WALLACES CORNER, Va. — He didn’t mention it in his mailers or campaign brochures. It was absent from a slew of recent television ads. And here at a synagogue in this far-flung D.C. exurb, Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman did not bring up the reason the worshipers breaking their Yom Kippur fast had first learned who he was.
Most of those digging into plates of noodle kugel said they knew Vindman — a political novice running for Virginia’s battleground 7th Congressional District — for the supporting role he and his twin brother played in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
That high-profile backstory had propelled him to the Democratic nomination for this open seat and played up in his fundraising efforts, which have drawn a whopping $14 million — much of it coming from small-dollar donors outside Virginia.
But as the congregants at Temple Beth Sholom stood up to shake his hand and take photos, Vindman made no mention of the episode. “We’re looking at the issues,” he told one man who asked about it.
Compare it to the approach taken by his Republican opponent, Derrick Anderson, and it’s a sign of how the first impeachment has played out in Virginia’s most competitive congressional race — just not quite in the way that might have been expected.
Incumbent Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), a popular moderate who won this sprawling swing district in 2022, declined to seek reelection to run for Virginia governor next year instead. Her exit opened up a race that will be key to determining control of the House, where Republicans have a single-digit majority.
With those high stakes looming and Trump himself at the top of the GOP ticket, Anderson — not Vindman — has become the one emphasizing how the Democrat’s name and face became known to the public: The former Army colonel helped his identical twin brother raise concerns about a phone call between Trump and Ukraine that ended up at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.
“For Anderson, he can simultaneously try to paint Vindman as a partisan as a way to appeal to independents while energizing Trump voters,” said Erin Covey, who analyzes House races for the Cook Political Report. The nonpartisan site had previously rated the 7th District as one that “leans Democratic” but recently reclassified it as a “Toss Up.”
Yet, on Vindman’s end, she added, “the fact that he was involved in such a high-profile, highly polarizing issue gives him a more partisan sheen.”
In another corner of Stafford County, Vindman’s cameo in the national spotlight seemed to be a top priority on Anderson’s mind as he addressed a crowd of supporters late last month.
Flanked by a who’s who of Virginia GOP politics — including the governor and several state lawmakers, all of them holding gifted red polo shirts to match his own — the former Army Green Beret boomed into the microphone inside a makeshift stage at a parking facility as he called Vindman a “rubber stamp” for liberal policies.
“My opponent is focused on his past … and his revenge tour against Donald Trump,” Anderson said. “While me and my campaign, we’re focused on your future.”
The crowd, in biker jackets and U.S.A. hats, let out a cheer.
‘Not my focus’
Look at Vindman’s blitz of fundraising appeals to his supporters, and you’d be forgiven for thinking the impeachment probe is still his central talking point on the campaign trail.
As many of those near-daily emails recount, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a national security official, had been listening in on a call in which Trump pressured Ukrainian leaders to dig up political dirt on Joe Biden.
He went to his brother Eugene Vindman, an ethics lawyer also working at the White House, and they brought their concerns up the chain of command. After Alexander Vindman testified during impeachment hearings, both men were ousted from their jobs.
Their actions did not directly spark Trump’s impeachment — separate whistleblower reports were filed regarding the call — but the Vindman campaign has blasted out no less than 40 such pleas to supporters for donations explicitly tying him to the probe, sometimes twice in one day.
“Because we did not let Trump’s abuse of his office stand, he was impeached — and his vengeance cost us our careers when we were fired in retaliation,” Vindman wrote in one mid-September message.
It is a tactic that appears to have reaped dividends: As of Sept. 30, he had raised nearly $14 million for the election cycle — more than any other House candidate except for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and a record for House candidates from Virginia. The vast majority has come from donors outside Virginia and those contributing less than $200.
That strategy could not be more different from the tone he has taken publicly in the district since July, especially when addressing crowds of independents and moderates. In contrast to primary ads, in which he says he “exposed Trump’s corruption,” his recent television spots spotlighted his wife, Cindy, emphasized abortion rights and sought to tie Anderson to “Project 2025,” a conservative think tank’s road map for a second Trump administration.
The impeachment “is just not my focus and frankly it’s never something that I’ve defined myself by,” Vindman said in an interview after a campaign stop last Saturday in Culpeper, a more conservative, rural part of the district. “Primarily, my motivation is my family and my kids: I want to make sure they have access to the American Dream like I had.”
The shift may also be a response to House Democratic leaders, who have privately fretted that Vindman’s link to the impeachment probe will hurt him in a purple district that favors independent-leaning legislators like Spanberger, according to two people familiar with the race who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. The Vindman campaign referred a request for comment to Spanberger, who said in a statement that Vindman would be a “commonsense legislator who will work across the aisle to deliver results.” She added: “I can see that he’s already earning trust in our communities.”
Lauren C. Bell, a political scientist at Randolph-Macon College, said such a pivot was unavoidable in the general election. “He’s got to lean into appealing to independents or right-leaning centrists who might be skeptical,’” she said. “You downplay the things that are going to make you less appealing to the other side.”
Yet without that backstory — plus no record in elected office and shaky personal ties to many areas in this geographically diverse district — others point out that Vindman may struggle to win over parts of the electorate less familiar to him.
Outside a Latino supermarket in Woodbridge last month, Vindman followed Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who is running for a third term, as they hobnobbed with small business owners who had set up stands in the parking lot. Both candidates approached Komi Koutche, a native of Benin, at a booth for his urgent-care clinic.
“The senator is very, very close to the community, and that is a good thing,” Koutche remarked afterward.
What about Vindman? “I didn’t know who that was,” he said.
‘Revenge tour’
Despite Anderson’s stark financial disadvantage, the 7th District is very much a competitive race.
The Republican had as of Sept. 30 raised about $2.5 million — a fraction of Vindman’s war chest — with just over $1 million still on hand. Vindman has attracted about $1.35 million in outside spending, but Anderson has slightly surpassed him on that front, with $1.42 million mostly coming from the GOP-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund.
The political makeup of the 7th District, which stretches from D.C. suburbs to more rural areas in the Piedmont, slightly favors Democrats, particularly in a presidential election year: Biden won the seat by about 7 points in 2020, according to a Washington Post model, and Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to have long coattails at the top of the ticket. Yet Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) won the area in 2021 by a similar margin as Spanberger did the following year.
Multiple independent political analysts have in recent weeks shifted the race to a “toss-up,” a move they attributed to the fact that even Vindman’s eye-popping fundraising over the summer had not appeared to tip the scales — at least, not yet.
Some observers suspect that is because the Anderson campaign’s attacks have been working. Both candidates have been targeting the other’s transparency and authenticity, trading barbs on Vindman’s military rank and combat record, and Anderson’s home outside the district as well as a family photo-style image that Anderson, who does not have kids, took with a friend’s wife and children.
But only Republicans have been repeatedly invoking the impeachment saga, often without many details, as a way to paint Vindman as a liberal partisan. “It’s not like he’s going after Vindman’s role itself,” Covey said. “It’s more that he saying he’s too focused on it.”
At one candidate forum, Anderson looked over to Vindman and said, “his entire, entire campaign is a revenge tour against Donald Trump.” He used the same line at least twice during a debate this month, while Vindman did not bring up Trump at all.
They continued sparring over their main policy priorities: Vindman vowed to protect IVF and voting rights and preserve jobs for the region’s federal employees. Anderson said he would tackle inflation and cut taxes while strengthening border security.
Near the end of the event, Vindman pointed out the lopsided dynamic that had played out. Only Anderson, he said, had mentioned the former president’s name.
Marianna Sotomayor in Washington contributed to this report.
