Dan Helmer | Virginia’s 7th District

Dan is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and earned a master's degree at Wolfson College, Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. He is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, having served tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and South Korea. He works as a business strategist in the private sector advising both U.S. government agencies and companies.

In the Virginia House of Delegates, Helmer championed gun violence prevention laws, abortion rights, and environmental legislation, including leading the effort to make Virginia carbon-neutral by 2045. He authored and passed the largest expansion of SNAP benefits in Virginia history and worked across the aisle to pass legislation to combat out-of-control healthcare costs that became a model for bills in more than a dozen other states. In 2023, he led the successful effort to flip the Virginia House of Delegates — the first time in sixty years Democrats had done so under a Republican governor — and in 2025, he led Virginia Democrats to their largest majority in the House in nearly four decades.