One of the key themes of Democrat Shannon Taylor’s case against Republican US Rep. Rob Wittman in Virginia’s 1st Congressional District race is that while Virginians have struggled to keep up with rising costs, Wittman’s wealth has grown during his 10 terms in office.
“Rob Wittman profited while Virginians pay the price,” Taylor recently posted on social media. “It’s time to retire Washington Wittman.”
The focus of Taylor’s attacks on Wittman’s wealth deals with the growth of his stock portfolio since he was first elected in 2007.
Both Taylor and Wittman have come out against Congressional stock trading, though their parties support different ways of tamping down on elected officials financially benefiting from their positions of power.
And it’s arguably a tougher issue for Wittman, who just this year made money from a stock trade and is looking to defend his seat as momentum appears to be growing for Democrats. A recent Washington Post-Schar School poll found that Taylor was preferred by 50 percent of likely voters, compared with 46 percent for Wittman.
Financial disclosures
Citing the alternative data website Quiver Quantitative, Taylor’s campaign claims Wittman traded up to $2.5 million in stocks while in Congress.
“While Wittman plays the stock market, Virginians pay the price,” Sam Knapp, Taylor’s campaign manager, said in an email to Dogwood. “Gas, groceries, and health care all cost more because of Wittman’s votes in Washington.”
Taylor’s criticism that Wittman got wealthier while in Congress is supported when comparing the financial disclosure he filed in 2008 with the one he filed this year.
The disclosure Wittman filed in 2008 shows him owning assets valued in a range from $37,009 to $205,000. The disclosure Wittman filed earlier this year shows him owning assets valued in a range of $2.1 million to $8.8 million.
Taylor’s financial disclosure shows her with less wealth than Wittman. A tally of the values of the five assets Taylor reported, including a life insurance policy, added up to a range between $750,005 and $1.5 million, according to a financial disclosure Taylor filed in May.
“Rob Wittman wants you to believe his net worth went from $200K to $9 million because he’s ‘frugal’ — not because of his millions of dollars in stock trades as a member of Congress,” Taylor said in a Sept. 14 social media post. “I call BS.”
In an ad, Wittman addresses Taylor’s attacks directly, claiming that Taylor is lying about him. He says his wealth grew because of the inheritances he received after the deaths of his parents and his in-laws.
“My financial disclosures show more money because my parents died and my in-laws died,” Wittman says.
Wittman did not respond to a request for comment for this story. But in July, a Wittman spokesperson told Dogwood that Wittman does not personally direct his stock trades and that his investments are independently managed by a financial professional.
Stock portfolio
Taylor owns shares in only one company: United Bankshares, a financial services company that has offices in Virginia and West Virginia.
Wittman has reported owning shares in many more companies than Taylor.
According to his financial disclosure, Wittman owns shares in dozens of companies including NextEra Energy, the company that’s filed to merge with Dominion Energy, a company in which Wittman also owns shares. Wittman also reported owning shares in Amazon.com, Apple, Microsoft, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and UnitedHealth Group. Earlier this year, Wittman reported his first stock trade since 2023.
Over the years Wittman’s stock trades have attracted scrutiny. Wittman was one of 97 members of Congress listed in a 2022 New York Times report on members trading stocks that intersected with their congressional work. In 2023, the Washington Examiner reported Wittman had failed to report a stock trade on time.
Wittman has said that he does not think members of Congress should be able to trade on “insider information.” And he has touted his support for the Stop Insider Trading Act that passed in the US House of Representatives.
The legislation would ban members of Congress and their families from purchasing individual stocks, but some Democrats have criticized the bill for not requiring lawmakers to sell stocks they already own.
Democrats in the US Senate blocked the legislation from advancing on Sept. 30. Senate Democrats argued the bill didn’t go far enough and wasn’t as strict as other stock-trading bills put forth by Democrats. And Democrats objected to Republicans including “poison pills” in the form of voting restrictions unrelated to stock trading in the bill.
“They designed this bill to fail,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
