Williamsburg voters will head to the polls Tuesday, Aug. 4 to determine the Democratic nominee in a crowded primary for Virginia’s 1st Congressional District.
The 1st District stretches across Williamsburg, the Historic Triangle and Essex County. The primary winner will face off against Rep. Rob Wittman, the Republican incumbent who has represented the district since 2007.
The Flat Hat asked the Democratic primary candidates about their platforms and stances on issues important to students. Tim Cywinski and Mel Tull did not respond to requests for interviews.
Elizabeth Dempsey BeggsElizabeth Dempsey Beggs is a mother and U.S. Army veteran. Beggs is working toward her Master of Business Administration at the Raymond A. Mason School of Business and is expected to graduate this fall.
Beggs said her life has been dedicated to service and characterized running for office as a continuation of her desire to help others.
“It’s worth the sacrifices that go into it to be able to actually serve people,” she said.
Beggs pointed to her lack of ties to the Democratic establishment as a political asset she believes can help flip the 1st District seat from Wittman. She said her candidacy is rooted in her military experience and time spent across the community.
Beggs said growing up in a conservative household gives her the ability to change the minds of voters who may disagree with her.
“I know how to have those conversations and how to get people to see the light,” she said.
Beggs mentioned her Instagram page, which has over 74,000 followers. She has used social media to campaign and described it as a low-cost way to reach large voter constituencies.
“It’s about being accessible,” she said. “I think that’s why it’s been the most successful of anybody in the campaign.”
Beggs pointed to education reform as an issue she would aim to pursue if elected to Congress. She said she supported reconsolidating all student loans to the federal government at a 2.5% interest rate. She said she supports student loan forgiveness and lifting borrowing limits for federal loans.
Beggs said she supports creating worker protections around artificial intelligence and regulating how companies utilize it in their hiring. She also said she supports making unpaid internships illegal.
She also would push an affordability agenda if elected to Congress by aiming to reverse President Trump’s tariff regime, establish universal healthcare and increase housing supply. She also said she would support raising the federal minimum wage.
Beggs said her candidacy focused on uplifting the working class.
She also disagrees with those who call the establishment of data centers a local issue. She said she supports a federal moratorium on data center construction until national standards can be established to protect local communities.
“We as a federal government have completely left [local communities] to fend on their own,” she said.
Beggs acknowledged that Flock cameras can likely help with crime but said she didn’t not see giving up individual privacy as worthwhile for any possible benefit. Beggs said she supported federal regulation for the cameras.
“We should all have a healthy distrust in our government,” she said. “And an even healthier distrust in for-profit companies that want anything to do with our personal information and data.”
She also touched on foreign policy, saying she believes the United States should try its best to rebuild its relationships with European allies and NATO.
She said she supports soft diplomacy and thinks the dismantlement of the United States Agency for International Development was disastrous.
“Democracy is not found at the bottom of the bomb,” she said.
She also said she believes the United States should not be sending any of its resources to Israel.
“They are committing a genocide,” Beggs said.
She said she thinks the Iran war has also been disastrous and that she is in favor of continuing to support Ukraine.
Beggs encouraged students to participate in the primary.
“Your experience that you’re having right now is just as valid as somebody in their 60s,” she said. “You have a different voice to bring to the table, and you should demand a seat there.”
Salaam Bhatti
Salaam Bhatti is a 40-year-old public interest lawyer. He previously worked for the Virginia Poverty Law Center and served as the director of the Food Research and Action Center’s SNAP unit. His work has focused on developing, refining and advocating for social services, primarily SNAP, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and other food-based programs.
“We expanded SNAP food assistance for over 25,000 families,” Bhatti said. “We also created the roadmap to universal school meals in Virginia and expanded free school meals for tens of thousands of children here in the Commonwealth.”
Bhatti said that seeing the Trump administration make cuts to these programs inspired him to run for Congress, particularly as someone who personally grew up in poverty.
“I’m a child of immigrants, and we grew up poor,” Bhatti said. “We needed programs like [Women, Infants and Children] and free school meals to help make ends meet, so I know firsthand how hard it can be. I was in poverty during law school and for years afterwards because I graduated into a recession.”
Bhatti said that his campaign is driven by the desire to end poverty through an expanded social safety net.
Bhatti defined his campaign by his “ABCs.”
“A is for Medicare for All, B is for taxing the billionaires and C is for campaign finance reform,” he said.
Bhatti also emphasized concerns about the cost of college and professional education. He said he would be interested in pursuing a student loan debt forgiveness plan, as well as reducing costs to prevent students from having to take out loans.
“I would love to look at the models that work worldwide on how they’re subsidizing that education so that we don’t need student loans,” he said.
He cited Trump administration policies, including tariffs and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, as worsening affordability in the country.
“We’ve seen terrible impacts on the migrant farm workers and the way ICE has just been wreaking havoc on not just migrant communities, but citizens as well,” Bhatti said.
Bhatti emphasized the importance of Congress regaining the powers he said were lost under the Trump administration.
“We want Congress to take back the power of the purse, because the power of the tariff should have always stayed with Congress,” he said. “It should never have been given to the executive.”
He also connected cost of living concerns to the Iran war — which he said he ardently opposes — and the conflict’s impact on trade.
“One of the reasons why our groceries are increasing in cost is because it’s costing farmers more to grow the things,” he said. “There’s a lot of fertilizer that’s also blocked in the Strait of Hormuz because of the war on Iran. That means the current batches of fertilizer increase in cost.”
Bhatti said he thinks the executive branch has also seized too much military power.
“I’m also in favor of repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force,” he said. “The president should never have had war powers. That should have always remained with Congress.”
He said he opposes the federal government’s financial and military support to Israel, describing the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza as a genocide and calling for prosecution of Israeli government officials.
He also said he supports a moratorium on data centers until policies can be developed to protect local jobs, energy and environments.
“A lot of people will say that data centers bring jobs, but it’s really just construction jobs, and then once they’re operational, it’s a handful of security guards and maybe a couple maintenance workers,” he said. “But ultimately, three, five years down the line, what they’re going to be doing is taking our jobs en masse as they already have been. So we are in for a very difficult period ahead of us if this continues to go unchecked.”
Bhatti also advocated for guardrails on AI-related surveillance technologies, such as Flock cameras.
Bhatti said that, in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s elimination of USAID, the United States should reevaluate its approach to international aid and focus more on domestic social safety.
“We need something like a guaranteed income, an actual safety net in this country for our people,” he said. “And a big part of our campaign is that we’re American focused.”
Bhatti said he believes the greatest distinction between him and other candidates in the primary is his direct legislative experience.
“I have an intimate knowledge of the basic needs programs that the U.S. government offers,” he said. “And as an expert in them, I’m not a cheerleader for them. I know their weaknesses. I know their inefficiencies. So I know how we can improve them.”
Jason Knapp
Jason Knapp is a 21-year U.S. Navy veteran who has worked for the U.S. European Command and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A key reason Knapp said he wanted to run for Congress is to help protect the social safety net. He pointed to recent cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as turning points that pushed him to run for public office.
Knapp mentioned education reform as an issue he would focus on if elected. He said he supports increasing funding for vocational education and changing the student loan process.
“We need to be better about how we appropriate our funds, especially for the youngest and the future, frankly, of our country,” Knapp said.
He proposed raising limits on federal student loans and changing the subsidization of federal loans based on a student’s postgraduate income and not their parents’ income.
“The sooner a student can pay down loan debt, the sooner they’re able to buy a home, the sooner they’re able to buy a car and the sooner they’re able to start a family,” Knapp said.
He said he did not support federal student loan forgiveness and was disappointed with the Biden administration’s failed attempt at doing so. Knapp said he sees student loan forgiveness as unfair to students who did not attend college because of the cost.
Knapp said he would seek to push affordability in Congress by reversing President Donald Trump’s tariff regime. He acknowledged that any immediate change to tariffs is unlikely as long as Republicans control either chamber of Congress or the presidency.
“We need to change the law to ensure that tariffs, while a useful and viable tool, cannot be used in a haphazardly and vindictive manner as they have been,” Knapp said.
He also mentioned reining in data centers as a means to lower energy costs.
Knapp said he is not necessarily against the construction of data centers. He said he supports a baseline minimum amount of federal regulation that would be required before building them.
Knapp suggested requiring data centers to pay for all of their operational costs. He also said that they should be required to implement clean energy and not build in areas that may cause significant harm to residents.
“I’m not saying that they can’t make a profit,” he said. “They’ll still make hundreds of millions of dollars, and that’s okay if that is what they’re going to do.”
Knapp touched on the United States’ relationship with Israel. He said he supported the initial Israeli response to the Hamas-led Oct.7, 2023 attack on Israel, seeing it as defensive. Knapp said he believed some of Israel’s later actions during the conflict amounted to the indiscriminate killing of civilians.
“When somebody wants to go after a single person or a single member of Hamas, and they go after an apartment complex, that is not appropriate,” he said.
Knapp said he supports the enforcement of federal laws such as the Leahy Laws, which prohibits the United States from sending weapons to armed forces that commit human rights violations. He said he would support continued funding to Israel’s missile defense system.
Knapp said he considers Israelis as friends to the United States, even if he disagrees with the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“As a good friend, it is our obligation to help them see the error of their ways,” Knapp said. “If we are supporting a friend, giving them assets, and they are using those assets to both harm themselves and others, being a good friend is not continuing to give them that asset to continue that.”
Knapp encouraged students to participate in the primary election.
“We are at a critical time in our elections,” he said.
Ericka Kopp
Ericka Kopp is a 34-year-old healthcare lawyer. She is a first-generation American and college graduate, as well as a caregiver to a disabled veteran. She said she was driven to run for Congress after seeing how Wittman was, according to her, consistently failing to serve constituents. Kopp described herself as “the most progressive candidate in this race,” rooting her campaign in policies like universal healthcare, universal public education through college or trade school and increased taxes on the wealthy.
Kopp said cuts to Medicaid were a key factor in her decision to run. Kopp also advocated for the removal of private equity from homeownership as a way of reducing strain on the housing market and decreasing home prices.
These policies, she said, are necessary for reducing the cost of living, and they can resonate with voters across the political spectrum.
“It’s not left versus right,” she said. “It’s right versus wrong.”
Kopp also said that Congress must restore the power of the purse and restore pre-Trump grants, such as those to researchers and universities.
To address the costs of college, she also said she supports student loan debt forgiveness, free public universities and the elimination of student loan caps.
Kopp also said she supports a nationwide moratorium on data centers. She said data center impacts must be studied and regulations must be developed before construction continues. She cited closed-loop cooling systems, which conserve water usage, and limits on proximity to schools and housing as examples of potential restrictions.
She also emphasized the importance of AI regulations being written by experts who understand the technology and its impacts.
Kopp opposes the usage of technologies such as Flock cameras. She said she wants to cut contracts with surveillance technologies with ties to the Department of Homeland Security, describing them as “mass surveillance, not safety.”
Kopp also said she strongly opposes the Iran war, which she described as illegal and unauthorized. She said that bringing troops home is particularly important to her, since her husband is a disabled combat veteran.
“It created more problems than anything it would have solved,” she said.
She also said that the United States should “not be as buddy-buddy” with the Israeli government and should end funding to Israel. She categorized Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide and advocated for the importance of Palestinian statehood. She said that, since the United States has had such a role in destabilizing the region, it must also take an active role in improving it.
Kopp identified her key strengths as integrity and character and said her background of growing up in poverty helps her to deeply understand the issues she addresses. These traits, she said, are valuable not only in the primary, but also in the general election.
“I want to be a megaphone for the needs of the people,” she said.
Shannon Taylor
Shannon Taylor is an attorney serving as the Commonwealth’s prosecutor for Henrico County. She previously ran in the 2025 Virginia Democratic Primary for Attorney General, losing to Jay Jones, the state’s current attorney general.
Grayson Horner ’26, a spokesperson for the campaign, declined an interview request. Horner said Taylor’s schedule was booked through the primary. He provided a statement describing how Taylor would prioritize students if elected to Congress.
“Rising costs of living, high rent prices in Williamsburg, and protecting our fundamental freedoms are key issues for students,” the statement said. “In Congress, students can look to Shannon [Taylor] as someone who understands these issues and will prioritize pushing for national solutions.”
