 times, the stock trading of two-and-a-half million dollars while he’s been in Congress, and then that budget bill that he voted for, and not only gave billionaires the tax break but gave himself a tax break.

You mentioned tax policy. The top tax bracket in the US is $769,000 for joint filers. What sort of changes would you like to see to the way that America taxes people.

We’re dealing with what I think is an antiquated tax code that will take a lot of time to address. We need to see how people are being taxed and where the money is being spent.

If there are going to be any tax breaks, they need to be for the hardworking people in the middle class. I’d like to see that.

We do count on people who have the ability to earn more, to pay more because they’ve been blessed with being very successful.

A lot of changes to the tax code happened in the budget bill that passed Congress, that affected healthcare. What changes would you like to see to government-supported healthcare?

I’ll tell you right now, the healthcare system that we have is not working, and I would like to see an actual redo of the entire healthcare system. That means putting more focus on preventative care and wellness, so we can ease up with the pressures that are happening in our emergency rooms.

We know that that health bill had an immediate impact on healthcare on Virginians. We need to make sure that we can establish that funding that’s been taken away from Medicaid, and ensure that we’re not going to touch Medicare and Social Security for our seniors.

We need to make sure that we can do everything we can to work with Medicare to lower drug prices, and we also need to work on medical billing transparency.

A lot of voters are talking about costs. You’ve talked about data centers needing to pay their fair share. Why do you say that?

Data centers have to pay their fair share. Virginians cannot be paying one dime more for electricity or water to function these data centers. We need to demand that they engage in renewable energy reconfigurations. We have to give the citizens who don’t have data centers in their community the right to say “No.” We need to establish regulation.

When you’re talking about these two priorities of addressing corruption and addressing affordability, does one take precedent over the other? What balance do you take when you’re deciding which to tackle first?

Corruption is causing rising costs. When you have politicians like Rob Wittman, who are voting on bills, and supporting policies because he is going to financially benefit from that — he’s putting his priorities over the people he’s supposed to be representing.

When I’m in Congress I’m going to propose a ban on stock trading. I want to make sure that we are going to ban this Congress-to-lobbying firm pipeline. Making sure that when you’re taking action, you’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do — not thinking about what your future job is going to be.

I have not taken corporate campaign funding, and I’m not going to take corporate money while I’m serving in Congress, because I know how people in my district feel about it. They want to see that influence removed from politics. They want to bring back trust and accountability, and I’m listening to the voters. Rob Wittman’s not.

Regarding the war in Iran. How do you think the US should wind down the war? Should there be a unilateral ceasefire, and what would you not be able to accept if there was some sort of negotiated deal between Iran and the United States?

We are in a war that we have no idea why we are there. There was all this talk about nuclear weapons, and now it’s all about oil.

I regret that Rob Wittman has voted six times to continue to support this war, and we’re talking about taxpayers being asked to spend billions of dollars. We have no way out of this war right now, and every day we stay in Iran, gas prices continue to go up, diesel continues to go up, fertilizer is not being accessible, and the individuals being harmed are farmers and Americans.

To come back to affordability issues, what else would you like? You mentioned healthcare and taxes and those sorts of things. What other things would you like to do to lower costs for Virginians?

We need to repeal the tariffs that were imposed in the beginning of this administration, and again most recently. The tariffs are harming our farmers, harming our small business operators, making products we buy every day more expensive, and Congress abdicated their responsibility.

Rob Wittman did not do his job to stand up to tariffs that were harming the farmers in this district, to stand up and vote and to say that the war was not going in the right direction.

Would you like just to return to the status quo before the Trump administration’s tariffs began, or would you like to see some sort of other change in the way that America trades with other countries when it comes to tariffs?

I don’t pretend that we can go back to exactly the way things were because the tariffs have actually changed economic development and how international revenue is being generated.

I would like to see us go back to a place where costs are going down. That we don’t have tariffs that, by the way, were found to be unlawful — to allow the [Trump] administration to go ahead and singularly take action when Congress has the absolute right to make those calls. It’s Congress’s responsibility.

What choice do you think is before voters this fall?

It’s a matter of whether or not Virginians in the 1st Congressional District want to continue with a corrupt politician, who was putting his interests in front of theirs, and allowing this corruption in DC to continue, or do they want a change with someone who’s going to bring trust and accountability back to the office?

When I’m out talking to people in the district, whether it’s in the suburbs of Henrico or Chesterfield, going to the historic Triangle area, or going all the way up from the Middle Peninsula to the Northern Neck, it’s the same concern that everyone’s having, which is the rising cost of living and the same anger regarding corruption in DC I want to give the voters in the 1st District an option.

We’re feeling that positive momentum, and people are ready for a change.