Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District is on lots of lists for hot races in November — and to get set for that both Republicans and Democrats are holding primaries Tuesday to pick their candidates for the big contest.
And perhaps the biggest issue on the ballot Tuesday is how people feel about President Donald Trump.
On the GOP side, former James City County supervisor Mary Jones is challenging freshman Rep. Scott Taylor, R-Virginia Beach, saying he’s not a strong enough supporter of Trump and conservative causes.
On the Democratic side, Norfolk business owner Elaine Luria’s latest mailer features a cartoon of an angry Trump as it urges voters to come up “if you’re tired of the tweets and hateful rhetoric.” Virginia Beach teacher Karen Mallard says “November 8, 2016, that changed everything. The elections of Donald Trump and Scott Taylor were just too much to bear.”
The GOP
While Taylor has broken with Trump’s support for offshore drilling for oil and criticized the president’s response to the deadly racist violence at Charlottesville last year, he has backed Trump’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, cut taxes and expand the Navy.
Jones said Taylor’s not a true conservative because of his legislation banning housing discrimination against gays, while his concern about rising sea levels show he does not support the military.
Taylor says his top priorities include working to improve the economy, taking care of veterans and ensuring the military has the resources it needs.
Among his most recent efforts on Capitol Hill is a successful amendment to the defense appropriation bill that orders the Pentagon and Department of Transportation to put a priority on defense access roads and projects in communities, such as Hampton Roads, that see repeated flooding. Legislation he sponsored requiring closer monitoring of senior Veterans Administration executives is on its way to the president for his signature.
“My work on the appropriations committee, which makes all discretionary federal funding decisions, gives me a seat at the table to determine not just our nation’s priorities, but to help our own district,” Taylor said. “I am passionate about taking care of our vets, giving our troops the resources they need, cleaning the Chesapeake Bay and setting the conditions for our economy to grow.”
Jones said her top issues include pushing to build a wall on the Mexican border and to ensure immigration and deportation laws are enforced.
She has said she also will push for a bill allowing people with concealed carry permits from any state to bring their concealed weapons anywhere in the United States.
Jones was elected to the James City County Board of Supervisors in 2007 and re-elected in 2011. She was chairman from 2011 to 2014 but failed to win re-election in 2015 after campaigning vigorously in opposition to an increase in the property tax rate that year.
Taylor, a real estate developer, was a Navy SEAL who was seriously injured on a combat mission in Iraq. He was elected twice to the House of Delegates before his election to Congress in 2016.
The Democrats
Luria says her top three issues in Congress would be sea level rise, support for military families and affordable health care.
“I will fight for immediate funding to invest in projects that address flooding, as well as collaborate with other coastal representatives across the country and across the aisle,” she said. She said she would work for policies that focus on engineering solutions to rising sea levels.
Mallard says her top priorities include health care. Unlike Luria, Mallard favors Medicare for all or universal government-financed health insurance.
She also would push to raise the minimum wage to $15 and reform gun laws.
“I took a lot of heat when I destroyed my husband’s AR-15 in an act of solidarity with the students of Parkland, Florida. I would do it again. We have to take a stand. Enough is enough,” she said.
Luria owns Norfolk’s Mermaid Factory, which sells miniature versions of the city’s iconic mermaid statues for people to paint. A 20-year U.S. Navy veteran, she deployed six times to the Middle East and western Pacific. Her final assignment was as commanding officer of Assault Craft Unit Two at Little Creek.
Mallard, a reading specialist, has taught in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake schools for 30 years — but her first student was her dad. She says her years as a union leader and an advocate for education at the legislature gives her experience going line by line through budgets and negotiating with others who disagree with her.
The 2nd District, which stretches from the entire city of Williamsburg through eastern James City County, York County, Poquoson and the northern part of Hampton to Norfolk, Virginia Beach and the Eastern Shore, voted 51 percent for Democrat Ralph Northam in 2017 in the Virginia governor’s race. The district split 48 percent for Republican Donald Trump and 45 percent for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016’s presidential race.
Voting is Tuesday, with polls open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voters must choose whether to vote in the Republican primary, in which case there are two races on the ballot, for the party nomination for the 2nd District and for the U.S. Senate, or in the Democratic primary, in which the only contest is between Luria and Mallard.
