Puedes leer este artículo en español aquí.

Virginians can cast their ballots for the 2022 midterm elections starting Friday, September 23. Yes, you read that right: because of the commonwealth’s broad embrace of early voter access, every day is Election Day from here on out in Virginia. 

Here in Northern Virginia, your ballot will likely have a combination of candidates for U.S. Congress, and depending on your jurisdiction, you may also see county, city and town-level candidates. Here’s a handy tool to see a sample ballot for your specific jurisdiction. There are no races for statewide office, because Virginia holds those in off-off-year elections (2021 was the most recent).

But trust the commonwealth to have an exciting election season, even in a year with fewer races on the ballot. With control of the U.S. House of Representatives up for grabs, Virginia is a purple state with three competitive congressional contests, in the 2nd, 7th, and 10th Districts. Incumbent Democrats Elaine Luria, Abigail Spanberger, and Jennifer Wexton are all attempting to hold on to those seats in the face of Republican opponents Jen Kiggans, Yesli Vega, and Hung Cao, respectively. 

It’s unclear how a host of national factors — continuing inflation, the end of a constitutional right to abortion access, recent Democratic legislative successes to shore up infrastructure and limit health care prices, and President Biden’s low approval rating — will ultimately play in Virginia come Election Day. An October 12 poll from Christopher Newport University found that Democrats have a slight edge on a generic ballot, with 46% of registered voters saying they’d select a Democrat to 40% backing Republicans, a surprise given “recent political history that has generally seen the incumbent Party face tough sledding in an Administration’s first midterm election,” the poll report notes. But that’s registered voters, not all of whom may actually cast a ballot. In a University of Mary Washington poll conducted in September, the parties were neck-and-neck with likely voters, with 44% preferring Republicans to 43% backing Democrats.

Since this guide is focused on Northern Virginia, we’ll mainly look at what’s going on in the races in the 7th and the 10th Districts, which cover big, mostly suburban swaths of Prince William County, Loudoun County, and parts of Fairfax County and Manassas. Also in Northern Virginia, longtime incumbent Congressman Don Beyer is likely headed to victory over Republican candidate Karina Lipsman in the 8th District, which covers Arlington, Alexandria, and parts of Fairfax County, an area which typically votes blue by wide margins. It’s a similar story in the 11th District, centered on Fairfax County, where longtime incumbent Gerry Connolly is expected to win over Republican Jim Myles, a retired judge.

Some Northern Virginians will also see a handful of local races on their ballots in November, too. Arlington County has a county board race and a school board race. Loudoun County has multiple school board races. Several cities and towns — including Leesburg, Fairfax City, Manassas City, Herndon, Purcellville and Lovettsville — are electing mayors or council members. 

Who’s on my ballot? 

If you’re not sure which congressional district you’re in — and remember, they’ve shifted around a bit after redistricting in 2020 — you can look it up using Virginia’s Who’s My Legislator? page. Be sure to click on the “New in 2023” tab in red to see if your district has changed. The Washington Post also has a handy tool to help. 

We’ve highlighted the region’s congressional races below. You can check the Virginia Department of Elections website or your local elections page for more information about who else you’ll be voting for. Remember, it’ll likely be a small number of local or hyper-local candidates (think school board or town council). 

If you’re interested in finding out more about specific candidates and their campaigns, you can search the Virginia Public Access Project, where you can find out how much money campaigns have raised and recent relevant press coverage. 

All right, I’m ready! How do I vote? 

You’ve got a few options: you can request a ballot by mail; you can vote early in-person; or you can vote on Election Day, Nov. 8.  

You can request to have a ballot sent to you in the mail here. Applications to receive a ballot by mail must be in before Oct. 28. This year, you’ll need a witness signature to validate your filled-out ballot (if you forget, you should hear from your local registrar within three days to correct it). You can return your ballot to your local registrar by mail — it must be postmarked on or before Election Day to count! — or by dropping it off in a ballot dropbox, if your locality has them. 

Early in-person voting starts Sept. 23 and continues until the Saturday before Election Day. This year, that’s Saturday, Nov. 5. Early in-person voting usually happens at local registrar’s offices or other voting locations set up by localities. There is no need to have a specific reason for voting early. 

On Election Day, polls are open in Virginia from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voters in line at 7 p.m. will still be allowed to vote. 

For in-person voting, voters will need to bring an ID with them to cast a ballot. There’s a long list of acceptable identification options, including a driver’s license, a student ID, and a current utility bill, bank statement, or pay stub showing a Virginia address. Voters who do not bring an ID with them can still vote a provisional ballot and bring or send ID information to their local registrar’s office after the fact.

By the way, in order to vote in any of these ways, you’ll need to register to vote if you aren’t already. You can find the application online, at your local registrar’s office, public library, military recruitment offices, Department of Motor Vehicles branch, or other government-run offices. The deadline to submit the application is Oct. 17. 

However, if you don’t get around to registering before Oct. 17, don’t despair: this is the first year Virginia will allow residents to register at the polls on Election Day and vote a provisional ballot. But note: Provisional ballots won’t be counted until elections officials have had a chance to make sure the new voter’s registration checks out. 

Congressional races to watch

So far, the campaign trail in Northern Virginia has been as hot and humid — literally and metaphorically — as it usually is in Virginia in August and September. Candidates in both races have argued over abortion access, inflation and the economy, support for law enforcement, gun control, the state of local schools and more. They’ve weighed in on major new policies, including congressional action on infrastructure, pharmaceutical prices, and energy policy, plus the Biden Administration’s move to cancel student debt. 

Midterm season usually comes with plenty of speculation about which way the result will swing for control of the Capitol and how it will affect the national political agenda. But members of Congress also represent local constituents, and they can be important players in the communities they represent, too, helping local officials win federal funding or other support, advocating for key local issues at the national level, and providing constituent services for district residents, among other things.  

Virginia’s 7th Congressional District  

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) (incumbent) v. Yesli Vega, Coles District Supervisor, Prince William County Board of Supervisors (R)

Redistricting in 2020 drastically shifted the boundaries of the 7th District north, from the suburbs and exurbs of Richmond to having the plurality of its voters located in Prince William County in Northern Virginia. So while Spanberger is technically the incumbent, she is almost running in a new district, which means she’s introducing herself for the first time to most of the voters. Vega, meanwhile, is well-known, as she currently serves on the Prince William Board of Supervisors and is also an auxiliary sheriff’s deputy in the county. 

Spanberger, an ex-CIA officer, is running on her record as a moderate lawmaker with a record of working across the aisle. She’s touted the benefits for the 7th District of recent wins by congressional Democrats, including huge investments in infrastructure, measures to lower drug prices, and extending Affordable Care Act tax credits to keep premiums down. According to a report from the Congressional Oversight Committee, the 28,000 7th District residents currently enrolled in subsidized coverage under the ACA will likely pay about $990 for their healthcare premiums on average this year — instead of seeing that number nearly double. 

Vega, who chose to go into law enforcement after her brother was wounded in an altercation with local gang members, is the first Latina elected to a supervisor post in Prince William County and a conservative Republican. As a local official, she’s sought to prevent tax hikes in the county, been an advocate for the county sheriff’s now-defunct 287 (g) agreement with ICE to hold undocumented immigrants in the county jail, and spoken out against data centers. She’s also used her position to advocate for gun rights and to criticize Black Lives Matter protesters. She was appointed to an advisory panel on Hispanic issues by former President Donald Trump,  — but has since removed a reference to the post from her social media presence. 

Spanberger and Vega have fenced over abortion — particularly after a secretly-recorded video surfaced of Vega questioning whether rape can actually result in pregnancy — and traded barbs over Vega’s claim that she would consider voting to shut down the government, a loaded statement in a district with a significant number of federal workers. Campaign back-and-forths over support for law enforcement got complicated after FBI agents raided Mar-a-Lago this summer, prompting Vega to label the agency as corrupt in fundraising emails. Spanberger responded with an attack ad questioning Vega’s commitment to funding public safety in Prince William County by pointing out votes Vega took against tax measures in the county that would fund law enforcement. 

Virginia’s 8th Congressional District 

Rep. Donald Beyer (D) (incumbent) v. Karina Lipsman (R) v. Teddy Fikre (I)

Virginia’s 8th District includes parts of Fairfax County, all of Arlington County, Alexandria, and Falls Church. It covers large portions of very blue Northern Virginia, which has meant  Democrats often winning by 50-point margins in recent years. Beyer, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, is in his fourth term serving the district, following a career owning a group of car dealerships and stints as Virginia Lieutenant Governor and U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland. He’s known for his focus on climate change, supporting a Green New Deal and organizing a successful push for electric vehicle incentives in the Build Back Better infrastructure bill. He also pushed for raises for federal employees — the 8th District has the highest concentration of federal workers in the country — and won 12 weeks of federal paid family and medical leave. He’s gotten accolades from local lawmakers for securing  federal dollars for his district, including money to fix Alexandria’s sewer system.

Beyer’s Republican opponent, Karina Lipsman, has a background in the defense industry and is the child of Ukrainian immigrants. Her campaign rhetoric calls Beyer “out of touch” and criticizes divisive party politics in Washington. Lipsman says she wants to prevent tax increases, cut federal spending, push for “transparency” for parents in schools, and support law enforcement — the trifecta of top issues for many Republicans running in November. She wasn’t always quite so critical of “loud extremists” and partisanship; in a Republican primary debate in May, Lipsman reportedly called for White House COVID-19 advisor Anthony Fauci to be jailed. 

Rounding out the 8th District field is Teddy Fikre, an independent and an IT expert and business consultant who fought his way out of poverty. He’s running on a worker-oriented platform, promising to push for taxing corporations and wealthy people over the working and middle class, fully forgiving student loans, and ending American interventionism overseas.

Virginia’s 10th Congressional District 

Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D) v. Hung Cao (R)

The 10th District, centered on Loudoun County and parts of Prince William County, is considered “likely Democratic” by Sabato’s Crystal Ball, from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. But Gov. Glenn Youngkin made some significant inroads in the 10th in 2021, narrowing Terry McAuliffe’s victory there to less than two percentage points. 

Republican candidate Hung Cao, a former navy special operations officer and a Vietnamese refugee, will try to pull off an upset in the district this year. So far, he’s pulling quite a bit from Youngkin’s playbook: one early area of focus in the campaign has been schools. Cao has pushed back against racial equity policies in Northern Virginia schools, particularly changes designed to increase diversity at Cao’s alma mater, the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology (Cao contends the changes hurt Asian students). He has also focused on tying his opponent, incumbent Rep. Jennifer Wexton, a Democrat, to the Biden administration’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, the event Cao says led to his decision to run in the first place. 

For her part, Wexton, a former Loudoun County prosecutor who originally won her seat in 2018, has hit back at Cao for his permissive stance on guns in the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde, TX, and Buffalo, NY. An abortion rights ad supporting her campaign was one of the first examples of Democratic messaging following the Supreme Court decision ending Roe v. Wade (Cao doesn’t specify particular restrictions on the procedure on his website, but does say that he supports the rights of “pre-born children” and raises the question, “how is it that bacteria on Mars is considered life, but a viable fetus is not?”). Wexton has also touted her accomplishments in office, including her votes with fellow Democrats on infrastructure spending — nearly $50 million in support will go to Dulles Airport — and prescription drug price reforms, which she says will save thousands of people in the 10th millions of dollars in health care costs.

Virginia’s 11th Congressional District 

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D) v. Jim Myles (R)

The 11th District covers most of Fairfax County and Fairfax City. Like the 8th, it’s reliably blue, with about 64% of voters backing Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe for governor last year and 70% of voters picking Biden in the presidential election in 2020. Redistricting shifted the geographic boundaries of the district some, but did very little to change the political balance of power there.

Incumbent Congressman Gerry Connolly was first elected in 2008, after 14 years on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors (he’s got endorsements from a who’s who of current local elected officials). In Congress, he’s championed improvements in benefits and working conditions for federal workers — and defended protections for civil servants during the Trump administration. He’s touted his ability to bring home federal funding to Northern Virginia, including support for the Fairfax County Parkway and Prince William Parkway, Metro’s Silver Line expansion, and the Virginia Railway Express. He holds leadership posts on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and he announced a bid earlier this year to become the top Democrat of that body.

Republican Jim Myles is Connolly’s challenger this year. He’s a retired federal judge and former Air Force officer who decided to run after “watching my beloved country be taken away and pushed down an extreme, radical left socialist path,” as his campaign website puts it. On the campaign trail, Myles has talked about the impact of inflation on Northern Virginia home prices, concerns over public safety and support for law enforcement, and his support for “parent’s rights,” a shorthand for the education culture-wars strategy pioneered by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin last year (Myles is a Fairfax County Public Schools parent). But while arguments over education have proved effective at organizing conservatives in the county, they haven’t translated to funding for Myles’ campaign. As of this summer, Myles had less than $50,000 in contributions compared to Connolly’s more than $1.7 million.

This story has been updated with context on the state of the race and details about the 11th Congressional District.