Copyright Augusta Free Press
Ben Cline apparently hasn’t thought through what Tuesday’s election results in Virginia mean for his job security. “While Democrats continue to hold the government hostage over their $1.5 trillion wish list, Republicans won’t let their obstructionist tactics stand in the way of advocating for our constituents,” the Sixth District MAGA congressman wrote on his socials on Wednesday, a day after the historic smackdown laid down on the MAGA movement by Virginia Democrats in the 2025 state elections. Democrat Abigail Spanberger was elected governor by a 14.5-point margin, keying a Democrat sweep of the three statewide offices, and House Democrats flipped 13 seats, and will have a 64-36 majority when the Virginia General Assembly reconvenes in January. ICYMI Message sent: Democrats sweep Virginia, New Jersey, New York City races on historic night Waynesboro, which voted three times for Trump, went blue in 2025 MAGAs win in local Augusta County races: But things shifted, a tiny bit Election 2025: Live coverage of statewide, House of Delegates races When the GA gets back to Richmond for the 2026 session, it will consider and then adopt another resolution that will set into motion a springtime referendum, which will allow Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms in November. The two maps circulating have the state’s 11 congressional seats – Democrats currently hold a slim 6-5 advantage in the state’s delegation – being redone to create nine or even 10 Democrat-leaning districts. You’d think a heady guy like Ben Cline would look at his prospects less than a year out and say to himself – OK, may need to moderate a bit here, if I still want this cushy $174,000-a-year job with healthcare my constituents could only dream of. Instead, we get this: “While Senate Democrats posture in Washington and repeatedly vote to keep the government closed, House Republicans are hard at work in our districts,” said Cline, from a press release that reads like a this is what I did last summer essay on the first day of fifth grade. More from Cline: “In recent weeks, I’ve hosted an education roundtable, held an agriculture conference, met with local officials, and heard from countless Virginians who just want Congress to do its job and keep the government open. House Republicans did exactly that. We passed a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open and continue advancing responsible funding bills that ensure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. The only ones not doing their jobs right now are Senate Democrats, who refuse to reopen the government.” Says the guy who has been on a taxpayer-funded vacation for the past 36 days. If I’m Cline, John McGuire over in the Fifth, Rob Wittman in the First, Jen Kiggans in the Second, I’m looking at last night’s numbers, and just in the interest of self-preservation, I’m sidling away from the MAGA party line, to give myself a fighting chance. Ditto for Susan Collins (Maine), Jon Husted (Ohio), John Cornyn (Texas), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Pete Ricketts (Nebraska), all of whom are expected to have tight races for re-election to the U.S. Senate in the 2026 cycle. Between that group, and North Carolina’s Thom Tillis and Iowa’s Joni Ernst, who are running kicking and screaming from having to run and lose next year, you only need four people to decide, you know what, this Project 2025 nonsense is destroying the economy and destroying the country, and in the case of the ones who want to continue in their jobs, it’s destroying their political careers. Similarly, back in the House of Representatives, with Ben Cline and others, the magic number is four MAGA Republicans coming, if not to their senses, to their personal ambitions Just here in Virginia, I can see Wittman and Kiggans playing ball. I don’t know that either Cline or McGuire has the acumen to be able to pull it off.
