The Fall of Congressman Rob Wittman

(Possibly benign) neglect has turned into active harm. No more!

Greetings from Wittman Watch HQ!

• We’re back from our Substack break!

• On Tuesday, we did some myth-busting about the Virginia referendum on April 21st. Read it, share it, and tell us what you think in the comments!

• Scroll down to see this week’s social media roundup.

Let’s talk about our representative, shall we?

Virginia’s First Congressional District is a place rich in history, culture, and community, with a geography as varied as its people. We hail from rural countryside to bustling suburban hubs, coastal cities, and everything in between. We are farmers, parents, federal employees, military service members, and shipyard workers.

Yet one major thing is missing from our lives: a congressional representative who cares about us. Congressman Rob Wittman has been our representative since 2007, but he’s far more interested in serving billionaires and big donors than being a public servant for his constituents.

And in November 2026 — this November! — VA-01 has a chance to vote Wittman out, and vote in a representative who will uphold their prescribed Constitutional duties and hold the Trump administration accountable for its crimes, corruption, chaos, and cruelty. (That’s assuming redistricting doesn’t put Wittman out to pasture first.)

But how did we get here? The battle for representation of Virginia’s First District is a saga you maybe never heard about—until now. You’re about to read the story of a political movement full of villains and heroes, plot twists, wild cards, and most importantly, the grit and heart of the folks who care about giving VA-01 its best chance to thrive.

When VA-01 became “in play”

Congressman Rob Wittman is currently serving his tenth term. Let’s review his path to Congress. A Henrico County native, he has a history of public service. After obtaining a master’s degree in public health, he worked for twenty years at the Virginia Department of Health.

Then he went from serving on the Montross Town Council to mayor of Montross. While mayor, his main initiatives resulted in a sewage system overhaul and new software for tax billing. As a member of the Westmoreland Board of Supervisors, he advocated for teacher raises and building libraries. After serving as a delegate in the Virginia General Assembly (2005), he was chosen in a special election for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007.

Wittman’s career paints a picture of a typical Republican politician: he was no rockstar legislator, but neither was his track record particularly objectionable. He showed up and did his job in a quiet, predictable manner. One can understand why so many people voted for him over the years.

But Wittman’s political career took a dark turn when he pulled a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Through Donald Trump’s first term, culminating in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and Wittman’s vote to object to the count of Pennsylvania’s elections in an attempt to throw the election to Trump, Wittman has become a partisan MAGA extremist. He fully supports Trump in all policies, however antithetical to the “practical conservative” image he tries to project.

These days, Wittman is actively causing real harm to the people of the First District: breaking our healthcare, hurting military families, jacking up the cost of living, supporting violations of international law, trying to curtail reproductive rights, courting environmental catastrophe, and threatening election integrity. His notorious vote for H.R. 1 caused many families to lose Medicaid and SNAP benefits. We don’t know if he’s driven by money, power, or dogma, but the evidence shows Wittman positions himself against the very people he’s supposed to serve.

Wittman handily won reelection every two years until 2018. That year, he earned 55% of the vote, a lower proportion than any of his earlier races. Against the backdrop of President Trump’s reelection, constituent exasperation with Wittman spiked in part because he voted against the Inflation Reduction Act and wanted to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. That’s why lawyer Leslie Mehta challenged Wittman in 2024 for his congressional seat—a feat she attempted against all odds. But the election of President Joe Biden, unpopular lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Glenn Youngkin’s well-financed campaign for Virginia’s governorship favored Wittman. He held onto his seat, but Mehta’s efforts chipped away at his stranglehold on VA-01.

Then came the blue wave in the 2025 state elections, when support for Democrats surged across VA-01. Governor-elect Spanberger overperformed Mehta, picking up multiple percentage points in deep-red areas like Poquoson.

Across the First District, a host of factors are contributing to massive discontent with Wittman’s failings, increasing the likelihood that VA-01 will slip from his grasp, whether or not redistricting happens:

• Geographic trends (e.g., population growth in the Richmond suburbs) improved Democratic performance in elections

• Neither Republicans nor President Trump showed up for Republican gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, compared to their support for former governor Glenn Youngkin

• Lack of voter interest in extreme “cultural wedge issues”

• Rising cost of living (e.g., gas, utilities, healthcare, and housing)

• Cuts to the federal workforce, which disproportionally affect Virginians

• Federal funding reductions, such as the devastating DOGE cuts

• Concerns about threats to democracy

• Wittman’s support of the Iran War, ICE, and other destructive federal policies

All of this leads to an inevitable conclusion: Wittman has made our lives worse, not better. The slow erosion of his monopoly on VA-01 is becoming a landslide. And that’s when a well-prepared opposition saw their opening.

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The Democratic challengers

Where there’s a villain, there’s a hero. Or in the case of VA-01, thirteen heroes—the total number of candidates (past and present) who have stepped into the ring to challenge Congressman Wittman for his seat. That’s how flippable the First District has become, and likely also a sign of how much Wittman has neglected his constituents.

Here are their names (roughly in the order they entered the race; asterisk indicates the current eight candidates):

• Amanda Pohl

• *Salaam Bhatti

• *Mel Tull

• Lisa Vedernikova Khanna

• James Shea

• Andrew Lucchetti

• Sean Sublette

• *Ericka Kopp

• *Tim Cywinski

• *Shannon Taylor

• *Jason Knapp

• *Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs

• *Lewis Littlepage

The official number of candidates is now eight: Beggs, Bhatti, Cywinski, Knapp, Kopp, Littlepage, Taylor, and Tull. Many of these challengers bring real underdog energy to their campaigns because they aren’t swanky-steakhouse-lover-millionaires like Wittman, nor do most of them have connections to big donors. Some don’t take corporate PAC money at all. These candidates are running for Congress not to enrich themselves, but to empower us.

While each candidate is unique in their own way, they share several key goals they’ll fight for on our behalf: affordable healthcare, strengthening the economy, reproductive freedom, lowering the cost of living, protecting the environment, and holding the Trump administration accountable.

Nearly 400 people registered for the VA-01 Candidate “Speed Dating” Event, courtesy of Historic Triangle Democrats. The high interest shows how much attention voters are paying to the Democratic primary scheduled for August, as well as how ready they are for change. Visit our candidate information page for all the ways you can connect with and see information from all the candidates for VA-01.

More people watching Wittman

Where there’s an evil empire, there are rebels trying to stop it. If you’re new to Wittman Watch, we’re one part of the broad resistance to Rob Wittman’s abysmal record as a public servant. We’re all volunteers and residents of Virginia’s First District, and we’ve seen how Wittman’s feckless representation has degraded us to the point of harm. So, since August 2025 we’ve been keeping a close eye on Wittman

Wittman Watch exists to:

• Hold Wittman to account for his words and actions

• Show First District Virginians how they’re being willfully misled through lies, omissions, and misdirection in Wittman’s communications

• Help everyone understand how VA-01 can secure better representation in Congress, and who’s running to deliver it

• Create opportunities for conversation on the issues and priorities in our district

• Illuminate the ways in which the silent complicity of Trump’s enablers works in practice, so other House districts across the country can benefit from our work

Our 2026 #WittmanValentine event sent the message that VA-01 constituents are more than ready to break up with Rob Wittman. But our discontent went far beyond Valentine’s Day. We’ve highlighted his failures in all sorts of ways.

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Anti-Wittman protests and constituent town halls

“Stop ignoring us!”

That’s the message multiple protesters across 2025-26 delivered to Wittman at or near his district and satellite offices. Protesters brought their energy, their voices, and their dedication to these spirited events. Participants included suburban moms, Boomers, members of the disabled community, longtime activists, first-time activists, elected officials, Democratic candidate challengers, party committee members, college students, and many others from different backgrounds and groups.

The protests had names like “Rob Wittman’s “Big Ugly Betrayal,” “Where’s Wittman?” and “Wittman Robbed Us.” Protesters got creative, too, such as with the Halloween protest named “Nightmare on Wittman Street,” and when members of the Williamsburg Area Chapter of Virginia Organizing delivered in December “a stocking full of coal to Wittman’s Yorktown office” to protest his support for the OBBBA and healthcare cuts.

A protest of 200 people was so powerful it prompted Wittman to cancel his mobile office hours events. That decision showed he grasped the consequences of refusing to engage with his constituents, and revealed he didn’t hesitate to double down by hiding in his comfy office even more.

Wittman has a habit of avoiding in-person town halls, so some constituents organized them in his absence. Back in 2017, “in Nokesville, Virginia, citizens held a mock town hall to discuss the congressman’s voting record”—complete with a cardboard cutout of Wittman.

Other events included the “Where Is Wittman?” Town Hall with Senator (now Lieutenant Governor) Ghazala Hashmi, the Democracy Circle RVA library town hall (which drew 150 people), and Democracy Circle RVA’s healthcare town hall. Williamsburg JCC Indivisible got in on the action by hosting a “Rob “Runaway” Wittman Constituents’ Town Hall.”

Despite Wittman’s best efforts to hide from us, we’ve been finding him anyway. During one of his 2025 telephone town halls, he was “Reamed by Furious Voters” who were angry about his refusal to stand up for us.

If the protests, town halls, and other efforts to hold Wittman accountable tell us anything, it’s that the tide has been rising against him for some time. And that leads us to the efforts by grassroots groups and ordinary folks who have worked diligently to inform their fellow VA-01 voters about why it’s important to replace Wittman.

Grassroots groups fighting for a better VA-01

Grassroots groups have been informing and engaging with voters to both warn them about Wittman and to empower them to act. These groups include (but are not limited to) Democracy Circle RVA (the brain child of Dr. Jenny Pribble), Neighbors For Change, Wittman Watch, RVA Indivisible, WJCC Indivisible, and 50501 Virginia. These groups have been sending out informative newsletters, publishing candidate interviews, organizing protests, highlighting the Democratic primary on social media, holding petition signing events for the Democratic challengers, and hosting town halls. And a group called Protect Our Care released a video urging Wittman to reverse the healthcare cuts.

Democratic party committees such as Henrico Dems and Historic Triangle Dems helped raise the visibility of the Democratic candidates by hosting petition drives and giving the candidates opportunities to tell voters about their campaigns. They’ve also been organizing anti-Wittman protests and offering VA-01 residents multiple chances to participate in the democratic process.

Then there are the folks who are using their social media to pump up excitement for unseating Wittman (hats off to the First District Bluesky Dems and to our Facebook and Instagram followers!). They’re also volunteering at the polls, calling Wittman’s office to share their concerns, writing emails and letters to the editor, attending protests and town halls, joining pro-democracy groups, and volunteering with the campaigns of the Democratic challengers. And the comments on Wittman’s official Facebook page and his campaign Facebook page are full of VA-01 residents demanding that he do better.

As they say, where there’s a will, there’s a way—and collectively, we’re forging a path towards true congressional representation.

Scared witless

This is the part of the story when we discover that the wizard is nothing but a mere mortal behind his curtain. Rob “Take My Survey” Wittman tries hard to highlight the “wonderful” things he’s done for us, when in fact he’s clearly worried about keeping his seat. The more Wittman frets about his chances of being re-elected, the more he vomits press releases, emails, and social media posts onto his constituents.

Like a shameless carnival barker, Wittman hypes his alleged achievements when he had little or nothing to do with them, or when they’re not actually things he should be bragging about. He also makes transparently false claims, such as how the OBBB is going to help people. He lies about the redistricting referendum, flip-flops on earmark funding, sends out flyers with misinformation, blows hot air about lowering housing costs, and generates smoke and mirrors about the GOP healthcare plan.

Plot twist! Wittman is flailing.

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Wittman needs to go

It’s not just Virginia’s First District that needs better, more professional representation; it’s all of America. The time is now—and urgently so!— because the longer Wittman fails to do his job (which includes holding the Trump administration accountable), the worse our lives will become.

Between the Iran War, ICE abuses, Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” Trump and his cronies enriching themselves and self-dealing, Wittman and Trump’s disregard for the Constitution, the dismantling of federal agencies, expensive groceries, healthcare cuts, the war on science, and the toxic MAHA movement, the stakes are sky-high both domestically and abroad.

The redistricting referendum wildcard plays an important role as well. If voters opt for it and it passes, Wittman will have an even more difficult time holding onto his seat than he does now. Regardless of the method, we need to give Wittman the boot. He’s an empty suit who no longer understands the meaning of public service—if he ever did.

Instead of Wittman sending our hard-earned tax money to billionaires, we need a representative who will aim that firehose of money in the other direction, from the billionaires to We the People of Virginia’s First Congressional district.

We need representatives who are fighters, not failures

When we put people dedicated to public service in charge of the government, we get great stuff. It’s that simple. Republicans currently in office have demonstrated countless times that they aren’t interested in governance or serving the public; rather, they’re intent on putting “America Last” by gutting our social services and serving themselves.

When elected officials put the American people first, we gain benefits like affordable housing, accessible healthcare, renewable energy that keeps our utility bills low, a quality public education system, plentiful jobs, dependable infrastructure, a robust economy, billionaires who will pay their fair share of taxes, and much, much more. The sky’s the limit, but only if we have the political will to elect representatives who understand that they serve us and not Trump, billionaires, big donors, or special interests.

The last chapter of Virginia’s First District saga is about to be written. How do you want the story to end?

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How do you think we can obtain better representation for 2027 and beyond? Let us know your ideas by posting comments here or on any of our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.

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As seen on our socials

Our social media channels respond quickest to whatever Wittman does or says. Here’s a selection from the past week. Click on each post to see them on BlueSky (no account necessary). Follow us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit to get immediate updates each time we post.

That’s a wrap

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This November, we’ll make sure our seat is filled by someone who’ll work for us.