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Republican Dave Brat easily won reelection to Congress in 2016, fending off Democratic nominee Eileen Bedell by more than 15 percentage points. But his path to a third term in Virginia’s 7th District could prove more contentious.

Two well-funded Democrats — former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger and Marine Corps veteran and military advisor Dan Ward — are vying in a June 12 primary to oppose Brat in November. Another candidate, business owner and veteran Helen Alli, withdrew from the Democratic field and won the nomination of Virginia’s recently formed Whig party, and Joe Walton, a senior IT auditor at Virginia Commonwealth University, is running as a Libertarian.

Although Brat lost a conservative piece of Hanover County as part of a court-ordered 2016 redrawing of Virginia’s 3rd congressional district, the 7th District’s geography (stretching from Culpeper through Richmond’s western outskirts to Blackstone) still favors Republicans. Donald Trump won it in 2016 and Ed Gillespie topped Democrat Ralph Northam in the governor’s race that Northam ultimately won. Brat is unopposed in the GOP primary.

“You can’t say, ‘I’m more conservative than Dave Brat.’ It just doesn’t work,” says Richard Meagher, political science associate professor at Randolph-Macon College. A more moderate Republican would likely fare no better, he adds.

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