Election 2026

Independent, source-first accountability

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Issue record

Medicare, Social Security and retirement

In short

Luria's campaign says she will work to strengthen Medicare and Social Security and oppose cuts to seniors' earned benefits. Kiggans's campaign says she fights to protect Medicare and Social Security, that benefits will not be touched for people who get them or soon will, and that she opposes Medicare for All. Staten's and Baker's campaigns list no position on these programs on the pages checked.

Campaign positions

What each campaign says.

Elaine G. Luria

Her plan says she will advocate for strengthening Medicare and Social Security, stand against efforts to cut seniors' earned benefits, and oppose cuts to those programs.

Jen A. Kiggans

Her campaign says she is a fierce advocate for seniors who fights to protect and preserve Medicare and Social Security, that benefits for those receiving or near receiving them will not be touched, and that she opposes Medicare for All.

Geral D. "Bishop" Staten

No stated position on Medicare, Social Security or retirement. The Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey he submitted on December 4, 2025 does not mention Medicare, Social Security or retirement security. 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.

J. Matt Baker

His platform states no position on Medicare, Social Security or retirement. Above its four pillars it carries eight standalone stances, from democracy and the rule of law to ending donor control, and the pillars themselves cover the Constitution and democracy, Congress as a system, energy and technology, and Hampton Roads; none of the twelve reaches these programs, and the words Medicare, Social Security, retirement and retiree appear nowhere in the pages this desk captured. His campaign site links no X account, so this pass collected no posts of his, and no silence is claimed beyond his platform and home pages.

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Sources14 source records

How we use sources

  1. Elaine's Plan to Right the Shiphttps://web.archive.org/web/20260803231500/https://elaineforcongress.com/elaines-plan/

    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

  2. Jen on the Issueshttps://jenforcongress.com/issues/

    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

  3. 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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position

  4. 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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position

  5. 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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position

  6. 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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position

  7. Bishop Staten's Facebook Reels tab, the ten reels it listedhttps://www.facebook.com/bishop.staten/reels

    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

    The ballot-access text card on three of his Facebook reels

    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

    A third-party fundraising table he shared on Facebook

    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

  8. The most-viewed reel on his Facebook account, a funeral servicehttps://www.facebook.com/reel/1080363217843328

    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

  9. 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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position

  10. Voter Guide: 2026 Primary Election, the guide's own contest indexhttps://web.archive.org/web/20260805101544/https://virginiamercury.com/voter-guides/2026-primary-election/

    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

  11. Virginia Public Access Project, candidate pageshttps://www.vpap.org/elections/candidates/

    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

  12. 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: Geral D. "Bishop" Staten: campaign position

  13. Where I Stand, the campaign's platformhttps://www.mattbakerindependent.com/vision

    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

  14. Matt Baker for Congress, home pagehttps://www.mattbakerindependent.com/

    Matt Baker for Congress · Reviewed Sep 13, 2026

    Read live on 2026-09-13. Describes him as "Colonel, USMC (Ret.) · 28 Years" and carries no publication date. It links a Facebook page and instagram.com/MattBakerVA and no X account.

    candidate statement

    For: J. Matt Baker: campaign position