Representative Elaine G. Luria

Biography

Elaine Goodman Luria (born August 15, 1975) is an American politician, U.S. Navy veteran, and member of the Democratic Party who served as the U.S. representative from Virginia’s 2nd congressional district from January 3, 2019, to January 3, 2023. Her district included most of the Hampton Roads region, encompassing all of Virginia Beach, Williamsburg, and Poquoson, as well as parts of Norfolk and Hampton, and it also included York County, James City County, and the Eastern Shore counties of Accomack and Northampton. During her two terms in Congress, she participated actively in the legislative process, represented the interests of her constituents in a highly competitive swing district, and emerged as a prominent voice on national security and defense policy.

Luria was born on August 15, 1975, in Birmingham, Alabama. Her mother Michelle’s family immigrated to Jasper, Alabama, in 1906, where they sold goods to coal miners in Walker County. In the early 1900s, her great-grandfather helped establish a Reform Jewish congregation in Jasper, and her immediate family later joined Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham. Luria was raised in a household deeply involved in Jewish communal life; her mother and grandmother were active in the National Council of Jewish Women—her mother serving as president—as well as in Hadassah, the Temple Emanu-El Sisterhood, and the Birmingham Jewish Federation. This background informed Luria’s later self-description as an “unabashed supporter” of the U.S. relationship with Israel and her engagement with issues affecting Jewish communities and U.S.–Israel relations.

Luria graduated from Indian Springs School in 1993. She then attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, graduating in 1997 with a Bachelor of Science degree, double-majoring in physics and history and minoring in French. In 2000, she attended the United States Naval Nuclear Power School, preparing for service in the Navy’s nuclear propulsion program. While on active duty and stationed aboard the U.S. Seventh Fleet flagship USS Blue Ridge, she pursued graduate education and earned a Master of Science degree in engineering management from Old Dominion University in 2004. Her academic training in science, engineering, and history underpinned her later work on defense, veterans’ issues, and national security policy in Congress.

Before running for public office, Luria served as a naval officer for 20 years, operating nuclear reactors as an engineer and rising to the rank of commander. She was among the first female American sailors to spend her entire career on combat ships, reflecting the expanding role of women in the U.S. Navy. Over the course of her service, she deployed multiple times and held a series of increasingly responsible sea and shore billets. From 2014 until her retirement from active duty in 2017, she commanded Assault Craft Unit TWO, a combat-ready amphibious unit of approximately 400 sailors based in Virginia, responsible for operating and maintaining landing craft in support of Marine Corps and joint operations. Her service also included moments of religious and cultural leadership; notably, she organized and led a Passover seder aboard an aircraft carrier in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, underscoring her role as both an officer and a visible Jewish service member.

Luria entered electoral politics in 2018, running as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives in Virginia’s 2nd congressional district. In the June 10, 2018, Democratic primary, she won the nomination with 62 percent of the vote, defeating Karen Mallard, who received 38 percent. In the general election that November, she narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Scott Taylor with 51 percent of the vote to his 49 percent. She carried six of the district’s nine county-level jurisdictions, including all but one of the district’s five independent cities, and won Taylor’s hometown of Virginia Beach, a key base of support in the district. Her victory contributed to a historic election cycle in which 102 women were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, then a record number, and she joined two other female veterans in that freshman class: fellow Naval Academy graduate Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and former Air Force officer Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania.

Sworn in on January 3, 2019, Luria served during a period of intense political polarization and significant national events. Representing a military-heavy district centered on Hampton Roads, she focused on defense policy, veterans’ affairs, and national security, while also engaging on broader domestic issues. During the partial federal government shutdown in early 2019, she requested that her congressional salary be withheld until federal workers were paid, and she participated in a bipartisan group of representatives seeking to broker a compromise to end the shutdown. In February 2019, she introduced the Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2019, legislation to increase cost-of-living adjustments for veterans’ benefits; the bill earned bipartisan support and was enacted in September 2019. She was also listed among 60 House Democrats who expressed support in January 2019 for some form of physical barrier on the U.S.–Mexico border, reflecting a more centrist stance on border security than many in her party.

Luria’s congressional tenure was marked by her willingness to take high-profile positions on matters of constitutional accountability and foreign policy. On Veterans Day 2019, she released a video announcing her support for an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, a move The Washington Post characterized as unusual for a moderate Democrat facing a difficult reelection in a swing district. During Trump’s presidency, she voted in line with his stated position approximately 11 percent of the time, while by June 2022 she had voted in line with President Joe Biden’s stated position 98.2 percent of the time. In 2021, she was appointed as one of the original members of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. She played a prominent role on the panel, co-leading the committee’s eighth public hearing in July 2022 alongside Representative Adam Kinzinger. On July 25, 2022, she publicly released, via her Twitter account, the original script of Trump’s January 7, 2021, remarks and his edits to that script, which showed references to Department of Justice action removed and language of condemnation significantly toned down. In foreign and defense policy, she was the lone Democrat to vote against repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 in 2021, arguing for maintaining certain authorities in light of ongoing security concerns.

In her 2020 reelection campaign, Luria again faced former Representative Scott Taylor in a closely watched rematch. She won with 52 percent of the vote to Taylor’s 46 percent, once more carrying six of the district’s nine county-level jurisdictions, including all but one independent city. Her victory was likely aided by the broader Democratic performance in the district; Joe Biden carried Virginia’s 2nd district in the presidential election, including Virginia Beach, which had not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. In the 117th Congress, Luria continued to emphasize defense and veterans’ issues and became increasingly identified with efforts to uphold democratic institutions through her work on the January 6 committee.

Luria sought a third term in 2022 in a political environment that had grown more challenging for Democrats in competitive districts. Facing a difficult path to victory, she centered her campaign messaging on defense policy and her national security credentials, while generally refraining from highlighting Biden’s $1.5 trillion Build Back Better spending plan, which she had supported in Congress. In the November 2022 general election, she was defeated by Republican state senator Jen Kiggans, bringing her congressional service to a close on January 3, 2023. Despite her defeat, she remained an influential figure in discussions of defense and democratic governance, and in November 2025 she announced that she would again seek the Democratic nomination in Virginia’s 2nd congressional district, signaling her continued engagement in public life and electoral politics.