With Republicans’ strict abortion bans blanketing nearly the entire Southeast, Virginia has become the last Southern state where pregnant people can access abortion care through fetal viability or to protect their health.
Just north of its border with North Carolina sits Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, where Republican Jen Kiggans’ reelection bid is shaping up to be a referendum on GOP efforts to pass abortion bans across the country.
House Democrats see a real opportunity in the district, making Kiggans’ challenger, Missy Cotter Smasal, a first-round pick in January for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s red-to-blue list. It’s a district President Joe Biden won in 2020 by roughly 2 points, according to Daily Kos Elections.
Virginia voters are primed to view abortion bans as a real possibility. Last year, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin poured nearly $1.5 million into trying to convince voters that a 15-week abortion ban wasn’t actually a ban. One pre-election poll showed that voters rejected Youngkin’s proposal by a 15-point margin, and his bid to take control of the state legislature ultimately flopped.
Since then, Youngkin has vetoed several reproductive rights-related bills passed by Democratic lawmakers to protect abortion, contraception, and medical providers. Youngkin did sign one bill protecting the digital health data of pregnant people, but Democrats still view the battle to protect reproductive freedoms as especially salient in the state.
“Jen Kiggans is on borrowed time,” DCCC spokesperson Lauryn Fanguen told Daily Kos. “Her extensive anti-abortion record, enthusiastic embrace of MAGA extremism, and betrayal of veterans, military families, and law and order have doomed her reelection chances.”
Democrats’ House Majority PAC is also taking aim at Kiggans’ district, which is slated to receive roughly $2 million of a $186 million ad buy designed to retake control of the House, according to CNN.
Democrats have also pointed to a series of votes Kiggans has cast to restrict abortion access for military personnel, prohibit abortion care at VA medical centers, and end federal funding for international non-governmental organizations that provide abortion services.
In an interview with The New York Times, Kiggans, a Navy veteran, defended her vote to reverse a Pentagon policy that subsidizes travel for service members who need to access abortions across state lines by calling it “elective surgery.”
“This wasn’t a bill about abortion; it was about taxpayers paying for travel for military members for elective procedures,” Kiggans said.
Ahead of the 2022 midterms, Kiggans also talked up a national 15-week abortion ban as “common-sense” legislation. But when pressed by the Virginia Scope on whether she would vote for such a ban, Kiggans skirted the issue.
“The vast majority of Virginians—and Americans—support common-sense restrictions on abortion such as protecting babies from 15 weeks on,” she said in a statement.
Kiggans went on to flip the seat in the 2022 midterms, defeating Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria by 3.4 points.
But that contest preceded Youngkin’s push for a 15-week ban and Republicans’ successful effort to smother abortion rights across the South, stretching from North Carolina all the way to Texas.
Last fall, state seats located in Kiggans’ congressional district proved critical to Democrats, who secured the state legislative majority by flipping Districts 97 and 84—both by a handful of points.
Higgans’ district is also a bellwether. Since 2009, the party that has won that district’s seat has also won control of the House of Representatives—making it one to watch in November.
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