Rob's Record

The average VA household is significantly worse off under Wittman's tenure. Tariffs, ACA subsidy cuts, and gutted safety-net programs combine to raise costs on gas, groceries, and everything else — a 55-year-old Virginian earning $63K saw health insurance premiums jump $2,400/year. Tax cuts in HR1 deliver 1–3% savings to middle earners while giving the top 10% of wealth holders over 50% of all the tax cut benefits, and CBO projects HR1 will increase the federal deficit by $3.4 trillion over 10 years.

Wittman's votes have undermined job creation in VA-01. The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) suspension threatened 2,000+ construction jobs and the projected 1,100 permanent positions the completed project will sustain. Clean energy tax credit elimination threatens an additional 11,000 Virginia jobs. Retaliatory tariffs slowed traffic at the Port of Virginia, costing jobs in the broader regional economy.

Wittman has never voted to cut Social Security directly, and he knows better than to even suggest he might do so. But the actions he's already taken will have consequences on Social Security for generations of Virginians. His votes for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (2017) and the One Big Beautiful Bill (HR 1) added $5.2 trillion to the national debt — the same debt that he and deficit hawks in his own party routinely cite as justification for "reforming" Social Security and Medicare. He voted to blow up the budget because he knows that he and his colleagues can use the national debt to target the program that nearly 140,000 VA-01 residents depend on. That is strategy, not a coincidence.

Wittman's record erodes access on three fronts at once. His HR1 vote accelerated rural hospital closures across VA-01, deepening provider shortages. He let enhanced ACA subsidies expire for over 300,000 Virginians before reversing course only when premiums had already begun spiking. And he co-sponsored a fetal personhood bill defining life as beginning at fertilization, the same legal framework that has threatened IVF access and contraception wherever it has been enacted.

Wittman voted for HR1 (the "One Big Beautiful Bill"), which KFF estimates cut federal Medicaid spending by $911 billion over 10 years, impacting 1 in 8 VA-01 residents. Over 24,000 constituents could lose coverage entirely. The $50B Rural Health Transformation Fund he repeatedly lauds covers only 30% of projected Medicaid losses, meaning rural hospitals still face a net shortfall. 1.8 million rural Americans nationwide will lose coverage.

Wittman has repeatedly promoted "association health plans" as a way to lower premiums, but these plans return healthcare to pre-ACA conditions — fewer protections, higher costs for older, disabled, and sicker patients. His long record of undermining the ACA directly threatens Medicare-adjacent coverage for 102,000 VA-01 constituents who could be priced out of affordable insurance.

Despite serving as Vice Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, Wittman has been spectacularly ineffective on veterans' priorities. Virginia's defense economy grew just 6.5% from FY2020–2023, lagging far behind national trends, and VA's share of GDP from defense shrank by 14%. Veterans in VA-01 face healthcare and benefits gaps Wittman has failed to close.

Wittman claims to support VA-01 farmers, but his votes have created chaos. HR 1 cuts $295 billion from SNAP over 10 years, stripping food assistance from roughly 850,000 Virginians, and gutting the purchasing power that flows directly to local farms and markets. SNAP dollars account for roughly 25 cents of every food dollar spent locally; when benefits are cut, farmers feel it too. Tariffs Wittman supported cost the average Virginia household $1,700–$2,100 in higher prices and slowed traffic at the Port of Virginia, hitting the farm and fishing economy from both ends.

Wittman presents himself as pro-education, but he stood silent while the Trump administration dismantled public education funding and programs. He has offered no major legislation to support teachers or students. His votes defunding domestic programs directly reduce resources available to VA-01 schools, contradicting claims of support rooted in his family's background in teaching.

Wittman supported the Trump policies that led to the suspension of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project — already 60% complete with $8 billion invested — eliminating thousands of jobs and threatening grid reliability. His support for HR1 also threatens $18.2B in clean energy investments and 11,000 Virginia jobs, while propping up aging fossil fuel infrastructure.

Wittman co-sponsored reauthorization of the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office — but only because Trump's agenda, which Wittman supports, threatened to cut NOAA's budget 28% and slash climate science 75%. Analysis reveals this pattern of taking credit for minor wins while supporting policies that damage the Bay, coastal ecosystems, and clean energy infrastructure. His League of Conservation Voters score reflects a career full of anti-environment votes.

Wittman co-sponsored the SAVE Act (HR 22), which would impose burdensome new voter ID and documentation requirements that disproportionately affect rural, elderly, and minority voters. His "election integrity" rhetoric mirrors national GOP efforts to restrict access rather than protect it. He also voted against certifying Pennsylvania's 2020 electoral votes on January 6–7, 2021.

Wittman claimed inspiration from civil rights pioneer Barbara Rose Johns while opposing everything she stood for. He praised the U.S. military incursion into Venezuela while experts called it a violation of international law. His votes have stripped healthcare from tens of thousands and cut food assistance to hundreds of thousands. And these are only three examples of how Wittman has consistently ignored the Constitution as rights are stripped away from the majority of Americans.

Wittman uses immigration as a political wedge, not a policy problem to solve. He voted for the Laken Riley Act, legislation that legal experts say expands mandatory detention by 250% based on mere arrest — not conviction — raising serious due process concerns. He has co-sponsored citizenship-restriction bills like the SAVE Act while offering no legislation to fix the broken system, secure the border with constitutional protections intact, or address VA-01's actual immigration needs. Performance over policy.

Wittman's law enforcement record is similarly performative. In press releases he portrays himself as "backing the blue" but he voted against certifying the 2020 election hours after a mob attacked the Capitol Police who were defending him. He has opposed PACT Act benefits for veterans who became law enforcement after service, and stayed silent as the Trump administration politicized DOJ prosecutions and pardoned January 6 defendants who assaulted officers. The pattern: rhetoric for cameras, votes that undercut the rule of law itself.

The Constitution gives Congress — not the president — the power to declare war, control spending, and check executive overreach. Wittman has surrendered each of these duties. He voted for HR1's $5 trillion debt-ceiling increase without conditions, supported military operations like the unilateral incursion into Venezuela that is clear presidential overreach, and remained silent as the administration redirected funds to vanity projects and merged church-state functions across federal agencies. And even as some of his Republican peers express dismay about the proposed $1.8B slush fund for Trump's friends, Wittman has said precisely nothing. Congressional silence is constitutional abdication.

Wittman has failed to speak out as the Trump administration expanded executive surveillance and eroded civil liberties. He has a pattern of silence on warrantless data collection, DOJ overreach, and DOGE's access to federal databases affecting millions of Virginians' personal records: complicity that directly contradicts his congressional oath of office.