In August we called this seat a control group, because both nominees had served. Luria spent twenty years in the Navy. Kiggans spent ten years in it, flying helicopters. Neither could claim the uniform against the other, and that is still true.

What changed in September is the subject. On 15 September Luria released two ads, “Vet Like Me” and “Burn Pits,” and both move the race from biography to record. So the question is no longer who served. It is what each of them did for the people who did.

Three days later, early voting began across the state. That makes this the first week in which the argument reaches voters who can act on it.

Virginia allows early voting for 45 days before an election, without an excuse. So a campaign’s closing argument arrives in stages, and the ads that run in these first two weeks land on people who are already able to vote. That is why the timing of a veterans’ message matters as much as its content.

The campaign’s own release for the ads sets up the contrast plainly. It credits Luria with securing care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits and Agent Orange. That refers to the PACT Act, which became law in August 2022 near the end of her second term. It then accuses Kiggans of voting with the president to cut veterans’ services in Hampton Roads by 22 percent.

We could not find the basis for that 22 percent figure. The release does not cite one. So we are not repeating it as fact, because a campaign number with no source is only a claim, and this site has run corrections on claims like it before.

The turn itself is worth noticing, though. Luria’s earlier ads this month were about the cost of gas and groceries. Now she is making veterans’ care the contrast, in a coastal district where, as the 19th News put it, a military background is a bonus. That is a bet that her record in office will read differently from Kiggans’s record, even though their service records read the same.

Here is the part that does not depend on either campaign. Consider her job first. Kiggans chairs the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, the panel that reviews veterans’ benefits and health care. So she is not a bystander on these issues. She is one of the people in Congress most directly responsible for them.

On 15 September the discharge petition for the Major Richard Star Act reached 218 signatures. The bill would let combat-injured veterans who were medically retired collect both their retirement pay and their VA disability pay, instead of losing one to the other. According to the Clerk’s list, the signers are 213 Democrats and five Republicans. Kiggans is not among the five.

We want to be careful about what that shows. Signing a discharge petition means breaking with your own party’s leadership, and only five of the House’s 218 Republicans did it. The bill has 340 House cosponsors, and we could not confirm this session whether Kiggans is one of them. We also have not seen a statement from her explaining why she did not sign. If she offers one, we will report it.

Still, the fact is public and dated, which is more than can be said for most of what gets said in a campaign. Because the House has left until after the election, the vote the petition can force will come in November, after many voters here have already cast their ballots.

It would be unfair to stop there. In September 2025, Kiggans introduced the bipartisan Pay Our Troops Act, which would keep service members paid during a government shutdown. Veterans groups and military family organizations endorsed it. She describes herself as a former Navy helicopter pilot, the wife of a veteran and the mother of a service member, and that biography is real.

She also has the advantage of the seat. Incumbents on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee get credit for casework, hearings and local announcements that challengers cannot match. Luria had the same advantage when she held this seat, and she lost it in 2022 anyway.

So the fair version of the contrast is narrower than either side’s ads. Both candidates helped troops and veterans. The Star Act petition is simply the most recent place where one of them could have acted and did not, on a bill both parties say they support.

Outside groups have arrived on both flanks of the Democratic side. The DCCC launched a six-figure digital campaign aimed at Black voters in the district. Meanwhile GIFFORDS PAC is spending about $850,000 on broadcast and digital ads in the Norfolk market, focused on Kiggans’s votes on guns. Neither of those efforts is about veterans, which is a reminder that veterans’ care is one issue among several here.

The only public poll we have found is the House Majority PAC survey from July, which had the two tied at 47 percent. That is a Democratic group’s poll, so treat it as a starting point and not a verdict. Cook Political Report rates the race a Toss Up.

The case against making much of this is simple. Veterans’ issues rarely decide an election on their own, even in a district this military. Most of the money in this race is about costs, guns and the president. And a missing signature on a procedural petition is the kind of detail most voters never hear about.

Our reply is limited. This site has argued that service helps Democrats because it takes certain attacks off the table. In a race where both candidates served, that effect cancels. What remains is the record, and a record is only useful if it can be checked. Here, for once, part of it can.

So we are not claiming the Star Act decides this seat. We are claiming it is the one piece of the veterans’ argument that either campaign could verify, and that the campaign with the verifiable version has not yet used it well.

First, whether Kiggans explains her position on the petition, or signs on to the vote when the House returns. Second, whether an independent poll appears, since a single partisan survey from July is thin ground for a race this close. Third, whether Luria keeps the unsourced 22 percent figure in her ads once it draws scrutiny.

Early voting continues until just before Election Day. By the time the House can vote on the Star Act, a large share of this district will already have decided.