Walkinshaw Wants House Democrats to Focus on Agency Cuts

Virginia Democrat James Walkinshaw wants House Democrats to put a stronger emphasis on the adverse impact of the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce and make the issue a top priority if Democrats retake the House in the 2026 midterm elections.

“I want to see Democratic leadership more focused on the issues impacting federal workers and the kind of management of the federal government,” Walkinshaw told Bloomberg Government at an exclusive roundtable interview on Wednesday. “I think that is something that’s core to who we are as Democrats and I will be banging that drum.”

Walkinshaw is heavily favored to succeed the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) representing Virginia’s 11th congressional district, which is located in the Washington suburbs and home to a large number of federal workers. Walkinshaw, currently a Fairfax County supervisor and former chief of staff to Connolly, handily won the Democratic nomination in a party-run primary in June.

The special election to fill the vacancy for the remainder of Connolly’s term will be held on Sept. 9. Walkinshaw will face Republican Stewart Whitson, a former FBI agent who’s senior director of federal affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative think tank.

“Folks in my community are frustrated with Democrats,” Walkinshaw said. “They want to see Democrats doing more and I do try to talk about things that Democrats have done that have been effective or slowed down some of what the Trump administration is doing.”

Virginia Democrats have sought to push back against President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and its efforts to gut the federal government. A number of federal employees in the district fired by DOGE still haven’t received pay for their work or have been unable to receive unemployment benefits despite being eligible, Walkinshaw said.

Walkinshaw plans to “highlight some of the most egregious cases” of DOGE’s impacts on the federal workforce on the House floor if elected and noted that the vast majority of federal workers live outside of the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area.

All lawmakers “have constituents that are in this situation,” Walkinshaw said. Virginia’s congressional delegation has a “two-fold” challenge to tell the stories of federal workers impacted by DOGE in both the DC region and nationally to “broaden the coalition of support” for the federal workforce.

Walkinshaw is hoping to fill Connolly’s vacant seat on the House Oversight Committee and has had conversations with House Democratic leadership about the seat, he said. One of the ways Democrats could more effectively push back against the Trump administration and DOGE is conducting their own independent investigations, he said.

“I think that kind of effort is what Democrats need to be doing,” Walkinshaw said, pointing to a recent investigation, led by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), that found hundreds of alleged human rights violations in immigration detention centers. “For me, it will be looking at investigations of how many federal employees are not receiving the unemployment benefits they’re entitled to and why. How many federal employees are owed paychecks they haven’t received and why.”

Walkinshaw added he aims to work with the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office and inspectors generals on those investigations. The Trump administration’s firing of inspectors generals and clashes with the GAO could make those investigations more challenging, he added, “but if you can’t use those routes, you got to just do it internally.”