All seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are up for election every two years. There are 435 seats representing each of the fifty states in rough proportion to their population as recorded in the most recent national census. There are six non-voting delegate seats representing U.S. territories and the District of Columbia.
The Republican Party currently holds a 218-214 majority over the Democratic Party. There is one independent member who caucuses with the Republicans and two seats are vacant. Virginia has eleven seats, with six held by Democrats and five by Republicans.
Tenth District
In the race to represent Virginia’s 10th District in the United States House of Representatives, incumbent Representative Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA 10th) is challenged by Dave Beckwith (R) and Ahsen Malik (I). The 10th District encompasses Fauquier County, Loudoun County, Rappahannock County, the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park, and parts of Fairfax and Prince William counties.
Incumbent: Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA 10th)
Incumbent Representative Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA 10th) stands as the Democratic Party nominee to represent Virginia’s 10th District. He is nearing the end of his first term.
Subramanyam holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Tulane University and a law degree from Northwestern University. He served as a legislative assistant for a member of Congress and a law clerk for the Senate Judiciary Committee before entering private practice as an intellectual property attorney. He volunteered with the Center for Wrongful Convictions, served as a policy advisor in President Barack Obama’s (D) White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and has been an entrepreneur, corporate board member, and volunteer EMT and firefighter.
In 2019, Subramanyam was elected to the 87th District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates where he served two terms. He was then elected in 2023 to the 32nd District seat in the Virginia Senate. In 2024 he successfully sought election to represent Virginia’s 10th District in the House . . . and resigned from the Virginia Senate before completing a single term.
As of this writing, most of Subramanyam’s campaign website is unchanged from the 2024 campaign. He claims some accomplishments from his time in the General Assembly and says that, if we elect him to Congress (which we already did), he “will continue to take on the tough fights for Virginia families.” He must be very confident that he’ll be reelected, and he’s probably right, but I think this kind of lazy, complacent campaigning is insulting and unprofessional.
I can just repeat some of what I said two years ago too. In my analysis of that race I said, “Like so many modern Democratic Party politicians, Subramanyam makes promises that are nice-sounding pabulum, heavy with platitudes and euphemisms,” that he “has been consistently opposed to the fundamental human rights,” and that “he wants to eliminate voter identification laws, which are essential to free and fair elections.” All of this is still true.
In Congress, Subramanyam has been very vocal about bashing President Donald Trump (R)—sometimes with good reason, but often without—and he votes mostly in lock-step with Democratic Party leaders. His campaigns always promise bipartisanship and moderation, but those ideals seem to evaporate as soon as election season is over.
I’m also sorry to say that Subramanyam was a vocal supporter of Virginia’s illegal redistricting amendment, which I described as “one of the most appalling, unethical things I’ve ever seen in Virginia politics.” The process it went through violated voters’ equal protection rights, the ballot question itself was a lie, and the whole thing was a naked power-grab by self-interested politicians.
At the time I said the politicians who supported the amendment were “shameful, power-hungry liars” who should be run out of office in disgrace. In retrospect, my condemnation should have been much harsher. The amendment would have disenfranchised nearly half the state’s voters; to support it required an almost incomprehensible moral emptiness. It was an expression of hatred toward their neighbors, and a betrayal of representative democracy itself.
Dave Beckwith (R)
Dave Beckwith (R) stands as the Republican Party nominee to represent Virginia’s 10th District.
Beckwith holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Notre Dame, a master’s in mechanical engineering from the University of Dayton, and is a graduate of the United States Army War College. He served thirty years in the United States Air Force with assignments at the Air Force Materiel Command, Program Executive Office for Airlift and Trainers, Air Force Research Lab, Airborne Laser Program Office, and Signals Intelligence Directorate at the National Reconnaissance Office. Following retirement from active duty he worked at Orbital ATK and SAIC and, most recently, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of War/Defense for Strategic, Space, and Intelligence Portfolio Management.
If elected, this would be Beckwith’s first time holding elective office.
Beckwith says he “believes in conservative leadership, focusing on economic vitality, safe and secure communities, and fiscal responsibility.” His economic plans include a 5% federal flat tax, a permanent increase in the “SALT” tax deduction, indexing the capital gains tax to pre-inflation numbers, slashing unnecessary regulations, improving healthcare price transparency, ending subsidies for health insurance companies, and investing in nuclear energy development. He also promises to slash federal deficits and tackle the “debt and interest crisis,” protect parental rights in education, and improve support for military veterans.
On the fundamental human rights issues, Beckwith is generally on the right track. He promises to defend the right to life and self-defense rights, uphold limits on federal authority, and improve law enforcement and public safety efforts.
Beckwith’s campaign—like so many other Republican campaigns—says a lot of the right things. The problem is that he would be only one of 435 members of the House of Representatives. How will he overcome Congress’s institutional inertia? How will he convince foot-dragging Republicans (let alone Democrats) and the president to support his ideas? What would he actually do, and how? What’s the real-world game plan for accomplishing even one of his laudable goals?
The good news is that he won’t be working against our interests, even if he has little success in advancing them. That would be an improvement from the incumbent.
Ahsen Malik (I)
Ahsen Malik (I) stands as an independent candidate to represent Virginia’s 10th District.
Malik holds a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from the University of Virginia and a master’s of business administration from the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business. He has worked as a private sector consultant and account executive, real estate agent, and, most recently, as a middle school math teacher for Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland.
If elected, this would be Malik’s first time holding elective office.
Malik says he is “nervous and optimistic about the future trajectory of our nation” and that he “approach[es] challenges with a balanced perspective.” He also suggests that, “with Congress holding less than a 20% approval rating, I believe that being an outsider is a strength, not a weakness.” That’s probably true.
Unfortunately his policy proposals are mostly nonstarters. First of all, he falls woefully short on human rights issues. He is “pro-choice in the first trimester and pro-life in the last trimester” and says he wants “compromise” on the right to life . . . but there is no such thing as compromise when the first and most fundamental human right is at stake. He wants to enact a liberty-trampling national “single payer” healthcare system. He supports a total ban on data center construction, in direct violation of the human right to property. That’s 0-for-3 on the three fundamental human rights. He also seeks to undermine states’ rights by eliminating the electoral college.
He supports reducing our national debt and balancing the budget—I’m with him there. His energy and immigration proposals are at least worthy of consideration. His stance on energy is a mix of good and bad ideas. And he’s completely backwards on foreign policy, especially with regard to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He blames the Israeli victims and defends the Palestinian aggressors while advocating an impossible (but slightly clever) “one-state solution.”
Conclusion
Representative Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA 10th) supported the illegal effort to disenfranchise nearly half of Virginia . . . that alone should permanently disqualify him from any position of trust in any public or private organization. The fact that he’s wrong about pretty much everything else just reinforces that judgment.
Ahsen Malik (I) is an unconventional alternative, but he is nearly as bad as Subramanyam on the fundamental human rights to life, liberty, and property. Protecting those is the whole purpose of government. Anyone who gets them wrong is unlikely to get many other things right. His inverted view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict seems to confirm that.
Dave Beckwith (R) has grandiose plans that are unlikely to come to fruition. Plenty of Republican candidates have promised balanced budgets, for example, and we haven’t had one in decades . . . even when the party controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency. But at least he wouldn’t be working to undermine human rights or disenfranchise half his state.
Vote Dave Beckwith for Virginia’s 10th District.
Other Districts
I make the following recommendations for contested House of Representatives races in Virginia’s other districts, and for a special election race in the Virginia House of Delegates. I have evaluated each race and candidate individually according to the same general criteria described in the endorsement article above.
U.S. House of Representatives
- 1st District: Incumbent Representative Rob Wittman (R-VA 1st) is challenged by Dianne Blais (G) and Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor (D). I recommend voting for Rob Wittman.
- 2nd District: Incumbent Representative Jen Kiggans (R-VA 2nd) is challenged by Matt Baker (I), former Representative Elaine Luria (D-VA 2nd), and Bishop Staten (I). I recommend voting for Jen Kiggans.
- 3rd District: Incumbent Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA 3rd) is challenged by Makiba Gaines (I), Edwin Rivera (R), and Stephen Woll (I). I recommend voting for Edwin Rivera.
- 4th District: Incumbent Representative Jennifer McClellan (D-VA 4th) is challenged by Joan Bell (I) and Robert Murray Jr. (R). I recommend voting for Joan Bell.
- 5th District: Incumbent Representative John McGuire (R-VA 5th) is challenged by Cooke Harvey (I) and former Representative Tom Perriello (D-VA 5th). I recommend voting for John McGuire.
- 6th District: Incumbent Representative Ben Cline (R-VA 6th) is challenged by Beth Macy (D). I recommend voting for Ben Cline.
- 7th District: Incumbent Representative Eugene Vindman (D-VA 7th) is challenged by Alaha Ahrar (I), Joshua Ertle (I), Taner Lopez (L), and Doug Ollivant (R). I strongly recommend voting for Doug Ollivant. Even if you choose not to support Ollivant, I strongly recommend you do not vote for Vindman.
- ATTENTION: Eugene Vindman, a former U.S. Army colonel, and his twin brother Alex Vindman, a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, served on the U.S. National Security Council under President Donald Trump (R) during his first term. Alex falsely accused Trump of soliciting election interference from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Eugene helped Alex prepare perjurious testimony to Congress and continues to falsely accuse Trump of “attempted extortion.”
- 8th District: Incumbent Representative Don Beyer (D-VA 8th) is challenged by Shelly Arnoldi (L), Tony Sabio (R), and Tim Sharman (I). I recommend voting for Shelly Arnoldi.
- 9th District: Incumbent Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA 9th) is challenged by Joy Powers (D). I recommend voting for Morgan Griffith.
- 10th District: See full-form endorsement above.
- 11th District: Incumbent Representative James Walkinshaw (D-VA 11th) is challenged by Arthur Purves (R). I make no recommendation.
Virginia House of Delegates (Special)
A special election is being held in one Virginia House of Delegates district:
- 20th District: Former Virginia Delegate Michelle Maldonado (D-20th) resigned in May. Manassas City Council Member Sonia Vasquez Luna (D) and Nate Fritzen (R) stand as candidates in a special election to replace her. I recommend voting for Nate Fritzen.