Election 2026

Independent, source-first accountability

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Candidate record

Geral D. "Bishop" Staten

Independent candidate. The state's candidate list records him as not the incumbent, and the desk found no federal or state legislative office for him. Campaign affiliation: Independent.

Voter guide

Background, stated goals, record, and money

Goals come from the campaign's own platform. Record lines are official actions.

How this guide is built

Background comes from official records, and from the campaign's own biography where the bullet says so; goals are summarized from the campaign's own platform and stay attributed; the record lines are official actions with the government source attached; money is shown as filed, with the filings it covers in the note under the table, and is not evidence of why any position was taken.

Geral D. "Bishop" Staten

Background

  • Holds no office. Virginia's candidate list records him as not the incumbent, the desk found no federal or state legislative office for him, and he has no campaign website.
  • His Facebook profile, his only social account, describes him in his own words as "Future Congressman" and says "I’m Running for A Seat In The U.S House • VA-02. #Independent".
  • He submitted an unedited biography to WAVY for a different office and a different election, Suffolk Commissioner of Revenue on the November 4, 2025 ballot; nothing in it is carried as a position in this race.

What they say they want to do

  • Staten wants more affordable health care by expanding insurance coverage, improving billing transparency, addressing nonfinancial barriers such as transportation, and strengthening the health-care workforce.
  • Names affordability, public safety and equal opportunity.
  • Wants a representative from Hampton Roads.
  • Campaigns on purpose over politics.
  • Supports the two-year House term.

What the official record shows

  • Holds no legislative record this desk can compare: the desk found no federal or state legislative office for him. The state's own candidate lists, revised September 8 and September 10, 2026, record him in every locality of the district and not as the incumbent.
  • Bishop Staten for Congress filed its first statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission, with the candidate himself as treasurer.
  • The last of the committee's four miscellaneous submissions to the commission, filed between January 27 and July 2, 2026. Each is his own words on file and each says the committee has neither raised nor spent anything and stays under the $5,000 threshold.

Campaign money from other committees, by type

Bishop Staten for Congress has filed no report of receipts and disbursements. Its filings with the Federal Election Commission are three statements of organization and four miscellaneous submissions, each of the four stating that the committee has neither raised nor spent anything, and the commission carries no cycle totals for it, so there is nothing to group by type.

Issues in this record

Follow the evidence by issue.

Costs and the economyHealth careVeterans and the militaryGovernment accountability and money in politicsImmigration and the borderThe coast, flooding and the Chesapeake BayReproductive rightsMedicare, Social Security and retirement

Evidence timeline

Dated records, with sources attached.

  1. race event

    Official candidate list revised

    The Virginia Department of Elections revised its candidate lists for the November 3, 2026 general election, the federal-offices list on September 8 and the fuller all-offices list on September 10, each dated by the name of its own downloadable file. Read on September 13, both show the same four candidates for the 2nd District: Luria, Kiggans, Staten and Baker. The state has since replaced both files; the source note records what could and could not be read back.

  2. race event

    Staten's committee registered

    Bishop Staten for Congress filed its first statement of organization on December 13, 2025, with the candidate as treasurer. It has filed no report of receipts and disbursements since.

  3. race event

    The seat changed hands

    Luria's second term ended and Kiggans's first began on January 3, 2023. Congress.gov records Luria for the 116th and 117th Congresses and Kiggans for the 118th and 119th, so every vote and sponsorship on this page belongs to one of them and to one side of that date.

See something wrong or incomplete? Report it for review.

Sources9 source records

How we use sources

  1. Candidates for the November 3, 2026 general election, federal officeshttps://www.elections.virginia.gov/casting-a-ballot/candidate-list/november-3-2026-gen-elect-federal-offices/

    Virginia Department of Elections · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026

    Four candidates for the 2nd District: Elaine G. Luria (Democratic, incumbent No), Jen A. Kiggans (Republican, incumbent Yes), Geral D. "Bishop" Staten (Independent, incumbent No) and J. Matt Baker (Independent, incumbent No). Its Campaign Website column names elaineforcongress.com, www.jenforcongress.com and mattbakerindependent.com and is empty for Staten; his row gives a Yahoo campaign mailbox and a Suffolk post-office box that match the contact on his most recent FEC statement of organization. When read on September 13, 2026 the page's downloadable list was named 2026-November-Federal-Offices-Candidate-List-(rev-9-8-2026).xlsx; that file has since been replaced and now returns 404.

    official election record

    For: Current role; Background, goals, record and campaign money; Official candidate list revised

  2. Bishop Staten for Congress, FEC committee recordhttps://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00930552/

    Federal Election Commission · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026

    Principal campaign committee of FEC candidate H6VA02222, first statement of organization filed 2025-12-13, the candidate himself as treasurer. It has filed no report of receipts and disbursements for the 2026 cycle: its filings are three Form 1 statements of organization and four Form 99 miscellaneous submissions, and the FEC carries no cycle totals for it. All three Form 1s leave the committee's website field blank, and the most recent, received 2026-08-13, gives a Suffolk post-office box and a Yahoo mailbox as the committee's only contact. The four Form 99 texts, filed 2026-01-27, 2026-03-31, 2026-04-10 and 2026-07-02, are his own words on file with the commission, and each says only that the committee has neither raised nor spent anything and stays under the $5,000 threshold. No filing carries a platform, a website or a social account.

    fec filing

    For: Background, goals, record and campaign money; Staten's committee registered

  3. Bishop Staten's Facebook profile, the only social account listed for himhttps://www.facebook.com/bishop.staten

    Facebook · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026

    Read on 2026-09-13 in an ordinary signed-in browser session, by a person at The Stated Record and not by any automated reader. How it was read is part of the record, because a later checker cannot repeat the read unaided: a request from the desk on 2026-09-13 was redirected to Facebook's sign-in page, and the Internet Archive holds no snapshot of this profile at any timestamp, so there is no reachable copy to check this reading against. That is why this note records the session and not only the finding: a later reader whose own request is refused has not found a gap in the record, and none of this material is to be recorded as unverifiable, or quietly dropped, on the strength of that refusal. No wall was bypassed; the profile was opened by signing in as any reader may. The address is not a guess: Ballotpedia's contact block for him links it, and Virginia Scope quoted posts from it on 2026-09-04. The profile is listed as a "Public figure" with 6.8K followers, and its own self-reported details are "Lives in Suffolk, Virginia", "From Suffolk, Virginia" and the schools "Nansemond River High" and "CCBC"; the desk carries those as what the profile states and has verified none of them. Its bio is his own words in full: "Future Congressman. I’m Running for A Seat In The U.S House • VA-02. #Independent ✅⭐️ #HistoryMade". The profile carries exactly one outbound link, labelled twitter.com, whose address resolves to https://twitter.com/, the bare homepage with no username, so his own profile links no X account and no Instagram account. What the session could read is this profile and its Reels tab: his ordinary post timeline never rendered on any route tried, the profile itself and /posts alike, across repeated scrolls and reloads, and remains unread.

    social profile

    For: Background, goals, record and campaign money

  4. Candidate Profile: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten, Suffolk Commissioner of Revenuehttps://web.archive.org/web/20250930103351/https://www.wavy.com/news/politics/candidates/candidate-profile-geral-d-bishop-staten-suffolk-commissioner-of-revenue/

    WAVY · Published Sep 11, 2025 · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026

    A different office and a different election: Suffolk Commissioner of Revenue on the November 4, 2025 ballot, not this congressional race. WAVY's live site refuses automated readers, so this was read in the Internet Archive snapshot of 2025-09-30. The station states that it sent every candidate in that race a request for a bio and a list of questions and that the bio is unedited and is what the candidate submitted, so the answers are his own words. Its own form fields record his website as N/A and his party as Democratic. Nothing here is carried as a position in this congressional race. It is cited because it is his own words, because it independently dates the absence of a campaign website, and because the station's own November 3, 2026 voter guide could not be read at all: that page answered HTTP 403 on 2026-09-13 and its only Internet Archive capture, on 2026-09-06, is itself a 403.

    candidate statement

    For: Background, goals, record and campaign money

  5. Voter Guide 2026, U.S. Representative, 2nd Districthttps://virginiamercury.com/voter-guides/contests/2026-general-election-2nd-district/

    Virginia Mercury · Reviewed Oct 12, 2026

    Read October 12, 2026, after Jay-J opened the guide and approved the health-care wording. The guide describes expanded insurance coverage, billing transparency, transportation and other nonfinancial barriers, and the health-care workforce. No visible statement date was assigned. Access history: not read on September 13, 2026. The page answered HTTP 403 to the desk on 2026-09-13, and an Internet Archive index query for this URL, and for every page under the guide's contests path, returned no capture at any timestamp, so there is no archived copy to read instead. The guide's own index does list him in this contest, so this is the page expected to carry his answers. The desk did not attempt to work around the refusal; the source was then flagged for a human to open in an ordinary browser. That check is complete.

    original reporting

    For: Background, goals, record and campaign money

  6. Bishop Staten, candidate page and his own Candidate Connection survey answershttps://ballotpedia.org/Bishop_Staten

    Ballotpedia · Published Dec 4, 2025 · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026

    Read live on 2026-09-13, HTTP 200. Its campaign-themes section carries Candidate Connection survey answers in his own words, which Ballotpedia's own footnote dates to information he submitted on December 4, 2025. He gives three campaign messages, "Purpose Over Politics", "Giving Hampton Roads a Candidate from the 2nd Congressional District to Represent the 2nd Congressional District." and "The Face of The Political Future in Hampton Roads"; names "Affordability, Public Safety and Equal Opportunity" as the areas of public policy he is personally passionate about; answers "Fighter. Hard Worker." on the legacy he wants to leave; answers "Yes. Keeps the seat fresh or steady pending voters choice." on whether two years is the right term length; and names Barack Obama as the representative he would model himself after. The answers name no policy on health care, immigration, the Bay, reproductive rights, veterans, Medicare or Social Security. Ballotpedia states it may edit a survey answer and marks any edit in brackets; none of these answers carries a bracket. The page's contact block lists one social account for him, a Facebook profile, and no X or Instagram account. Ballotpedia publishes the answers and is not their author.

    candidate statement

    For: Background, goals, record and campaign money

  7. Candidates for the November 3, 2026 general election, all officeshttps://www.elections.virginia.gov/casting-a-ballot/candidate-list/november-3-2026-gen-elect-all-offices/

    Virginia Department of Elections · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026

    The state's fuller candidate list, revised September 10, 2026 by the name of its own downloadable file and by that file's internal modification stamp, and so more recent than the federal-offices list this desk also cites. The revision read on September 13, 2026 carried a Status column the federal list does not, and that is no longer checkable: the September 8 and September 10 files now return 404, the Internet Archive answered no query for them, this desk holds no capture of the workbook, and the revision the state serves now, read on September 15, 2026, has no status column and contains the word Qualified nowhere. What follows is the row as this desk read it that day, kept as the record of what was read rather than as a claim a reader can reproduce, and no claim on any page rests on its status field. Staten's Virginia Beach City row read, field by field: VIRGINIA BEACH CITY, 3, 5, Member, House of Representatives, 2nd District, 1, 2 year, Qualified, Independent, Geral D. "Bishop" Staten, No, bishopstatenforcongress@yahoo.com, 757-372-7580, PO Box 5, Suffolk, VA, 23439-0005. He is carried in all eight of the district's localities alongside Luria, Kiggans and Baker. The workbook's two order columns are office and party: his row reads 3 for the office and 5 for the party slot, and that 5 is the independent slot he shares with Baker rather than a position on a four-name ballot. This is the state's own record of who is on the ballot and the only basis on which this desk states that any of these four is. The link opens the revision the state serves now, not the one transcribed above.

    official election record

    For: Background, goals, record and campaign money; Official candidate list revised

  8. Representative Elaine G. Luria, terms and legislationhttps://www.congress.gov/member/elaine-luria/L000591

    Congress.gov · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026

    Two terms, the 116th and 117th Congresses, Virginia's 2nd District, 2019 to 2023; 45 sponsored bills and resolutions plus 2 floor amendments, and 1,002 cosponsorships. The member page refuses automated readers, so these were read on 2026-09-13 through the same publisher's API at api.congress.gov/v3/member/L000591.

    official legislative record

    For: The seat changed hands

  9. Representative Jennifer A. Kiggans, terms and legislationhttps://www.congress.gov/member/jennifer-kiggans/K000399

    Congress.gov · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026

    Two terms, the 118th and 119th Congresses, Virginia's 2nd District, since 2023; 78 sponsored bills and resolutions plus 5 floor amendments, and 700 cosponsorships. The member page refuses automated readers, so these were read on 2026-09-13 through the same publisher's API at api.congress.gov/v3/member/K000399.

    official legislative record

    For: The seat changed hands