Conversation with Shannon Taylor (VA-01)

Shannon Taylor is a fighter for Virginia – I can’t wait for you to hear our conversation and for her to join me in Congress in November. Watch our conversation here:

Shannon Taylor has been the elected prosecutor in Henrico County for the last 15 years. Henrico County is in Central Virginia and includes parts of the city of Richmond.

“My profession as a prosecutor and public service for the last 30 years is what inspires me to want to do more for my community… When seeing what’s been happening in DC and in Congress, I just couldn’t be on the sidelines.”

So she decided to run for Congress, and we’re so glad that she did!

When I spoke to Shannon, it was shortly after Virginia’s special election on the redistricting referendum, which would have netted four additional democratic leaning congressional districts.

The majority of Virginia voters voted yes, which was a huge win! But the VA Supreme Court swooped in and overturned the will of the Virginia voter -- totally unacceptable!

But Shannon knows exactly what the playbook is: “every single Republican in Virginia and every single Republican across this nation are doing the same thing, which is not standing up to this administration when they’re supposed to, and voting for bills that are disastrous for Americans and, of course, for Virginians.”

Given SCOTUS’s support for the VA Supreme Court’s ruling, Shannon is running under the current congressional maps. Shannon is fighting hard for Virginia’s working families to ensure they get the support they deserve, and she is directly holding Rob Wittman accountable for his extremism.

Shannon is running a great campaign, and when she wins, we will win back the majority and, together, deliver better for hard-working American families.

Shannon was born and raised in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she was the oldest of four girls. Her father was a teacher, and her mother was a nurse.

“I learned from both of my parents about that foundation of working hard and treating people the way we want to be treated ourselves and just to be a good human being and understanding that people need assistance and need support when they’re down and to be there for people to protect them.”

Shannon is not a stranger to a Red-to-Blue seat: she flipped her seat in her first state attorney election in 2011, and has had three successful re-election campaigns to boot.

She brings that battle-tested experience to her campaign for Congress. She is running in VA-01, a district that stretches from the Richmond suburbs towards the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula. It encompasses the Historic Triangle of Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown.

“I love my county because it is very representative of what I like to call… “the little United States.” It literally has everything. We have suburban, we have rural, we’ve got the industrial aspect. We have a beautiful diversity of communities within my county, from a religious aspect and from a community aspect.

I tell people that my success in my reelections and my success of having gone statewide this time last year is because of those relationships that I have built.

The success of elected leaders is really based on those relationships and understanding that every community may have a unique need and a unique perspective.

You must be a good listener. But at the end of the day, they want to make sure that you’re doing everything possible to make their communities safe and supported.”

Every day, Shannon shows up for her community—and folks have a lot of concerns! Shannon reports similar themes to what I’m hearing from families across IL-14: people are worried about accessing health care. She reports that her voters are worried that local hospitals and health clinics are closing down because they cannot afford the care their families need.

44,000 Virginians have dropped off their Affordable Care Act health care plans THIS YEAR – because Donald Trump and the Republicans In Charge let the enhanced federal tax credits expire, causing monthly premium prices to skyrocket.

Shannon is also looking out for our veterans. Virginia has a very large veterans community, and they were harmed by the Big Ugly Bill and are now seeing their essential benefits cut at the VA.

No one was safeguarded from the effects of the Big Ugly Bill. It’s shameful.

Shannon mentioned that the farmers in VA-01 are now feeling the aftershock of Trump’s failed economic agenda – whether it’s the tariffs or the increase in the cost of gas and fertilizer, Shannon says, “they are the backbone of this nation in terms of providing food, and what are we doing to be supportive of them?”

And the undercurrent behind each of these issues? Corruption.

Rep. Rob Wittman, Shannon’s opponent, voted for the Big Ugly Bill that gave him a huge tax credit on his vacation home. In fact, his tax credit totaled more than some of his constituents’ annual salaries! We already know how many representatives are trading millions of dollars worth of stock in companies they are involved with through their committee assignments.

And we can’t forget that Donald Trump, his family, and his Cabinet are making billions of dollars through their crypto schemes, deals with foreign governments, and investments tied to their day-to-day negotiations.

Americans are FED UP.

“We should not allow our elected officials-- we should not allow this Administration that gave a bunch of false promises to people back in November 2024. The idea that we allow people to take advantage of privileged information and privileged timing of certain actions that the American people do not get is not fair.”

We MUST regain the trust of our voters.

Standing in the way of rebuilding that trust is this reckless War of Choice in Iran that is making everything so expensive for our hard-working families.

Shannon says of the war, “We are asking the American people to give up billions of dollars to fund this war, because, let’s be honest, the President had no idea what he was doing. It is constant, just mumbo jumbo that he keeps spouting out there.

But the idea that you would ask taxpayers to give up their hard-earned money to fund a war, that no one knows why we’re there, because that has never been made clear: how long do we think we’re going to be there?”

As Shannon stated, the cost of gas in Virginia is over $4.50 per gallon; diesel costs are up; tariffs and retaliatory tariffs are increasing the cost of everyday goods – and it all comes back to the war.

One thing is clear: the funds sent to Iran came at the cost of Americans’ health care.

Rep. Rob Wittman has served in Congress for the last 20 years. Trump won this district in 2024 by 5 points, and the Cook Political Report rates it as R+3.

Shannon feels that this district is right within reach. Virginians need a leader that they can trust, and Shannon is that leader!

I have my full faith and confidence in Shannon Taylor and her campaign to get her to the finish line in November 2026, and I can’t wait to work alongside her in Congress.

I like to ask candidates to share their priorities for their first day in Congress if they had the power to enact any legislation. This is what Shannon shared:

• She would like to introduce bills to address corruption, especially insider trading and the financial benefit from information that representatives receive in their official capacity.

• She would also like to release the Epstein files (YES) and hold every single person mentioned in the files accountable for the harm they inflicted on their victims.

After you watch this video or read this article, I encourage you to please support Shannon Taylor in Virginia – below are some action items for you!

• Visit shannontaylorva.com for more information

• Knock on doors, or make calls to voters: https://shannontaylorva.com/volunteer/

• Donate: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/underwoodtaylor2026

Thank you all for your generous support of our Red-to-Blue candidates.

More to come,

Lauren Underwood
DCCC Red-to-Blue Co-Chair