Cost of Living Tops Voter Concerns in Virginia's 1st District as Wittman Faces Taylor on Tuesday

Jeans Owens runs Java Jacks, a cafe in Tappahannock, Virginia. Her coffee costs are up more than 30% since 2022.

To-go boxes that ran 12 cents now run nearly 30. The cup, lid and straw combo that cost about 3 cents is now more than 20 cents. Her electric bill used to run $450 to $500 a month. She says it's now over $1,000.

That is the economy in Virginia's 1st Congressional District, one of the most competitive House seats in the country. Voters there pick between Republican incumbent Rob Wittman and Democrat Shannon Taylor, the Henrico County Commonwealth's Attorney, on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

How one small business is coping

Owens and her husband bought the cafe about eight years ago. They wanted to be their own bosses and build a better retirement. Their early years in charge have included the pandemic and the inflation that followed.

She keeps some meals at $10. She buys milk and juice at Walmart early in the morning instead of from a supplier, and gets fresh fruit from a local grocery. She checks prices across three suppliers and switches to whichever is cheapest. She says she is still having to raise menu prices.

Customers are adjusting too. Owens says she used to see one or two split tickets a day among senior citizens. Now there are several. Tips fell when gas prices shot up, she says, and recovered when gas came back down.

Her biggest stressor right now is finding and keeping staff. She says that problem is also rooted in affordability. She has a second coffee spot across the river in Warsaw.

What voters say matters

The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia rates the 1st, 2nd and 5th districts among the nation's most competitive. In all three, a Democrat is challenging a Republican incumbent: Wittman against Taylor, Jen Kiggans against former Rep. Elaine Luria, and John McGuire against former Rep. Tom Perriello.

Washington Post-Schar School polls of likely voters, released Oct. 1, found cost of living was the top issue for a plurality in both the 1st and 5th districts.

On Oct. 15, minority staffers on Congress' Joint Economic Committee put out an analysis. They estimated the average Virginia household has paid more than $3,900 in extra costs for groceries, housing, energy and health care since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. That figure is an estimate from one side of the aisle, and it should be read as one.

The tariff and Iran votes

Virginia Independent News reported that economists point to Trump's tariffs and to shipping disruption since his military attacks on Iran as the biggest drivers of higher costs since January 2025. That is a contested causal claim, and the cafe owner's own numbers complicate it: her coffee increase is measured from 2022, years before this administration's tariffs.

The voting record is not in dispute. Wittman, Kiggans and McGuire all voted in February against a resolution to end the national emergency Trump declared to impose tariffs on Canadian goods. It passed the House 219-211 anyway and awaits Senate action.

All three also voted against resolutions directing Trump to pull U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran in March, April, May, June, July and September.

None of the three incumbents immediately responded to requests for comment on those votes.

Taylor's campaign site says she will "work to rein in the reckless tariffs and endless wars that are driving up the price of groceries, gas, and everyday goods." Luria and Perriello run similar messages in their districts.

The immigration counterattack

Republican-aligned messaging is aimed elsewhere. Breitbart News reports that newly unearthed clips show Taylor embracing what it calls the "far left's open-border, pro-criminal illegal alien agenda." It cites her campaigning with a Democrat who called Border Patrol agents "White Nationalists" and her advocacy for Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Breitbart calls him an MS-13 member, a characterization that is Breitbart's own in its summary. Taylor's response to those characterizations is not in the record.

The same outlet is pressing Gov. Abigail Spanberger over sanctuary policies after an illegal alien was accused of fatally stabbing a woman in Staunton, Virginia. The charge is an accusation, not a finding.

That is the Republican case for the closing days: public safety and border enforcement, not prices.

What happens next

Polls say prices are the top concern. Nothing in Wittman's recent votes on tariffs or Iran has been explained by his office, since he did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Senate has yet to take up the House-passed tariff resolution. Tuesday's results in Virginia's 1st, 2nd and 5th districts will show whether voters tied their grocery and electric bills to those votes or to something else.