Wittman, Kiggans vulnerable, assuming they’re not gerrymandered out

Don’t look now, but Democrat Abigail Spanberger won majorities in two congressional districts currently held by Republicans – Rob Wittman in the First District, and Jen Kiggans in the Second.

We’ve seen everybody and their second cousin who’s a Democrat in those two districts lining up to be the ones to challenge Wittman and Kiggans next year, assuming, of course, that the Virginia General Assembly doesn’t take care of the MAGAs representing us in Congress first.

---

ICYMI

• Virginia Republicans cry foul over Dems’ congressional redistricting move

---

Virginia Democrats are working through a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterms that could create as many as four additional Democrat-majority districts.

Kiggans, in the Second, in particular is vulnerable even as it is – the Second tends to flip back and forth and back again.

Factor in that Spanberger won within the current boundaries of the Second by seven points over Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, and, it wouldn’t surprise anybody to hear that Kiggans comes up with some family obligations that she needs to attend to that will keep her from running for re-election next year.

Spanberger won within the current boundaries of the First by 2.2 points – so, closer.

The biggest name in the Democratic race in the First is Shannon Taylor, the four-term Commonwealth’s attorney in Henrico County, which she flipped from red to blue back in the 2011 cycle.

---

ICYMI

• Election 2026: Shannon Taylor launches campaign for First District seat

---

Spanberger won Henrico by 38 points, and flipped neighboring Chesterfield County rather dramatically, taking a locality that Glenn Youngkin had won in 2021 and winning by 17.

“Gov.-elect Spanberger’s win within Virginia’s First Congressional District confirms what we’ve known all along: Congressman Rob Wittman has never been more vulnerable, and we are going to flip this seat in 2026 by prosecuting the case and offering a new kind of leadership,” said Taylor’s campaign manager, Sam Knapp, in a press release.

Savvy move by the Taylor campaign, sending out that PR.

That’s why I’m writing about this on the weekend.

The Spanberger beatdown in Tuesday’s elections had her winning eight of Virginia’s 11 congressional districts.

Earle-Sears won only within the current boundaries of:

• the Fifth, currently held by John McGuire, by 13 points.
• the Sixth, currently held by Ben Cline, by 17.6 points.
• the Ninth, currently held by Morgan Griffith, by 37 points.

Of those three, only Griffith, down in Southwest Virginia, is safe from the redistricting that is coming.