Meet the candidates running to represent Hampton Roads in Congress

The congressional race to represent Virginia’s 2nd District is one of the most hotly contested in the country and will help determine which party controls the US House of Representatives.

This fall, voters across Virginia Beach and parts of Chesapeake, Suffolk, and the Eastern Shore will decide who they want to represent them in the US House of Representatives. 

Voters in Virginia’s 2nd District will choose between Democratic challenger Missy Cotter Smasal and the Republican incumbent, Rep. Jen Kiggans. 

Kiggans was elected to represent the 2nd District in 2022, beating Democratic incumbent Elaine Luria by three points to flip the district red. Luria had turned the district blue in 2018, when she beat the Republican incumbent Scott Taylor. 

Virginia Beach, where more than 50% of registered voters live in the 2nd District, backed President Biden in 2020 by more than 12,000 votes. 

This history of electing Democrats and Republicans means the 2nd District election will be a competitive one this fall, with consequences for the rest of the country. 

Republicans hold a slim majority in the US House of Representatives, one of two chambers in Congress that makes and passes federal laws. Whichever party controls the House has a major advantage in determining public policy on issues like reproductive rights and poverty. 

Republicans’ slight edge in the House means Democrats have a real chance of taking control of the chamber to either help advance the goals of a possible President Kamala Harris or act as an important check on Donald Trump if he wins a second term. 

What to know about Missy Cotter Smasal

Missy Cotter Smasal is a US Navy veteran and the former owner-operator of a Hampton Roads Rita’s Italian Ice. She is also the executive director of a nonprofit that honors service women and an adjunct professor. 

Smasal’s case to voters is that she’s ready to take on MAGA extremists to defend abortion rights. She has earned the backing of prominent Virginia Democratic leaders like Rep. Abigail Spanberger, Rep. Jennifer McClellan, and former governor Ralph Northam. 

“We must prioritize growing the middle class, fighting for access to health care, and protecting our national security,” Smasal recently posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. “Achieving these goals and making real progress for Virginian families requires pragmatic, bipartisan solutions.”

What to know about Jen Kiggans

Kiggans is also a US Navy veteran who has worked in long-term care nursing facilities in Virginia Beach and Norfolk, while also serving as a primary care provider for a private practice in Virginia Beach. 

Kiggans was elected to the Virginia Senate in 2019, and served there until 2021. Her vote in 2020 against payday lender reforms in Virginia came under scrutiny when she first ran for Congress in 2022. 

More recently, Kiggans withdrew a congressional funding request that would have run afoul of committee rules after Politico’s E&E News asked about it. The funding request was for a natural gas pipeline in the 2nd District that would likely have benefited a for-profit utility. But House Appropriations Committee rules prohibit money from going to for-profit companies, and Kiggans had received campaign donations from companies that could benefit from the new pipeline, according to E&E News. 

When it comes to the issues, Kiggans believes abortion laws should be determined by states, a position that falls in line with Trump’s stance after the US Supreme Court took away the constitutional right to an abortion with its overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

Kiggans has also engaged in the kind of dirty politics that have become a hallmark of Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. 

Earlier this month, the editorial board of The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press blasted Kiggans for a fundraising email where she played up her medical expertise in suggesting Biden has dementia after his poor debate performance in June. 

“Kiggans would do well to seek reelection on the power of her ideas, the strength of her accomplishments and her vision for the future, rather than resorting to cheap, and unethical, political stunts,” the editorial board said.