The newest battle within the 2026 redistricting wars will probably be determined Tuesday in Virginia, the place a map favoring Democrats in 10 of 11 districts appears to be like narrowly poised to spell doom for Republican incumbents — and tee up Democrats’ subsequent massive battle.
Welcome to primaries within the period of redistricting, the place a Democrat-on-Democrat conflict in a Washington, D.C.-adjacent district is opening a long-shot bid for one progressive candidate with a made-for-resistance background.
Veteran Bree Fram is seizing on the Virginia referendum to mount a race from the left towards Rep. James Walkinshaw, a six-month incumbent who slid into the seat held by Rep. Gerry Connolly, his former boss, after Connolly died in Might 2025.
Fram’s candidacy highlights an unintended consequence of Democrats’ retaliation towards the redistricting wars President Donald Trump declared in an effort to retain the GOP Home majority. And win or lose, it can inform the course of a Democratic Celebration nonetheless in search of an exit from the political wilderness.
Fram, as soon as the highest-ranking transgender particular person within the army, was pressured into retirement final 12 months when Trump declared by way of government order that trans persons are “not in keeping with the humility and selflessness required” of service. Now, Fram and her marketing campaign supervisor Sabrina Bruce, additionally a trans girl pushed out of the Area Drive, are operating their marketing campaign like a army operation. And whereas they acknowledge the bid is an extended shot, they suppose they’ve an opportunity — if Virginia voters approve redistricting within the state.
“Assuming that it does undergo, there’s a path to victory there, as a result of in relation to the panorama, if you’re taking a look at this from a strategic sense, you possibly can’t go the place your [opponent] is strongest. It’s a must to go the place they’re weakest,” Bruce stated.
And if redistricting fails, or the state Supreme Court docket blocks it? “The circumstances in that path to victory are far more out of our palms,” Bruce admitted.
At first look, Fram has a resume anticipated of congressional candidates. She’s a 23-year veteran — 18 within the Air Drive and 5 within the Area Drive — and is fast to say the excessive marks she earned from the army’s greatest faculties. She’s good — an precise rocket scientist — and has written or edited three books, together with one on management. She’s married, with two teenage youngsters, and lives in a home within the sprawling Washington suburbs. She talks quite a bit about democracy, obligation and repair.
However the circumstances surrounding Fram’s underdog bid towards Walkinshaw are something however peculiar — and her candidacy highlights the proper storm that Trump swept into the American political universe. It’s a path that wanders from the terrorist assaults of Sept. 11, 2001, to the redistricting wars of 2026. And its terminus will probably be instructive because the nation appears to be like towards the longer term.
Fram has the kind of progressive platform that can play properly in Washington’s deep-blue suburbs: no cash from company PACs, common well being care, altering the capital good points tax. She desires to maintain knowledge facilities — for which the area is the worldwide capital — away from residential areas. She’s a harsh critic of DOGE, whose decimation of the federal workforce was uniquely painful for the bureaucrats who name Northern Virginia residence. And she or he joins various Democratic politicians bolstered by their army service credentials, calling Trump’s persistently unpopular battle in Iran “a reckless catastrophe.”
Fram additionally isn’t afraid to bash her personal social gathering. She stated she was “upset” by some Democrats who sought to distance themselves from trans advocacy within the aftermath of 2024. And she or he’s referred to as for a constitutional modification limiting presidential pardon energy — together with the kind of preemptive pardons Biden issued his interior circle earlier than leaving workplace.
Walkinshaw is operating as an institution Democrat — and an extension of Connolly, who served in Congress for 16 years and is talked about 5 occasions on the webpage laying out Walkinshaw’s coverage priorities. He sits on the Home Oversight Committee (which Connolly chaired) and Homeland Safety Committee — two high-profile panels whose Democratic members have set themselves in opposition to Trump’s dealing with of the Jeffrey Epstein recordsdata and immigration crackdown. He’s additionally co-chair and founding father of the Federal Workforce Caucus, which advocates for federal staff.
Bruce and Fram knew it could be an uphill battle to defeat Walkinshaw, who ended 2025 with greater than $340,000 money readily available. Then, days earlier than Fram introduced her marketing campaign on Jan. 20, the Virginia state Senate and Home of Delegates handed the constitutional modification setting the stage for the redistricting referendum.
Weeks later, Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed laws drawing a brand new congressional map that might take impact if voters approve the measure. Fram’s residence district in that map — the “new eleventh” — features a majority of voters from surrounding districts at the moment represented by Reps. Suhas Subramanyam (D), Don Beyer (D) and Ben Cline (R). Walkinshaw and each different Democrat within the Virginia delegation have endorsed the map.
“We had been conscious that the terrain and the battlefield had shifted barely in our favor with redistricting,” Bruce stated. “That chaos is a ladder, and when you might have a possibility to take advantage of that, to benefit from it, it’s clear that you should use that to win.”
The marketing campaign is working underneath the idea that the referendum, which is polling very narrowly in Democrats’ favor, will move. Thus far, that’s concerned a “listening tour” of the brand new eleventh — impressed by a commander’s first order of enterprise once they take over a brand new base or squadron: Talking to all of the individuals who work for them to grasp their wants.
However Fram remains to be the underdog.
An inner ballot commissioned by Fram’s marketing campaign and shared with POLITICO reveals Walkinshaw with a significant lead. In a head-to-head contest between the 2, 43 % of Democratic major voters in Virginia’s new eleventh district stated they might assist Walkinshaw, and solely 9 % stated they might vote for Fram — whereas 48 % stated they weren’t certain. In the identical ballot, after being introduced with details about each candidates, Fram cuts into the hole, if solely barely: Walkinshaw carries 42 %, and Fram garners 21 %.
Then there’s the cash.
Fram’s marketing campaign raised simply over $250,000 within the first quarter of 2026 and had about $135,000 money readily available on the finish of March, based on FEC filings. Her marketing campaign has obtained donations from each state and D.C., and each county within the new eleventh district. None of it got here from PACs.
Walkinshaw raised greater than $630,000 over the identical interval, practically $210,000 of which got here from PACs. His marketing campaign reported practically $800,000 money readily available as of March 31. Donald Brownlee, Walkinshaw’s marketing campaign supervisor, stated in an announcement that over the previous 12 months, they obtained greater than 6,000 particular person donations, averaging $25 every.
“The grassroots vitality we noticed in our particular election final 12 months stays robust and [Walkinshaw] is targeted on serving to ship a win for the Sure marketing campaign in subsequent week’s redistricting referendum,” Brownlee stated.
Regardless of their variations, Fram is targeted on operating a marketing campaign that steers away from trench warfare. Fram and Walkinshaw are on the identical workforce, the marketing campaign says.
“I feel that there’s a line between profitable, and being proud of the best way that you simply gained,” Bruce stated. “And for a marketing campaign that’s centered on hope, centered on constructing one thing that’s higher than what we’ve got, I don’t suppose we are able to stray too removed from that and begin attacking fellow Democrats. How are we going to get away from this malaise that Trump has put us in if we don’t attempt to be higher ourselves?”
To know Fram’s motivation for operating, her background is necessary. The truth that she is trans, Fram says, is “the seventeenth most fascinating factor about” her. When she was promoted to Area Drive colonel in 2024, Fram grew to become the highest-ranked brazenly trans particular person in the complete army. However then got here the Supreme Court docket’s emergency keep on Trump’s government order ousting Fram and 1000’s of different trans service members.
“That was devastating, as a result of that was the day I knew the Supreme Court docket had simply fired me,” Fram stated.
Fram’s journey to the army started many years earlier with an episode of “Star Trek: Subsequent Technology.” A younger Fram was drawn to the character Geordi La Forge, helmsman of the present’s Enterprise-D starship. “I noticed Geordi and I’m like, ‘That’s my job. I wish to make the warp engines go. I wish to assist humanity develop into the celebrities,’” she stated. Fram graduated from the College of Minnesota in 2001 with a level in aerospace engineering and started in search of jobs at locations like NASA and Boeing.
However the Sept. 11 assaults modified Fram’s trajectory. Within the days after, Fram was driving from Minneapolis to Duluth to go to her girlfriend — now spouse — when she noticed an American flag draped from an overpass. She began to cry. “I walked into her condominium and stated, ‘I’m going to hitch the Air Drive,’” Fram recalled. By January 2003, Fram reported to officer coaching faculty, simply as former President George W. Bush was starting his second time period and plotting the invasion of Iraq.
Throughout her first 13 years within the Air Drive, Fram instructed solely two folks within the army she was trans. In a single shut name round 2014, Fram recalled, she reported to work on a Saturday and by chance introduced a private telephone — which contained female-presenting pictures of herself — right into a labeled zone. After rapidly realizing and turning over the machine to the safety workplace, Fram waited in terror. “My spouse thought that black helicopters had been going to look over our home,” she stated. However 5 days later, safety officers pulled Fram apart and requested if she might be blackmailed over the photographs. She stated no, they usually instructed her to choose up her telephone on the best way out.
On June 30, 2016, the Obama administration declared that “efficient instantly, transgender Individuals could serve brazenly, they usually can now not be discharged or in any other case separated from the army only for being transgender.” Fram was prepared: She had drafted an e mail popping out to her colleagues and a Fb put up to return out to the world. She took a pair breaths. After which she hit ship.
Fram scurried to the Pentagon fitness center, the place she bought on the elliptical and “went nowhere quicker than I’d ever gone anyplace in my life,” she stated. When she returned to her desk, her colleagues walked as much as her one after the other to shake her hand and say it was an honor to serve alongside her.
4 months later, Trump gained his first presidential election.
On the 2016 marketing campaign path, Trump’s feedback about trans folks had been pretty reasonable. In April of that 12 months, he stated they need to “use the lavatory they really feel is suitable.” Principally, he averted the subject altogether.
However in July 2017, the president stated in a put up on Twitter that, “After session with my Generals and army specialists … the USA Authorities is not going to settle for or enable … Transgender people to serve in any capability within the U.S. army.” Fram wasn’t certain what to make of the missive — was a tweet an official order? — however she knew one thing had shifted.
That trans ban by tweet confronted swift authorized challenges, and in March 2018, the administration issued a revised coverage that barred trans folks from enlisting however allowed these already serving to stay in the event that they obtained a analysis of “gender dysphoria” from a army physician.
“It felt like being an endangered species at that time,” Fram stated, “the place the insurance policies had been simply going to be so onerous and ugly that they thought we had been simply going to stroll away, and ultimately all of us can be gone.” She determined to remain and have become one of many founding members of Trump’s Area Drive.
When former President Joe Biden took workplace, he reversed the trans ban on Day One. Fram ascended the army’s ladder, climbing to the rank of colonel by the tip of his time period.
On the similar time, Trump was stepping out of exile and again into the nationwide political highlight. His comeback marketing campaign centered on anti-trans rhetoric, railing towards “transgender for everyone” — a phrase he ambiguously attributed to Democrats. The GOP platform pledged to “Finish Left-wing Gender Madness.” One of many Trump reelect’s most profitable advertisements bashed Kamala Harris over the difficulty: “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” the narrator of the advert stated.
“The 2017 tweet was a lightning bolt out of a transparent blue sky that nobody noticed coming,” Fram stated. “However approaching 2024, we had $200 million spent within the final two months of the marketing campaign demonizing trans folks. This was like a hurricane you noticed forming far-off. You recognize it’s coming towards you, and the query is simply how unhealthy is it going to be when it hits shore.”
Because the prospect of Trump’s return to workplace grew to become extra of a actuality, Fram was sitting on a seashore in Maine when her mom requested her a jarring query: “What’s your plan to flee?”
It hit residence for Fram, whose grandfather and nice grandfather based on household lore left Germany on the onset of the Holocaust on a midnight practice to Paris.
“I plan to remain and battle,” Fram stated she instructed her mom. “If the uniform gave me something, it’s the braveness to face up when it’s applicable to take action.”
When the Supreme Court docket issued the choice that precipitated her ouster, Fram had one remaining assembly with the joint workers, which she attended as a colonel as a result of Area Drive’s small dimension. After delivering an replace on her work, Fram knowledgeable the admirals and generals of her “surprising departure.”
“The particular person sitting subsequent to me regarded over and stated, ‘Oh, why? What new project did you get? The place are you going?’” Fram stated. “And I’m like, ‘Effectively, I don’t meet this administration’s commonplace for army excellence and readiness, so I’m going to be positioned on administrative go away in two days.’ And it took a second for what that meant to descend upon the folks within the room.”
Similar to the day she got here out practically a decade earlier, Fram stated every particular person on the assembly shook her hand and instructed her “it’s an honor to have served with you.”
Fram was positioned on administrative go away in early June 2025. Per week earlier than her retirement — licensed for Jan. 1, 2026, after a bureaucratic delay for approval — a three-star common summoned Fram to the Pentagon to ship a message: the traditional retirement celebrations wouldn’t be accessible. There can be no honor guard and no band. Others from her unit wouldn’t be allowed to attend. And she or he wouldn’t be capable of put on her personal uniform.
“Each pettiness, each cruelty as a part of this course of was inflicted on us,” Fram stated.
Neither the Pentagon nor the White Home responded to requests for remark by the point of publication.
Later that month, the Human Rights Marketing campaign Basis hosted a ceremonial retirement in Washington for 5 trans service members, together with Fram. Their uniforms had been displayed on mannequins.
“Our uniforms are usually not coming off as a result of we failed in our obligation, however as a result of we did it so properly that what it represented couldn’t be hidden away,” Fram stated in that ceremony’s closing remarks. “We could also be completed with our army service. We’re not completed serving.”
On April 28, 2025, Connolly launched an announcement asserting that he wouldn’t search reelection after 9 phrases in Congress, citing the return of esophageal most cancers.
Simply over every week later, on Might 6 — the identical day the Supreme Court docket ordered its emergency keep — Walkinshaw, who had served as Connolly’s chief of workers for 10 years, filed paperwork in search of the Democratic nomination to switch his former boss. Connolly endorsed him the identical day and transferred $1.8 million to a PAC backing Walkinshaw, based on marketing campaign finance information first reported by the Washington Examiner.
Connolly died on Might 21, triggering a firehouse Democratic major to switch him within the deep-blue district on June 28 forward of a Sept. 9 particular election. Even after his loss of life, Connolly’s marketing campaign despatched emails to its listserv soliciting donations for Walkinshaw, and his X account instructed followers to vote early for him, the Examiner reported. Walkinshaw cruised to victory within the major, notching practically 60 % of the vote.
Within the background, Fram and Bruce — who had recognized one another since 2018 — had been set on a collision course with Walkinshaw. As Walkinshaw was asserting his marketing campaign, Bruce was driving to her Area Drive reenlistment ceremony when the excessive courtroom launched the choice that might drive her out of the service. She went on administrative go away the following week. Fram had already been eyeing a run for Virginia’s eleventh District, however couldn’t retire rapidly sufficient to leap into the particular election.
However by September, Fram and Bruce started to noticeably focus on their subsequent mission: a 2026 bid.
“If this administration thinks they will kick out a bunch of extremely motivated badasses with out anticipating it to return again and chunk them within the butt,” Fram stated, “this can be a solution to present them flawed.”
