flip-a-district fridays: volume I
Welcome to the inaugural edition of the 2020 Flip-A-District Friday series.
We have relayed critical, up-to-the-minute information about candidates in Virginia's toughest races since 2017. Additionally, we have raised thousands of dollars from generous readers like you that have gone directly to strong Democratic nominees who need contributions most.
This year will be no different.
We cannot be complacent despite recent polling showing the Biden-Harris ticket ahead of Trump-Pence by a significant margin in Virginia. These numbers are very likely to tighten in the coming weeks and are by no means a guarantee that key congressional races will go blue. In fact, some of our incumbent Democrats, whom we will cover in future editions of Defend-A-District Fridays, are in extremely close races that are considered toss-ups.
We must be vigilant in order to both flip red districts blue and keep our Democratic incumbents in Congress. Early voting starts in just one week, and it is urgent that we help our candidates get the resources they need to cross the finish line strong.
FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Meet the candidate: Qasim Rashid
Qasim believes in service, leadership, and compassion. He is an immigrant, a proud American Muslim, and above all a devoted father and husband. His wife, Ayesha, is a small business owner and volunteers with interfaith outreach in the community. Together, they have three beautiful children and live in Stafford. Qasim is running as a Democrat to transform his advocacy into policy for the working families of Virginia’s First District.
Qasim earned his law degree from the University of Richmond School of Law and has a long track record of serving diverse communities in Virginia. This includes his work to combat domestic and sexual violence against women, uplift the incarcerated through prison chaplaincy, serve his neighbors through blood drives and highway cleanups, and advocate for children’s education.
Qasim channels his passion to serve the marginalized by working with national and international non-profit organizations that advance women’s rights, improve water, food, shelter, healthcare, and education access for children living in poverty, and fight to protect religious freedom for all people. To that end, Qasim has written numerous books, given hundreds of interviews, and testified before the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to protect the rights of persecuted religious minorities around the world. Likewise, Qasim has worked with the federal government to improve national security here at home while upholding the United States Constitution as the supreme law of the land.
In addition to his humanitarian commitments, Qasim works as a consultant helping major organizations, small businesses, and non-profits improve their corporate strategies, messaging, and innovation. He is passionate about interfaith dialogue, running marathons, reading, and spending time with his wife and children. Qasim and his family attend worship services at the Masroor Mosque in Manassas.
First District:
The First District will certainly be a challenging race with the district having voted for Trump over Clinton by a 55-40 margin. Numbers tightened, however, in 2018 when Democrat Vangie Williams came within 11 points of incumbent Republican Rob Wittman, and Republican Senate challenger Corey Stewart narrowly won over Senator Tim Kaine by just over one point.
As of the last Federal Elections Commission (FEC) reporting period which ended on June 30th, Wittman raised $1,119,926.58 and has $651,258.63 on hand. Qasim has raised $590,878.14 and has $205,720.70 on hand. For comparison, Wittman had a much larger war chest in 2018, having raised over $1.5 million compared to Vangie Williams' $506,912.95. Wittman is under-performing his 2018 numbers, while Qasim has already raised more than Williams by nearly $100,000.
The district is located south of Alexandria and northeast of Richmond, stopping short of Newport News.
Just one example of why we must beat Rob Wittman:
Wittman has it all wrong on health care, despite claiming that "[h]ealth care reform has been a priority of [his] since [he] was elected to Congress."
He has voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) over 60 times and eagerly supported Republican "replacements" like HR1628, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which ultimately failed in the Senate after the two Republican-controlled chambers could not reach an agreement. AHCA, like all proposals in Congress, was assessed by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation, and they estimated that enacting the bill would increase the number of people who are uninsured by 23 million in 2026 relative to current law.
Among other punitive provisions, AHCA would have restricted state Medicaid eligibility expansions for adults, primarily by reducing federal matching rates from 90 percent beginning in 2020 to rates ranging between 50 percent and 75 percent, and eliminated cost-sharing reduction payments that reduce deductibles and other cost-sharing obligations for marketplace enrollees with household incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty level ($31,900 in annual income for a single adult).
Wittman also voted last May against HR986, the Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act of 2019. This important bill, which was never brought to a vote in the GOP-controlled Senate, would revoke guidance issued by the Trump Administration in October 2018 that encourages states to approve health plans that do not cover preexisting conditions. Wittman defended his vote by claiming that he was protecting individuals with preexisting conditions by cosponsoring the so-called "Pre-existing Conditions Protection Act of 2019." Do not be fooled by the name of the bill, however -- it would only partially protect those living with pre-existing conditions by making that guarantee contingent on a full repeal of the rest of the ACA.
Wittman cheer-leads Republican attempts to repeal the ACA but clearly has no coherent solution despite over a decade in office. The constituents of the First District deserve better.
Contact the campaign here.
Contribute here.
FIFTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Meet the candidate: Dr. Cameron Webb
Growing up in Spotsylvania, Cameron’s mother, a public-school speech therapist, and father, an HR manager with the DEA, taught Cameron to take an active role in his community and serve others. His parents encouraged all their children to dream big and work hard -- lessons that Cameron carries with him today.
After graduating from UVA and getting his medical and law degrees, Cameron was tapped by President Obama for a White House Fellowship. He served on the White House Health Care Team and also worked on President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative, where he helped tackle issues like education, workforce development and criminal justice reform.
A practicing physician, Cameron returned to Charlottesville where he treats patients as a general internist, teaches students and serves as the Director of Health Policy and Equity at UVA’s School of Medicine. His wife, Dr. Leigh-Ann Webb, is an ER doctor who grew up in Appomattox County. They reside in Albemarle County where they are raising their two children, Avery and Lennox.
Cameron is running for Congress to serve his community at this critical time. In Washington, he will be a fierce advocate to ensure opportunities for health and success for all Virginians.
Fifth District:
The Fifth District is currently represented by Republican Denver Riggleman, who was forced out in a drive-through GOP convention by a self-proclaimed "biblical conservative" who wants to go to Washington to “defend Judeo-Christian values,” Bob Good. Good had apparently decided that despite endorsements from Donald Trump and the House Freedom Caucus, Riggleman "betrayed the trust" of Republicans by officiating the same-sex marriage of his former campaign staffer.
While polling outlets like the Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball rate the Fifth District as "Leans Republican," there are major reasons to be optimistic about this race. Cameron has a massive financial advantage, for example. He has raised a whopping $1,364,315.47 with $453,582.44 cash on hand compared to Good's paltry total sum of $262,031.55 with $68,022.94 cash on hand as of June 30th.
Additionally, a poll released by Cameron's campaign in mid-August showed that he was within just two points of Good. This is a significant improvement over the district's spread in 2018 when Riggleman beat Democrat Leslie Cockburn by nearly eight points, and in 2016, when Trump beat Clinton by 14 points.
Good is also receiving a significant amount of blow-back after releasing his first ad, which tells voters to "look past [Webb's] smooth presentation" after superimposing Cameron's photo over videos of rioting and looting. Good even falsely claims that Cameron would "defund the police" and leave "crime unchecked" -- in fact, Webb has been endorsed by several local law enforcement officials. Good's not-very-subtle type of dog-whistling is not only offensive, it is indicative of the type of Trump-like congressman he would be if he won.
The district, Virginia's largest, runs from the North Carolina border to the outer reaches of the Northern Virginia suburbs.
Just one example of why we must beat Bob Good:
It is difficult to narrow down to just one reason why Bob Good is unfit to serve in Congress given his extreme views. Instead, here is a series of statements from Good that speak for themselves:
"I believe we have largely eliminated systemic racism."
"We've got this manufactured crisis that people want to blame on the president...Who could possibly blame the president for the pandemic?"
"The BLM movement...are radical on the LGBTQ thing, they want to destroy the nuclear family, they want to destroy the patriarchal structure of the family, they are a Marxist organization. They want to destroy this country."
"Hands off our guns, hands off our rights, and hands off our guns" at a "God. Family. Guns" rally.
"I am 100 percent pro-life from conception without exception, and I believe that government has a responsibility to protect all life in the womb. I don't believe that the way a child is conceived in any way diminishes the precious innocence of that life, and therefore our responsibility to protect and preserve it. I do not believe that abortion should be legal under any circumstances."
"We must reform our immigration policies in an effort to stop admitting individuals who hate us and want to destroy our way of life...We must eliminate random or merit-less immigration such as birthright citizenship, chain migration, diversity visas, and the visa lottery system...We must also exercise greater scrutiny of immigrants from nations with a demonstrated hostility toward America."
He opposes a “transgender bathroom mandate.”
Contact the campaign here.
Contribute here.
SIXTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Meet the candidate: Nicholas Betts
Nicholas Betts moved to Virginia when he was 18 years old to attend Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He worked a construction and landscaping job while pursuing his undergraduate degree. Nicholas received his Bachelor's Degree in History with a minor in Political Science, graduating Magna Cum Laude from VCU in 2011.
In the fall of 2011, Nicholas began pursuing a Master’s Degree in History at VCU while working as a graduate teaching assistant for the VCU History Department. During his last year of study, Nicholas served as both President of the Alexandrian Society and the founding President of the History Graduate Student Organization. Nicholas completed his Master’s Degree in History at VCU in 2013.
Later that year, Nicholas consulted for a small family business and soon began substitute teaching. He ultimately worked full time for the small business as a contract manager. Nicholas also completed his studies at Washington and Lee University School of Law, graduating in 2019. Nicholas currently works as a law clerk at a law firm in Roanoke, Virginia.
Nicholas met his wife, Lindsey, at VCU in 2008 -- they married in 2015. They currently live in Lexington, Virginia.
Sixth District:
The Sixth District will be one of the most difficult seats to flip in Virginia this year, with incumbent Republican Ben Cline having won by approximately twenty points in 2018. Ben Cline also has a comparatively large war chest. However, his voting record runs counter to the needs of residents of the Sixth, one of the poorest regions in the Commonwealth.
The district runs along the West Virginia border from Front Royal in the north to Roanoke in the south.
Just one example of why Ben Cline needs to go:
Cline is the only member of the Virginia delegation who voted against a critical bill responding to the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing economic downturn, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The bill provides expanded nutrition assistance, paid sick leave, enhanced unemployment insurance coverage, free coronavirus testing, and increased federal Medicaid funding. It even had the backing of both Democratic leadership and President Trump.
Why did he vote nay on this bipartisan, much-needed bill? Because apparently he "hadn’t had time to read the entire thing."
Cline also voted against the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, which provided $484 billion in additional funding to replenish and supplement key programs under the CARES Act, including the Paycheck Protection Program, small business disaster loans and grants, hospitals and health care providers and testing.
Cline is clearly not in touch with his district when it comes to the economic and health stakes of this pandemic. Take, for example, Page County in the Sixth District -- 13.9 percent of the population lives in poverty compared to 10.7 percent in Virginia on average, and 12.7 percent of the population is without any health insurance coverage compared to 10.2 percent in Virginia on average. In Bath County, another in the Sixth, the median annual income is just $46,137 compared to $71,564, the Commonwealth's median. As of July, Bath County also had a high unemployment rate of 9.7 percent, nearly two points higher than the state average. In Highland County, yet another area Cline represents, the rate of those living with a disability that might make them particularly vulnerable to the pandemic is 13.8 percent versus the Virginia average of 10.7 percent. Finally, the district as a whole has the second lowest median income of any congressional district in the Commonwealth.
Whether Cline wants to act like it or not, the virus has been spreading to rural areas like those in the Sixth District. This interactive dashboard from UVA is particularly helpful is tracking the spread of COVID-19 county-by-county (click on the map of Virginia and select "Next Level" for this information) and this district has seen more and more cases since the initial outbreak. For example, Harrisonburg reported 143 new COVID-19 cases this Tuesday -- the highest single day of new cases since the first city patient tested positive on March 12th. The Central Shenandoah region, also in the Sixth, now has the highest coronavirus test positivity rate in the Commonwealth.
These statistics all underline deep economic and health troubles in the 6th District due to the coronavirus outbreak that Cline does not appear to fully grasp. He said about the Republican National Convention, which was conspicuously devoid of policy prescriptions for and serious mentions of the pandemic, "Republicans put forward a positive agenda and I think it’s going to help deliver votes to Republicans across the board on Election Day."
Cline should pay more attention to the problems facing the Sixth District and less time giving lip service to the GOP.
Contact the campaign here.
Contribute here.