Election 2026
Independent, source-first accountability
Issue record
In short
Luria's campaign backs banning stock trading by members of Congress and campaign finance reform. Kiggans's and Staten's campaigns list no position on the pages checked; Baker's takes no PAC money and backs independent redistricting. On the record, Luria cosponsored an amendment to overturn Citizens United and voted for the For the People Act; neither became law. Kiggans cosponsored the ETHICS Act and voted for the Stop Insider Trading Act, which passed the House in 2026.
Campaign positions
Her plan leads with banning members of Congress and their families from trading individual stocks while in office, and adds an end to prediction-market insider trading, mandatory jail time for members who steal from taxpayers, campaign finance reform to get dark money out of politics, and an end to what she calls a broken pardon system.
Her campaign's issues page states no position on this subject. Its fifteen sections run from the cost of living to the protection of women's sports and include government spending, oversight of federal agencies and securing our elections, but none addresses members' stock trading, campaign finance or money in politics. Her record holds action on the subject her page does not claim: she cosponsored the ETHICS Act in both of her Congresses, H.R. 2678 in the 118th and H.R. 4890 in the 119th, and was an original cosponsor of H.R. 7008, the Stop Insider Trading Act, voting Yea when the House passed it 232 to 198 on July 22, 2026. Her own X posts were collected into this desk's private, unreviewed research packet in this pass, and no excerpt from them may be displayed before the human review and the deletion-and-edit recheck the collection policy requires, so no silence is claimed beyond that page.
No stated position on government accountability or money in politics. The nearest thing in his own words is one answer in the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey he submitted on December 4, 2025, that two years is the right term length for a representative, "Yes. Keeps the seat fresh or steady pending voters choice.", which is a view on term length and not on ethics rules, disclosure or campaign money; his campaign message "Purpose Over Politics" is a slogan the survey does not develop into a position. He has no campaign website, and nothing else the desk could read — his Facebook profile and the ten reels on it, opened in a signed-in browser on September 13, 2026 — states a policy position on any subject. The search is bounded and unfinished. The Virginia Mercury guide, read October 12, 2026, gives a health-care position but none on this issue; the source notes below retain the other access limits.
His platform says billionaire donors have too much power over the courts and policy, that the campaign accepts no PAC money, and that he will support restoring consensus requirements for lifetime judicial appointments and independent redistricting nationwide.
Evidence timeline
campaign position
This is a plan for a future term, and the bill titles from her two terms in Congress show no action on stock trading either way.
The first item of her plan is a ban on members of Congress and their families trading individual stocks while in office. Across the 116th and 117th Congresses she sponsored 45 bills and resolutions and two floor amendments and cosponsored 1,002 measures. Reading the official titles of all of them, the check found none on congressional stock trading, insider trading by members, divestment, blind trusts, or members' conflicts of interest. This is a proposal for a future term, and her two terms hold no action on it either way. Limit: A candidate's plan for a term not yet served has no matching record, so this card compares nothing and reaches no verdict about her. The search was of official bill and resolution titles across her 1,049 sponsorships and cosponsorships; a measure whose title does not name the subject, or work done inside a committee or a rule, would not appear. It says nothing about any other candidate's record on the same subject. Her words here were read in the Internet Archive's snapshot of 2026-08-03, because her campaign site returns HTTP 403 to automated readers, and the wording is unconfirmed against the live page.
official action
She cosponsored the constitutional amendment to overturn it in both her terms and voted for the For the People Act in 2021; neither became law.
Her plan says she supported legislation overturning Citizens United while in Congress and will keep fighting for the For the People Act. She cosponsored the constitutional amendment offered to overturn the decision in both of her Congresses: H.J.Res. 2 in the 116th, one of 221 cosponsors, and H.J.Res. 1 in the 117th, one of 180. Both were referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties and went no further. She also cosponsored the For the People Act, H.R. 1 of the 117th Congress, and voted Yea on its passage on March 3, 2021 (Roll Call 62, passed 220 to 210); it was received in the Senate and was not enacted. Limit: She says she supported the legislation, which is what cosponsoring and voting for it are; she does not claim to have sponsored either measure, and she did not. Neither became law and the constitutional amendment never left subcommittee. The check reads the cosponsor rosters and the Clerk's roll call, not the bills' contents, so nothing here assesses whether either measure would have the effect she describes. Her words here were read in the Internet Archive's snapshot of 2026-08-03, because her campaign site returns HTTP 403 to automated readers, and the wording is unconfirmed against the live page.
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Elaine Luria for Congress · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
Read in an Internet Archive snapshot: elaineforcongress.com returns HTTP 403 to automated readers. Snapshot of 2026-08-03. This is the campaign's only platform page: the site's own navigation links to /about, /issues and /news all return 404 in the archive's crawls, the most recent on 2026-08-03. The page carries no publication date.
candidate statement
For: Elaine G. Luria: campaign position; Elaine G. Luria: Not comparable yet; Elaine G. Luria: Matches stated record claim
Kiggans for Congress · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
Her campaign's platform page, read live on 2026-09-13. Fifteen headed sections, from The Cost of Living to Protection of Women's Sports. It carries no publication date, and some passages date from her first term, including "In just over a year" and references to holding the Biden Administration accountable.
candidate statement
For: Jen A. Kiggans: campaign position
Congress.gov · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
The Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks Act of the 118th Congress, which would bar members from holding or trading covered investments. Kiggans is on its cosponsor roster, joining on 2023-09-08. Referred to committee; it did not pass.
official legislative record
For: Jen A. Kiggans: campaign position
Congress.gov · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
The same bill carried into the 119th Congress. Kiggans is on its cosponsor roster as an original cosponsor from the day of introduction, 2025-08-05. Referred to committee; it did not pass.
official legislative record
For: Jen A. Kiggans: campaign position
Congress.gov · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
Kiggans is an original cosponsor, from the day of introduction, 2026-01-12. The House passed it on 2026-07-22; it is on the Senate calendar and is not law.
official legislative record
For: Jen A. Kiggans: campaign position
Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives · Published Jul 22, 2026 · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
On passage of the Stop Insider Trading Act, passed 232 to 198, action date 22 July 2026 at 4:51 PM Eastern; Kiggans Yea.
official legislative record
For: Jen A. Kiggans: campaign position
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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position
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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position
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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position
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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position
Facebook · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
Read on 2026-09-13 in the same signed-in browser session as the profile, by a person at The Stated Record and not by any automated reader: the tab sits behind Facebook's sign-in wall and the Internet Archive holds no capture of it at any timestamp, so a later checker cannot repeat the read unaided. No wall was bypassed. The tab listed ten reels, with view counts of 335, 275, 371, 1K, 620, 7.1K, 115, 867, 605 and 509 as Facebook displays them. Ten is what the session saw and is not a count of every reel he has posted, and no date was visible on any of them, so this desk assigns none. None of the ten states a policy position. Three carry the same ballot-access text card, one is a screenshot of a third-party fundraising table, and the most-viewed is a funeral service; each of those three findings is recorded as its own source. This bounds what these ten reels carry and supports no claim that his Facebook account carries no policy anywhere: his ordinary post timeline never rendered and is unread.
social profile
Facebook · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
Read on 2026-09-13 in the same signed-in browser session as the profile, by a person at The Stated Record and not by any automated reader: the reels sit behind Facebook's sign-in wall with no Internet Archive capture at any timestamp, so a later checker cannot repeat the read unaided. No wall was bypassed. Three of the ten reels on his Reels tab carry the same full-bleed text card over a map of Virginia's 2nd district. Its text in full, with its four line breaks shown here as slashes, is ATTENTION VOTERS ‼️🚨 / IF YOU LIVE IN THE GREEN AREA / "BISHOP" STATEN IS ON YOUR / BALLOT 🗳️✅🔥 #CONGRESS, and nothing else. It is cited to the Reels tab because no address for the individual reels was recorded. No date was visible on any of the three and the desk assigns none. This is his own public assertion that he is on the ballot in this contest, and it is carried as that and as nothing more. The state's own candidate list for the November 3, 2026 general election carries him in this race. This desk makes no claim about his ballot qualification beyond what the state's own candidate list shows, and that list carries him in all eight of the district's localities (va-elections-2026-all-offices).
candidate statement
Facebook · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
Read on 2026-09-13 in the same signed-in browser session as the profile, by a person at The Stated Record and not by any automated reader: the reel sits behind Facebook's sign-in wall with no Internet Archive capture at any timestamp, so a later checker cannot repeat the read unaided. No wall was bypassed. One of the ten reels on his Reels tab is a screenshot of a fundraising table he did not compile, captioned in his own words "THE STAGE IS SET 🗳️✅". The table is headed "US Representative - District 2" and "Nov 3 2026" over two columns, "Candidate" and "Raised", and its rows for this desk's candidates read Kiggans, Jen (R) $5,954,338; Luria, Elaine (D) $4,660,386; and Staten, Bishop (I) N/A. It is recorded as a third-party artefact he shared and not as a roll of the field, for two reasons. First, it lists two further names that do not appear on the Virginia Department of Elections' candidate list for this contest; this desk does not repeat them and does not treat them as candidates in this race. Second, its figures do not sit where the filings do: the Kiggans figure matches the FEC's own computed 2026-cycle receipts total for her committee, $5,954,338.07, to the dollar, rather than the $6,021,834.53 her filing's own cycle-to-date column prints, which is the divergence this desk documents at fec-kiggans-12p and carries the column for, so the table cites the computed figure; the Luria figure is $590.70 above both her filing's column and the FEC's computed total for her committee, which agree with each other exactly; and the table shows no as-of date for its figures, so the desk cannot say what period or source they come from. The N/A against his own name is consistent with his committee's four Form 99 statements to the commission, each of which says it has neither raised nor spent anything. No date was visible on the reel and the desk assigns none.
social profile
For: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position
Facebook · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
Read on 2026-09-13 in the same signed-in browser session as the profile, by a person at The Stated Record and not by any automated reader: the reel sits behind Facebook's sign-in wall with no Internet Archive capture at any timestamp, so a later checker cannot repeat the read unaided. No wall was bypassed. This is the most-viewed of the ten reels on his Reels tab, which Facebook shows at 7.1K views, with 92 likes, 6 comments and 9 shares. Its caption, his own words, is "the promise still stands! [a name this desk does not repeat] preach a funeral DOWN TODAY! Much love to him 💪". What it shows is another person preaching at a funeral service. It is recorded for one reason: his account's own view counts put it far ahead of every other reel, and it is not a campaign statement, states no position, and is not Staten speaking. No date was visible on it and the desk assigns none.
social profile
For: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position
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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position
Virginia Mercury · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
The live index refuses automated readers like the rest of the site, so it was read in the Internet Archive snapshot of 2026-08-05. Under the heading for the 2nd District it lists five names, the four Democratic primary candidates and "(I) Bishop Staten", and links the contest page. The index carries the race summary and the candidate names only: no statement by any candidate, and nothing in Staten's words. It is cited to establish that the guide covers him, which made the unreadable contest page a documented gap on September 13. The contest page was read on October 12, 2026.
original reporting
For: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position
Virginia Public Access Project · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
Not read. On 2026-09-13 vpap.org answered HTTP 403 to the desk on every path tried, including the site root, and an Internet Archive listing of the domain holds no page for Staten at any timestamp. The desk did not attempt to work around the refusal; this source is flagged for a human to open in an ordinary browser.
original reporting
For: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position
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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position
Matt Baker for Congress · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
His platform page, read live on 2026-09-13: four numbered pillars covering the Constitution, Congress as a system, technology and energy, and Hampton Roads. It carries no publication date.
candidate statement
For: J. Matt Baker: campaign position
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: Elaine G. Luria: Not comparable yet
Congress.gov · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
Sponsored by Rep. Theodore E. Deutch with 221 cosponsors, Luria among them. It proposes a constitutional amendment relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections, the measure offered to overturn Citizens United. Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties; no further action.
official legislative record
For: Elaine G. Luria: Matches stated record claim
Congress.gov · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
Sponsored by Rep. Theodore E. Deutch with 180 cosponsors, Luria among them; the same constitutional amendment carried into the next Congress. Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties; no further action.
official legislative record
For: Elaine G. Luria: Matches stated record claim
Congress.gov · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
Luria is recorded as a cosponsor. The bill passed the House on 2021-03-03, the date the Clerk's roll call 62 carries and the only passage date in its action list, and was received in the Senate on 2021-03-11; it was not enacted.
official legislative record
For: Elaine G. Luria: Matches stated record claim
Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives · Published Mar 3, 2021 · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026
On passage of the For the People Act, passed 220 to 210 on 3 March 2021; Luria Yea.
official legislative record
For: Elaine G. Luria: Matches stated record claim