Musical chairs: Eugene Vindman announces run in First District congressional race

I wrote last night about how it looked to me that Ken Mitchell would be facing an uphill battle in his decision to refocus his congressional race from the Sixth District to the Seventh District, because sitting in front of him in the Seventh District was an incumbent, Eugene Vindman.

What I didn’t know last night, but know today, is that the pending redo of our congressional maps in Virginia has Vindman residing inside the boundaries of what will be the First District.

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ICYMI

• Ken Mitchell shifting focus for congressional run to new Seventh District

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I’m going to need a big map and some pins, going forward.

“In one lifetime, I went from refugee to representative — and I’m not finished. With our rights and freedoms under attack, I am running to represent Virginia’s First Congressional District,” Vindman said in a video statement released on Thursday.

Vindman is a freshman congressman, elected in the 2024 cycle in the Seventh, which was an open seat with the move by Abigail Spanberger to focus her attention on her ultimately successful 2025 run for governor.

Our guy Ken Mitchell was the Democratic Party nominee in the Sixth District in 2024.

The boundaries of the Sixth are changing with the rest; Mitchell, who resides in Rockingham County, lives in a district that will stretch from the western half of Augusta County into the DC suburbs.

The First District is currently represented by Republican Rob Wittman, whose district residence is listed as being in Montross, in the Northern Neck – which will be in the new Eighth District.

I still live in the Sixth District.

I’m not running for anything, so, doesn’t matter.