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Feder gets a second shot at Wolf
It will be a rematch race in the 10th Congressional District as Democrat Judy Feder again attempts to unseat longtime incumbent Republican Frank Wolf.Feder, who lost to Wolf by 16 points in 2006, is hoping voters will be more familiar with her this time around. She beat Michael Turner, a retired Air Force colonel from Loudoun County, in the Democratic primary Tuesday with about 61 percent of the vote.
Wolf solidly beat his Republican Party challenger Vern McKinley, seizing more than 90 percent of the Republican votes in a district that borders the northern and western edges of Fairfax County and stretches into the Shenandoah Valley.
“I am very grateful to the people who supported me,” Wolf said, noting that the that large number of votes he attracted in that Republican primary – over 16,500 compared to Feder's 5,000 votes in the Democratic primary– is confirmation of his policies.
“I hope it's because I worked hard, it's a really good sign,” he said.
Feder said the high Republican primary numbers are not really significant because local Democrats are energized by the presidential election.
“I know that the voters want change,” Feder said.
A McLean resident and a former dean of public policy at Georgetown University, Feder said her campaign will largely focus on the same issues it did in 2006 – transportation improvements, health care that is universally affordable and ending the war in Iraq.
Citing his proven ability to hold his seat during shaky election years for Republicans, Wolf is confident he will be able to do it again. He has been a member of Congress for 27 years, fending off competitors by holding firm to a philosophy that the most successful strategy is honestly working to rectify issues that are important to his constituents.
Jean Jonnarg of McLean said she voted for Wolf because of his constituent service. “That's how we know good congresspeople – by what they do locally.”
McKinley, a financial policy adviser to the federal government and an Ashburn resident who ran in an effort to return the 10th Congressional District to more “core Republican values.” McKinley got about 1,500 votes, according to unofficial results, from the state Board of Elections.
During the 2006 elections, Wolf beat Feder with 57 percent of the vote, according to results from the Virginia Board of Elections. Neeraj Nigam, a resident of Sterling and a native of India, is also running for the 10th District seat as an Independent.
Marlene Bocast of McLean has supported Wolf in the past, but she is supporting Feder this year because Wolf has sided with President George W. Bush too many times, she said.
Allen Grimes, 30, voted for McKinley because he believes Wolf has abandoned Republican values. “I'm repulsed by Wolf,” he said. Grimes added that if Wolf won the primary, he would vote Democratic in November.
Times Staff Writers Monty Tayloe and Gregg MacDonald contributed to this report.
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