By Phil Huber, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
When Fredericksburg-area voters open their ballot on November 3, they’ll see the two names everyone expects in the 7th District race: Democratic incumbent Eugene Vindman and Republican challenger Doug Ollivant, a Fredericksburg resident. But they’ll also see four more names most people have never heard of. That’s not a local quirk. Across Virginia, 14 independent and third-party candidates have qualified for eight of the state’s 11 congressional districts, according to the state’s official candidate list—and the 7th District has more of them, four, than any other district in Virginia (Virginia Dept. of Elections).
Four long-shot candidates might sound like background noise. It isn’t, and understanding why starts right here at home.
Two of our local candidates aren’t really trying to win
Two of the 7th District’s independents, Randall Terry and Joshua Ertle, are part of something bigger than a congressional race. They’re two of ten candidates running in sixteen states under a shared fundraising operation called “Defending the Unborn.” The group’s own website says its goal plainly: “Ten candidates. Sixteen states. One mission” (joan.vote). That mission isn’t to serve in Congress. It’s to use a federal broadcasting rule.
Here’s how that rule works, in plain terms. Once someone officially qualifies as a candidate for federal office, a decades-old FCC rule says TV stations cannot refuse to air that candidate’s own ads, and cannot edit or censor them, even if the content would otherwise violate a station’s normal standards (FCC Political Programming Fact Sheet). Terry has used this before. Running for president on the Constitution Party line in 2024, he got graphic anti-abortion ads aired unedited on ABC—the network said on air that it was legally required to run them. Filing for Congress in Virginia’s 7th District gives Terry, and running mate Ertle, the same access here, timed deliberately to Virginia’s Amendment 1 abortion-rights referendum on this November’s ballot. The group claims its ads could reach more than 60 million Americans (joan.vote).
Terry is not new to losing races. He founded the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue and has run for office and lost repeatedly since 1998; his best showing in a federal race was 12.1 percent against an entrenched incumbent in 2012 (Ballotpedia—Randall Terry). He also filed this year in a New Jersey House district, before New Jersey Republicans successfully challenged him off that ballot in June for improperly filing in two districts under one campaign committee—the GOP’s own attorney argued his presence there could pull votes away from their nominee (New Jersey Globe). A third member of the same slate, Joan Andrews Bell, is running the identical play one district over in the 4th. Bell was convicted in 2023 of violating the federal FACE Act, sentenced in 2024 (EWTN News), and later pardoned by President Trump in January 2025 (DOJ clemency list).
None of this is illegal or fraudulent. But voters should know the difference between a neighbor asking for their vote and a national campaign using a Virginia House seat to unlock free television access it couldn’t otherwise buy.
The other two local candidates are the real thing
The contrast in our own district is worth noting. Alaha Ahrar, a poet and human-rights advocate born in Kabul, Afghanistan, is running a sincere, values-driven campaign on justice and opportunity—though she has raised only $115 so far (KabulNow). Libertarian Taner Demirci Lopez has never registered a campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission, and his campaign website is a single sentence (lopezforva.com). Neither is trying to game a broadcast loophole—they’re simply long-shot candidates in a district rated comfortably Democratic, where Vindman is not expected to lose regardless of who else is on the ballot.
Elsewhere in Virginia, mostly the same story: sincere, but not competitive
The same pattern shows up statewide, just without the broadcast strategy. In the 3rd District, Navy veteran Stephen Woll has raised more money than any other minor candidate in Virginia, arguing both parties have failed independent-minded voters—a real message in a district Democrat Bobby Scott will still win easily (Independent Veterans of America).
In the 8th District, independent Tim Sharman has put roughly $42,000 of his own money into reaching Democrats “frustrated with politics as usual,” while Libertarian Shelly Arnoldi also qualified—in a seat Don Beyer is not going to lose (ARLnow).
In the 5th District—the one race that has genuinely tightened this year, with one internal poll showing Republican John McGuire now ahead of Democrat Tom Perriello and national Democrats adding the seat to their target list—independent Cooke Harvey has barely any public footprint at all, which is itself worth watching given how close that race has become (Blue Virginia).
In the 10th District, independent Ahsen Malik has no visible campaign presence at all, and in the 11th, Green Party candidate Dianne Blais is a genuine three-decade community figure whose last congressional bid drew less than half a percent of the vote (Ballotpedia—Dianne Blais). None of these districts are close enough for a minor candidate to change the outcome.
One race is different—and it could decide who controls that seat
There is exactly one district in Virginia where a minor candidate could plausibly change who wins, and it’s not the 7th. It’s the 2nd District, Virginia’s only true toss-up race, where the sole public poll on record—taken July 9–13 and commissioned by the Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC—showed Republican incumbent Jen Kiggans and Democrat Elaine Luria tied at 47 percent apiece, with 6 percent undecided (House Majority PAC poll memo, via Politico). Two independents are also on that ballot. Geral “Bishop” Staten has a real local vote-getting history in Suffolk, and the local Democratic committee had to publicly clarify it had never endorsed him after he described himself as “the Democratic Candidate” (Suffolk Democratic Committee, via Internet Archive). The other, retired Marine Corps Colonel J. Matt Baker, campaigns on themes—January 6 accountability and abortion rights—that cut against the Republican incumbent rather than the Democrat (mattbakerindependent.com). In a race decided by a point or two, with no poll yet even asking voters about these two names, a few thousand votes pulled from either side would not be a footnote. It could be the outcome—and because the 2nd District is one of the most closely watched House races in the country this year, that outcome carries weight well beyond Virginia’s borders, in the fight for control of Congress.
Why this matters for us
None of the 7th District’s minor candidates will decide who represents Fredericksburg in Congress. But their presence on the ballot tells a true story: some candidacies are sincere protest votes, one is a national messaging operation borrowed for a state referendum fight, and—one district over—a similar cast of long-shot names could genuinely tip which party holds a U.S. House seat. Worth knowing, before you vote, which kind you’re looking at.
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Phil Huber is a retired Army Reserve colonel, federal civil servant and consultant who writes on civic education. He lives in Fredericksburg.
