The open 7th Senate District seat in Virginia Beach has risen to one of the most well-financed and most closely watched races in the contest for control of the General Assembly.
Democrat Cheryl Turpin — a first-term delegate who jumped at the chance to move across the hall to the Senate when Republican Sen. Frank Wagner retired from the seat this year — is facing a challenge from Republican Jen Kiggans, a former Navy pilot who’s now a geriatric nurse practitioner.
It’s the only open Senate seat, and the outcome of the election could be key to control of the chamber, where Republicans currently hold a 20-19 majority.
It’s caught the attention of the Republican State Leadership Committee, an outside group that helps fund state races. Kiggans, who said she’s running because she’s tired of the divisiveness between politicians in Richmond, has received $490,000 from the RSLC, the most of any Virginia legislative candidate this year.
The top donor for many Democrats — Michael Bills and his Clean Virginia fund — also shows up near the top of Turpin’s donor list. Bills, his wife Sonjia Smith and his political action committee that donates to candidates who reject Dominion Energy have put $130,000 into Turpin’s campaign, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project.
Turpin’s also getting a lot of help from her state party. She’s gotten around $633,000 from the state Senate caucus, Gov. Ralph Northam’s PAC and the Democratic Party of Virginia.
Turpin, who teaches science at Cox High School, was first elected to the 85th House District in 2017 after defeating Republican Rocky Holcomb in the most costly of Virginia Beach’s seven House races. Holcomb is now running against Democrat Alex Askew for Turpin’s vacated House seat.
Kiggans, who completed two deployments to the Persian Gulf during her 10 years in the U.S. Navy, now works at Eastern Virginia Medical School and at a small private practice.
And as she likes to remind voters, she’s new to politics.
“Politics in Richmond is a mess,” Kiggans says in one television ad. “We’re not gonna fix it by sending the same politicians there to sit in different seats.”
Turpin and Kiggans are running in a district that has been trending blue, with 54% of voters choosing Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam in 2017. President Donald Trump, a Republican, narrowly won the district in 2016, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
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Like many Democrats, Turpin is running on the party’s successful Medicaid expansion vote last year. She’s tied Kiggans to her GOP funders that want to end the government-funded health care system, but Kiggans said Medicaid is the “law of the land” and she would work within that framework if elected.
She said she wants to lower health care costs by expanding the use of telemedicine, improving cost transparency and using more nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants for primary care.
Kiggans, who called Turpin an “extreme liberal” in her latest television ad, made her opposition to abortion a theme of her primary campaign and said the July special session Northam called to address gun violence was a political maneuver in the wake of the Virginia Beach mass shooting. She has said she wants to get input from teachers, health care providers, parents, churches and law enforcement to take a “multidisciplinary approach” to gun safety.
She also said she wants to focus on how mental health impacts gun violence and wants to improve how patients — including inmates — receive treatment and support after they’ve been hospitalized for having a mental health crisis.
Turpin, who is endorsed by the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action, said she supports universal background checks and bans on certain high-capacity magazines. She signed onto a bill last session that would require lost or stolen firearms to be reported within 24 hours.
She also sought legislation to extend polling hours, create a statewide teacher exit survey and create more protections for the victims of hate crimes.
Kiggans also wants to focus on veterans issues, and said she wants veterans excluded from paying state taxes on their military retirement income. She also wants to correct base housing deficiencies, continue civilian job growth and protect certain retiree benefits.
Turpin had about $38,700 more cash on hand as of Oct. 24, the deadline of the final campaign finance report before elections.
Question
What would your first bill or budget amendment be if elected to the General Assembly?
Jen Kiggans
Jen Kiggans: It should be no surprise that my first priority in the General Assembly will be increasing access to affordable health care. As a nurse practitioner and primary healthcare provider, I want all Virginians to have affordable and accessible healthcare. Virginians continue to see the cost of health care rise year after year, including the cost of prescription drugs. It benefits Virginia, in the long run, to provide quality preventative care and primary care for our patient populations from new infants to the frail elderly. Finding ways for our small businesses to offer health insurance to their employees is one effective way to work towards the goal of providing ALL Virginians with healthcare. As a state senator, I will encourage small businesses to band together as consortiums to offer their employees comprehensive and affordable group health coverage on terms similar to what is available to large employers.
Cheryl Turpin
Cheryl Turpin: Cheryl Turpin: The first thing I would like to introduce in the state Senate is a bill that would require mandatory exit survey for teachers. Our Commonwealth is losing far too many far too fast. The first step of understanding the problem is getting data that we can take action on. With data from exit surveys we can gain a better understanding of what our public school teachers are facing.
Question
How should the General Assembly have responded to the Virginia Beach mass shooting that occurred on May 31?
Jen Kiggans
Jen Kiggans: One of the ways we fell short in the wake of the May 31 tragedy was in not providing adequate mental healthcare services to the survivors, their families, and the community at large. We should have worked quickly to set up mental health triage centers to ensure that all of our neighbors had their needs met as they dealt with the tragedy. As a Navy veteran and nurse practitioner, I know mental health crises such as PTSD are serious situations that need to be made a higher priority in a tragedy such as this.
Cheryl Turpin
Cheryl Turpin: The General Assembly should have done what we were sent there to do — pass common-sense gun measures that would keep our communities safe. Thousands of activists and survivors drove to Richmond from across Virginia to demand reforms. Instead, Republicans shut down debate and hid in the Speaker’s conference room with the (National Rifle Association). As a senator, I will fight to pass universal background checks, “red flag” laws and ban assault weapons as a start to keep our communities safe.
Marie Albiges, 757-247-4962, malbiges@dailypress.com
