The 2008 congressional elections in Virginia were held on November 4, 2008 to determine who would represent the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, coinciding with the presidential and senatorial elections. Representatives are elected for two-year terms; those elected served in the 111th Congress from January 3, 2009 until January 3, 2011. Primary elections were held on June 10, 2008.
Virginia has eleven seats in the House, apportioned according to the 2000 United States Census. Democrats flipped the 2nd, 5th, and 11th districts, flipping their 3-8 deficit into a 6-5 majority. As of 2022, this is the last time Democrats won the 5th or 9th congressional district
Overview
Match-up summary
District 1
The candidates appeared on Cathy Lewis's TV program, What Matters, on October 15. The candidates held a spirited and well-attended debate on October 22 in which differing opinions on health care and the economy played a central role. Wittman defended his vote against the bailout package, while Day said he would have voted for it, and Larson said that it would have been better for the economy if the banks had been allowed to fail. On Medicare, Wittman advocated restructuring the system, while Day argued for expanding it and Larson shocked the audience by calling for its abolition. Wittman won the election.
Incumbent Rob Wittman was the Republican nominee. A Westmoreland County resident, former State Board of Health field director for the Division of Shellfish Sanitation and past member of the Virginia House of Delegates, he has only held the seat since January 2008, having won the special election to succeed deceased Congresswoman Jo Ann Davis. He has taken up many of her causes, including the FairTax, veterans' interests and getting rid of the remainder of the ghost fleet stationed at the James River. Like Davis, he is also introducing legislation to allow Virginia to regulate the importation of trash from other states.
Bill Day was the Democratic nominee. He previously ran for Virginia Delegate representing the 31st District, losing to Scott Lingamfelter by a close margin of 45% to 55%.
Day earned a bachelor's degree in construction from Arizona State University in 1974, an MBA from Harvard in 1983, and a master's degree in counseling from West Virginia State University in 1991. He used to live in Fauquier County where he worked as a mental health counselor. Day was very active in the community, and volunteered with Habitat for Humanity in both Fauquier and Prince William County, and Mend A House in Prince William County. Day is an advocate of energy independence and renewable energy technologies.
The Democratic Party of Virginia held its convention on May 17 in Williamsburg, Virginia and selected Keith Hummel, the only person running for the Democratic nomination at the time. Only four votes were cast to not nominate anyone. A Westmoreland County physician and self-described "populist Democrat", Hummel also operates a farm and winery. The issues he was running on included enacting trade and tax policies to protect American jobs and American interests (rather than those of a few multinational corporations); using the military for defense rather than offensively; providing better health care and other benefits to veterans; and universal health care.
Anarcho-capitalist Catlett resident Nathan Larson filed a declaration of candidacy on May 7, and was certified for the ballot on June 6. He was nominated by the Libertarian Party 1st Congressional District Convention on June 3 and endorsed by the Independent Greens of Virginia on June 12. The main issues he was running on are free market roads and transit privatization, which he proposed as the solution to DC Metropolitan area traffic congestion, recently ranked the second-worst in the country. He supported auctioning off the Interstate Highway System and rail systems such as Amtrak to private investors. Larson also sought to dissolve the U.S. military and establish a competitive market for defense services. Prior to his campaign, Larson was a student senator and cannabis reform activist at George Mason University.
District 2
The District includes Virginia's two largest cities--Norfolk and Virginia Beach, and the Virginia portion of the Eastern Shore. Republican incumbent Thelma Drake lost to Democratic nominee Glenn Nye, a graduate of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., who served as a diplomat in Eastern Europe, Kosovo and Macedonia, Singapore, Afghanistan, the West Bank, Gaza and Iraq.