Navy veteran Missy Cotter Smasal on Wednesday became the first notable Democrat to announce a campaign against freshman Rep. Jen Kiggans, a Virginia Republican who flipped one of the most competitive House seats in the nation last year.
The 2nd District, which includes all of Virginia Beach as well as other communities in the Hampton Roads area, favored Joe Biden 50-48 in 2020 before backing Republican Glenn Youngkin by a hefty 55-44 margin in the following year’s race for governor. Kiggans, then a state senator, unseated Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria 52-48 in 2022 after an expensive battle, but Democrat Aaron Rouse’s subsequent victory in the special election to replace Kiggans in the legislature was another reminder that this area remains swingy turf.
Cotter Smasal herself waged a high-profile campaign in 2019 for a different seat in the state Senate when she went up against Republican incumbent Bill DeSteph. DeSteph had won his first term 59-41 in 2015, a year before Donald Trump carried his constituency 51-43, but both parties made this contest a priority at a time when Democrats were looking to flip the chamber.
Cotter Smasal, who decisively outraised her opponent, attracted national attention late in the race when she ran a TV ad starring Karen Havekost, who had survived a mass shooting in Virginia Beach earlier in the year in which a city employee murdered 12 people. “I asked Sen. Bill DeSteph to do something so this doesn’t happen again,” Havekost told the audience. “Sen. Bill DeSteph did not meet with us. He blocked the Senate from even voting on gun safety laws.” DeSteph responded with his own ad calling Cotter Smasal’s message “shameful.” He went on to a narrow 52-48 win, but that same night, his party lost control of the Senate for the first time since 2014.
Cotter Smasal launched her campaign to flip the 2nd District, where veterans make up a large portion of the electorate, by charging that Kiggans “voted to cut veterans’ health benefits and then lied about it.” (The congresswoman also served in the Navy.) The Democrat entered the race with endorsements from former Gov. Ralph Northam, who represented part of this area when he was in the legislature a decade ago, and Rep. Jennifer McClellan, who won a special election to represent the neighboring 4th District earlier this year. No other major Democrats have publicly expressed interest in running against Kiggans so far.
