The congressional race between Republican incumbent Congressman Rob Wittman and Democratic candidate Shannon Taylor in Virginia’s First District is in full swing. Between now and Election Day, their campaigns will follow the usual playbook to engage voters. But Wittman might decide to play dirty.
Wittman will likely attack Taylor to discredit her in every way he and his campaign staff can imagine. Since the 1990s, Republicans have used a combative approach to politics, using methods pioneered by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. This includes hateful language, hyper-partisanship, questioning Democrats’ patriotism, and accusing Democrats of wanting to destroy America.
Wittman, who has represented VA-01 since 2007, will probably follow in Gingrich’s footsteps if he thinks it will help him win. Angles of attack may include “soft on crime;” communist/socialist; takes corporate PAC money; and the transgender wedge issue. We can’t predict exactly what forms his attacks will take, but we’re here to let you know what to watch for.
“Soft on crime”
Republicans frequently claim — without evidence — that Democratic candidates are “soft on crime.” They call them things like “enablers of lawlessness” and “dangerously liberal.” They engage in fearmongering about Democrats defunding the police, even though very few Democrats endorse that idea.
Let’s be clear: Republicans use distortions and lies to misrepresent the fact that Democrats do take crime seriously and work hard to make our communities safer. Here are some examples from congressional districts near VA-01:
Rep. Jennifer McClellan (VA-04) co-sponsored the Closing the Bump Stock Loophole Act of 2025 (H. R. 2799) and the GHOST Act of 2025 (H. R. 3373), both of which became law.
Representative Eugene Vindman (VA-07) has worked on public safety, border enforcement, and anti-crime legislation including the Targeting Online Sales of Fentanyl Act (H. R. 5744), which became law. He also secured $2.7 million in federal appropriations for local law enforcement and public safety modernization projects.
Rep. Bobby Scott (VA-03) focuses on criminal justice reform such as the SAFE Justice Act (H. R. 4261) and the Youth Promise Act (H. R. 2721).
Democrats tend not to whip out bullhorns to blast their anti-crime efforts — but maybe they should. Polls have found that Americans worry about the connection between gun violence and crime, and that focusing on gun safety issues helps Democratic candidates.
Meanwhile, Republicans insist on extreme policies that flood our communities with guns — making us less safe. They also use racially-coded language and stereotypes to exploit racist fears and to appeal to white voters. In the absence of policy discussions, this approach tells us they’re less concerned about reducing crime, and more invested in drumming up votes based on fear instead of facts.
Republicans like Rob Wittman keep weakening gun laws. He voted against the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the Protecting Our Kids Act, and other gun control bills that had strong public support. He supported an amicus brief challenging New York’s attempt to restrict who could carry concealed firearms.
Here’s how else we know Wittman is only giving lip service to the crime issue: he is either unaware or unconcerned about factors that are known to contribute to crime rates in communities. Lead in the environment plays a documented and significant role in driving crime, but Wittman introduced a bill to increase our exposure to lead. Protecting Access for Hunters and Anglers Act (H. R. 556) blocks federal bans on lead in gear and has become law. Poverty drives crime rates up, but Wittman voted for H. R. 1, resulting in devastating cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, resources relied upon by millions of families to make ends meet. In fact, Wittman has a shocking track record of voting against the very things that reduce crime — background checks, violence-intervention grants, victim services, Medicaid-funded treatment — and then campaigns on the fear those programs were quietly putting to rest.
And what about Shannon Taylor? Let’s examine the facts. Accusers on social media have been spinning a false narrative that she’s soft on crime, with specific attention to the plea deal she negotiated with the Henrico Doctors’ Hospital nurse who was charged with abusing nine infants in the NICU in 2025.
This timeline of events and the Special Grand Jury Report found that the hospital failed to prevent abuse of those babies. Some people are angry that the sentence wasn’t longer. While that’s a very reasonable opinion, it’s not about Shannon Taylor’s work — it’s about the sentencing guidelines by which Taylor is legally constrained.
It’s important to understand the realities surrounding this upsetting case:
Taylor pushed to identify the nurse (Erin Strotman) at fault, despite the hospital’s flawed record-keeping and insufficient monitoring.
Strotman received the “maximum possible sentence allowed under a plea agreement.”
Taylor’s court conviction meant Strotman had to surrender her nursing license and was barred from working as a nurse.
Taylor urged affected families to contact her office and kept all the families involved in the case.
Five of the affected families shared their impact statements.
Families of the injured babies expressed satisfaction with the outcome.
The misinformation and disinformation around this emotionally-charged case illustrates the importance of seeking out the facts, instead of blindly accepting false narratives.
If and when Wittman accuses Taylor of being soft on crime, ask yourself if he knows more about the law than she, a seasoned lawyer with 14 years of experience as Henrico County’s top prosecutor. Ask if he’s aware that in 2025, Henrico County witnessed a historic drop in crime, including an 86% (!) drop in homicides.
There’s another aspect to this nonsense soft-on-crime narrative: Wittman votes 100% of the time with President Trump, a CONVICTED FELON. That’s outrageous.
Shannon Taylor isn’t soft on crime. Rob Wittman is.
“Socialist”/“Communist”
Socialism — which, in simple terms, favors social ownership of the means of production rather than private ownership — has been leveled as an accusation for a very long time. It threatens old hierarchies of race and class, and that’s why it’s been a frequent cry by political conservatives (who are invested in maintaining those very hierarchies) since it emerged in the late 18th century in the wake of the French Revolution. In U.S. politics, accusations of socialism date back to the candidacy of William Jennings Bryan in 1896. It became widespread with the election of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932.
Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Republicans are gearing up their political attacks and getting ready to yell “Socialist!” at anything they don’t like. Whether they call Democrats “politically correct,” “woke,” “pro-CRT,” “communists,” “godless communists,” “barbarians,” “Marxists,” “radical candidates,” “extreme liberals,” or “socialists,” it’s the same tired tune. Such labels are attempts to paint Democrats as extremists bent on destroying America’s free enterprise system — regardless of where specific Democrats actually fall on the ideological spectrum.
Don’t fall for attempts to malign social safety nets and other public benefits. Many are EARNED benefits, funded by you out of every paycheck of your working life. These services help people maintain stability, or in some cases, just survive. By voting for H. R. 1, Wittman caused devastating cuts to Medicaid; burdensome Medicaid work requirements that put ill and disabled people at risk of losing coverage; and cuts to food assistance for Virginia SNAP recipients. Tens of millions of seniors and disabled beneficiaries will lose Medicare Part D by this year’s end. That means higher premiums and more expensive prescription medication. Wittman even made a fake phone call to avoid questions after Speaker Mike Johnson floated the (wildly unpopular) idea of cuts to Social Security.
The true threat to Social Security is the massive upward transfer of wealth to the rich. Wittman prioritized “sweeping cuts to Medicaid and SNAP to fund tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans” and tax breaks for himself over American families.
If Wittman labels Taylor a “socialist,” a “communist,” or — thanks to Fox News — a “DEI queen,” now you understand the historical context of those accusations. You also know it’s an attempt to divert our attention away from Wittman’s votes for disasters like Trump’s illegal Iran War and the cost-of-living increases burdening VA-01. Taylor’s “Serve the People First” agenda is a direct threat to Wittman’s self-dealing and his unwavering loyalty to the most corrupt administration that has ever existed. He’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes regarding his unabashed support of Trump’s cronyism, corruption, and extremist ways.
Attacks on Taylor are rooted in desperation because when it comes to pocketbook issues, he has nothing of value to offer us. He works for billionaires and corporate donors instead of working families.
Corporate PAC money
It’s true that when Shannon Taylor ran for Attorney General in 2025, she accepted corporate PAC funds from Dominion Energy. Some voters were troubled by this because they worry about the influence of corporate money in politics; they want their representatives to work for the people of their districts, not for other interests. Taylor listened and learned, and she has refused corporate PAC money for her congressional campaign:
“Shannon has pledged to never take a dime of corporate PAC money in this campaign or while representing us in Congress, so there is no doubt who she fights for.”
Yes, that represents a change from Taylor’s Attorney General campaign. And isn’t that exactly what we want from our representatives — to HEAR us, to take on new information, and to adjust their actions accordingly?
We can’t emphasize enough that the real threat to VA-01 is Rob Wittman, the MAGA extremist who votes with Trump 100% of the time. He hasn’t listened or learned from ANYTHING we’ve been trying to tell him; instead he goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid listening, like refusing to hold an in-person town hall since 2019.
Any attack on Taylor for accepting corporate PAC money would demand a look at Wittman’s own record on that front. As the saying goes, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. And Wittman serves big donors, not you. Between 2023 and 2024, he vacuumed up $982,346 in PAC donations. The Netanyahu-supporting American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was his second-largest contributor organization. It’s not a coincidence that Wittman has supported military aid packages and NDAA provisions funding joint U.S.-Israeli military AI development.
On other fronts, defense companies and single-issue lobbyists have been buying Wittman’s loyalty. 21% of his donations came from defense or defense aerospace companies, while he holds the position of Vice Chair of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC).
Wittman held a fundraiser with lobbyists at a swanky steak house while a government shutdown loomed. He enriched himself with Big Energy stocks. He’s made millions while his constituents get poorer, inflation rises, the job market breaks down, and Virginia’s economy weakens. He profits from data centers. His net worth in 2025 was approximately $5.6 million (and undoubtedly much more now!), placing him in the richest 5% of Virginians who receive nearly half of the state’s tax cuts.
Wittman’s money comes overwhelmingly from large donors, organizations, and companies he oversees as a legislator; hardly any comes from small donors, the regular folks of VA-01. No wonder he doesn’t feel accountable to us, the very people he’s supposed to serve. If he accuses Taylor of accepting corporate PAC money, recognize it for the rank hypocrisy it is — and then ignore it. We can’t afford for Rob Wittman to throw us under the corporate PAC bus any longer.
Republicans’ #1 wedge issue: transgender people
During Virginia’s 2025 gubernatorial race, Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears tried with all her might to attack Abigail Spanberger “for her stance on transgender rights in Virginia schools.” The attacks failed. Earle-Sears did her best to vilify trans people, even though a CNN poll revealed transgender policies ranked last among the issues surveyed.
Instead of focusing on issues like affordability, healthcare, and jobs, Republicans are trying to create a trans panic. They’ve been targeting trans student athletes, gender-affirming care, and bathroom policies in Virginia and beyond. There are eight anti-trans bills in the Virginia General Assembly alone. This deluge of legislation aims to criminalize trans people and restrict their rights.
Only about 0.08% of the U.S. population aged 13+ identify as transgender, so these attacks are wildly disproportionate to the number of trans people in the country. The Utah legislature banned trans athletes even though the law would only impact one trans girl athlete in K-12 sports. As of this writing, ZERO trans athletes are “competing in the top-tier of any major professional sport in the United States.”
Preparation is key. Spanberger anticipated the attacks from Earle-Sears and responded by establishing herself “as a fighter who would protect all of Virginia’s children.” Her campaign response ads “addressed her opponent’s claims without throwing transgender Americans under the bus.”
Wittman is a willing foot soldier in the anti-trans hysteria. He voted for Marjorie Taylor Green’s anti-trans bill, Protect Children’s Innocence Act (H. R. 3492), which became law. In 2016, he voted against the Maloney Amendment, which would have barred federal contractors from discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Transgender folks aren’t the problem or the perpetrators; they’re the victims. Hate crimes and violence against them have increased over time, with trans women “nearly four times as likely to be victims of violent crime” than cisgender women. Republicans claim they target trans rights to protect cisgender women and girls, but the truth is they’re using trans rights as a wedge issue. An actual, imminent threat to women is the cisgender men who are reportedly infiltrating women’s restrooms in Target to challenge the store’s transgender policy. Trans people are not a real threat. They’re the canary in the coal mine, and laws targeting them are attempts to normalize denial of rights.
If Wittman deploys the same anti-trans schemes as Winsome Earle-Sears, remember that he isn’t trying to protect women. How do we know that? He voted NO on the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013.
The more you know
Wittman’s potential attacks against Taylor will almost certainly include exaggerated claims, disinformation, racially coded language, and wedge issues. His campaign may try to divide us by stoking fears about immigrants and other minority groups for the chaos he helped unleash along with Trump.
Wittman might also accuse Taylor of corruption and conflicts of interest of which he himself is guilty, or that he willingly enables in the Trump administration. Our job as voters is to know the facts, ask questions, and check reliable sources so we can avoid falling for his propaganda. Share this article right now with your fellow voters to help them stay vigilant.
And then vote for Shannon Taylor on November 3. Because we can’t afford Rob Wittman.
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The clarification on the ICU nurse case is important. The hospital may yet get charged here as well, so Ms. Taylor's office did the best they could do given the lack of cooperation.
If we are going to talk about "soft on crime"...Wittman voted to contest the 2020 election after an angry mobbed attacked the Capitol and clearly supported their pardons by DJT. He does not care about the "rule of law" through his support of an unchecked ICE campaign.