A raucous crowd, sharp divisions over abortion, and military backgrounds play prominent role in debate between Derrick Anderson and Eugene Vindman.
The two men trying to succeed Democrat Abigail Spanberger in Congress went after each other last night in a debate in Fredericksburg, with abortion and the economy the main topics.
Democrat Eugene Vindman, a retired Army colonel who fled from Soviet Ukraine as a child, is taking on Republican Derrick Anderson, a former Green Beret from Spotsylvania County who served multiple tours in Afghanistan.
Both men focused on their military backgrounds time and again during the 75-minute debate at University of Mary Washington’s Dodd Auditorium. And both often used the same rhetoric and arguments heard from the top of their respective tickets in the presidential race on the major issues.
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On numerous occasions during the debate, Anderson, who had worked as an attorney in the office of National Drug Policy during the Trump administration, attacked Vindman for supporting the “same old failed policies of the Harris-Biden administration.”
He also said inflation and the current state of the economy are all tied to the cost of energy and the Harris-Biden administration’s energy policy.
Anderson also said Vindman keeps looking back at failed policies and wants revenge against former President Donald Trump.
Throughout the evening, he consistently called the Biden-Harris administration, as is typical, the “Harris-Biden administration.”
Vindman gained national attention when he testified before Congress during the impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Vindman, a Prince William County resident, claimed that Anderson’s campaign is being financed by MAGA extremists who want to promote the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and its radical proposals to revamp the federal government.
Anderson, meanwhile, said he didn’t even know what Project 2025 was until Vindman started to bring it up.
The race for Virginia’s 7th district is one of the most contested in the country and has cost the two candidates nearly $10 million combined. It is considered a key race for both parties in their efforts to earn a majority in the House of Representatives.
There were over 400 people in the audience who had separated themselves in the seats by party. They were raucous at times, prompting admonishments from the moderator, UMW professor Steve Farnsworth.
The candidates seemed furthest apart on abortion. Vindman called it the most important issue of the campaign. He said the fact that his 14-year-old daughter does not have the same rights as women did just two years ago “just does not sit well with me,” in reference to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade.
He asked his opponent more than once if he would vote for a national abortion ban. Anderson never did answer, diverting to other issues each time.
Harking back to the 2013 governor’s race in Virginia, when Ralph Northam – a physician – said that at times doctors had to make a last-minute choice between the baby and the mother, Anderson accused Vindman and “the radical left Harris-Biden administration” of supporting the murder of newborn children, a charge which Vindman denied.
The two candidates also sparred on guns and school shootings, with Vindman calling for laws on the safe storage of guns, red flag laws to keep guns out of the hands of those deemed mentally ill or dangerous, and closing the gun show loophole. Anderson called that a “extreme radical position” and echoed GOP Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance’s answer from Tuesday’s nationally televised debate about the need for more mental health care.
The candidates barely touched the other hot issue of the campaign, immigration, though Anderson complained about it.
The 7th Congressional district consists of Fredericksburg and nine counties, including Spotsylvania, Stafford, King George, Orange, Culpepper, Greene, and Madison. It also includes the southern half of Prince William County and a sliver of Albemarle County.
The Federal Elections commission says Vindman has raised $7.5 and spent $5.2 million so far while Anderson has raised $1.4 million and has spent $900,000 of that.
According to Ballotpedia, in the 2022 election, then-incumbent Abigail Spanberger received 52.2 percent of the 7th District vote, defeating Republican candidate Yesli Vega.
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