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FAIRFAX, VA – He isn’t on the poll, however President Donald Trump is smack in the midst of Tuesday’s particular congressional election within the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.
The federal jobs cuts carried out by Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), crime and immigration, transgender insurance policies, and even the push to launch the Justice Division’s recordsdata on the late convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein are additionally within the highlight as voters forged ballots within the Fairfax County anchored district.
James Walkinshaw, the Democratic Occasion nominee, advised Fox Information Digital the sweeping and controversial agenda Trump pushed throughout his first eight months again within the White Home could have a “actual impression” on the particular election in Virginia’s left-leaning eleventh Congressional District.
Republican nominee Stewart Whitson additionally says Trump’s within the marketing campaign highlight due to a “lot of the nice insurance policies that he is been championing.”
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The winner will succeed the late longtime Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly, who died in June after a battle with most cancers.
The Republicans at present management the Home 219-212, with three seats managed by Democrats vacant, in addition to one held by the GOP. And if Walkinshaw tops Whitson in a district Republicans have not received in practically 20 years, it’s going to additional slender the GOP’s fragile Home majority.
In a district that is house to tens of 1000’s of federal employees and contractors, many citizens have been affected by the DOGE carried out job cuts and layoffs.
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“Of us in Northern Virginia and Fairfax are feeling the impression of the Trump insurance policies. And I wish to say we’re sort of on the forefront of the Trump economic system right here. Everyone in Fairfax is aware of somebody, most likely somebody on their road, possibly the father or mother of their child’s soccer workforce, who has misplaced their job due to DOGE or the Trump insurance policies,” Walkinshaw mentioned on Election Day eve.
Walkinshaw, a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors member who beforehand served as Connolly’s chief of workers, argued that “if the Trump insurance policies proceed, tariffs, the so-called large, stunning invoice, that is going to be the case throughout the nation. So I believe we’re on the forefront of that. And I believe voters tomorrow are going to ship an announcement about that.”
Marketing campaign indicators for Republican Stewart Whitson and Democrat James Walkinshaw, are seen on Sept. 8, 2025, in Fairfax County, Virginia, on the eve of a particular election in Virginia’s eleventh Congressional District. (Paul Steinhauser – Fox Information )
Whitson, an Military veteran and former FBI particular agent who oversees federal affairs for a conservative assume tank, advised Fox Information digital that “the folks in our district who’ve misplaced their job or who’re frightened about shedding their job, they do not want empathy. They want options.”
He mentioned Walkinshaw is “claiming he will battle President Trump and battle the administration. And my pitch to voters in our district is: is that going to assist? Is that going to assist enhance the scenario? The reply is not any.”
“We want somebody to signify the folks in our district who can work with any administration, whether or not it is Republican or Democrat,” Whitson emphasised.
Pointing to federal employees and contractors who misplaced their jobs, he mentioned, “I wish to discover a solution to get them again in. I additionally wish to discover different financial alternatives for them as effectively.”
Whereas Trump is not highly regarded within the district — the president received simply 31% of the vote in his White Home re-election final yr – Whitson mentioned that Trump’s polices “middle on… frequent sense.”
President Donald Trump, seen within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, is not on the poll in Tuesday’s particular congressional election in Virginia, however his agenda is dominating discussions on the marketing campaign path. (Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photos)
And taking intention at Democrats, he argued, “Individuals in our district are realizing that the unconventional left has simply pushed so distant from frequent sense… the unconventional insurance policies they’re pushing on our children behind closed doorways, the reckless smooth on crime insurance policies which might be making us much less secure. These are points which might be essential to our voters.”
Whitson, pointing to the continued battle over permitting transgender youngsters to make use of public faculty bogs in some Fairfax County faculties, focused Walkinshaw.
“My opponent believes it’s a civil proper for males who determine as ladies or ladies to enter our ladies’ locker rooms and watch them change. I believe that is all backwards,” Whitson charged. “I believe it’s a civil proper for women and girls after they see a feminine signal on a rest room that they know they will go in there and be secure. And once more, this simply comes again to frequent sense. I am a father with 5 youngsters. Three of these youngsters are daughters.”
Walkinshaw charged that Whitson has “been actually obsessive about how possibly 1% of the youngsters in our faculties use the bogs, and what I hear from of us in our group, and what I am targeted on is how 100% of our children can succeed within the lecture rooms. So the threats to drag federal funding, the dismantling of the Division of Schooling, threatens the efficiency of our children within the lecture rooms, and that is what I am targeted on.”
Whitson has additionally been attempting to hyperlink Walkinshaw to Zohran Mamdani, the socialist candidate who rocked the political world in June by successful the Democratic Occasion mayoral nomination in New York Metropolis.
Itemizing Walkinshaw’s file and his proposals, Whitson charged, “That is somebody who has a historical past of supporting a number of the very same sort of insurance policies that Mamdani is supporting. And so I am going to let voters… draw the comparability.”
Requested in regards to the comparability, Walkinshaw mentioned throughout his 4 months on the marketing campaign path this summer time, “not a single voter has requested me in regards to the New York mayor’s election. I do not care what occurs within the New York mayor’s election. I care what occurs to of us proper right here within the eleventh District.”
Republican congressional candidate Stewart Whitson is linking Democrat James Walkinshaw, his opponent in Tuesday’s particular election, to Democratic Occasion mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani of New York Metropolis (pictured). (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket by way of Getty Photos)
However what Walkinshaw says he has heard about on the marketing campaign path is the push by each Democrats and Republicans for the Justice Division to launch recordsdata associated to the federal investigation of Epstein, who died in jail six years in the past whereas awaiting federal fees associated to intercourse trafficking.
“Considered one of this stuff that I hear from Democrats, independents and a number of Republicans and conservatives who believed Donald Trump when he mentioned there was a cover-up of the recordsdata in the course of the Biden administration. They took him at his phrase, and now they’re questioning if he was mendacity. So yeah, it comes up, and it comes up throughout the political spectrum,” Walkinshaw mentioned.
And if he wins Tuesday’s election, Walkinshaw mentioned he’ll instantly signal a discharge petition by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. The petition, which is at present just some votes shy of passing, calls on the Home to vote to induce the Justice Division to launch the recordsdata.
“I completely will signal it,” he mentioned. “I believe the American folks should know. I wish to know what the Trump administration, if something, is overlaying up. And proper now, the discharge petition is the car to do this.”
Whitson argued that “my opponent’s actually late to the sport on this,” and that “months in the past I known as for a whole disclosure of all of the data from Epstein recordsdata.”
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Whitson pointed to his years as a federal legislation enforcement officer in declassifying paperwork, and charged that Walkinshaw was utilizing the problem as a political weapon.
“How lengthy has this case been happening, and now he lastly needs to achieve on these data. And so what does that imply? It means he does not care about these victims in any respect. He is utilizing the ache and the struggling that they expertise to attempt to get political achieve,” he argued.
Fox Information’ Kiera McDonald contributed to this report.
