Meet Dan
No one has taken the fight to Donald Trump like Dan Helmer.
He’s leading the fight to protect Virginia from Trump’s illegal ICE raids, stop Trump’s redistricting power grab, and get weapons of war off our streets, and he delivered the biggest Democratic majority in Virginia in our lifetimes to get it done.
Dan’s kids attended Fairfax County public schools, where his wife, Karen, is an elementary school assistant principal. He runs a small business in Arlington County. And as House Democrats Campaigns Chair, he has campaigned across Virginia’s Seventh District from Arlington to Fairfax to Prince William to Fauquier to Rockingham to Goochland.
Dan has stood up for our values and delivered progressive victories for Virginians again and again.
The stakes have never been higher for our democracy, which is why Dan is running for Congress: He knows how to take on MAGA and win, and he’s ready to keep up that fight from Day One in Congress.
Delegate Dan Helmer is the son of an immigrant and the grandson of Holocaust survivors. Growing up, he ended Passover Seder the same way every year: with the singing of God Bless America. Why? Because for Dan’s family, America has always been the Promised Land. And that is why Dan has always stood up to defend our democracy when it has been under attack.
It’s why, after 9/11 and graduating from West Point, he served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It’s why, when Donald Trump was elected president and attacked our democracy from the highest office in the land, Dan quit his job to run for office.
It’s why Dan said on TV in 2018 that after 9/11, the greatest threat to our democracy was Donald Trump. And Dan didn’t back down, even when the Trump White House attacked him personally.
Dan ran for the House of Delegates in 2019 and defeated a 17-year Republican incumbent who had voted to criminalize abortion and was the NRA’s biggest champion in Richmond.
When Dan got to the General Assembly, he got right to work, championing gun violence prevention laws like universal background checks, red flag laws, and making sure domestic abusers couldn’t have access to guns. He also led on bills ensuring the victims of sexual assault on college campuses are protected and voted to protect abortion rights in Virginia. He even led the effort in the House to make Virginia carbon-neutral by 2045.
He authored and passed the largest expansion of SNAP benefits in Virginia history – and then expanded it again the following year, even with Republicans in the majority and in control of the governor’s mansion. And working with that Republican majority, he passed a law to combat out-of-control healthcare costs for Virginians, a bill that became the basis for bills in more than a dozen other states. That leadership is why the Washington Post said Dan “displayed guts, independence, and intelligence as a freshman lawmaker.”
But the attacks on our democracy haven’t stopped. When Dan first stepped up to serve our country in the military, he could never have imagined that in our lifetime we would witness a president of the United States leading insurrectionists and white supremacists in an attack on our Capitol, weaponizing the government against his enemies, and sending masked agents to American cities to raid homes, schools, and churches and kill peaceful protesters.
Nor could Dan imagine that an extreme Supreme Court would take away a 50-year right to safe and legal abortion, which is something that’s deeply personal to Dan and his wife, Karen, because after their second son was born, Karen’s cardiologist told her to never get pregnant again or she could die.
In just his third term in Richmond, Dan took on a leadership role in the Democratic caucus as Campaigns Chair. Under his leadership, Democrats defied history in 2023 and led the first successful effort in 60 years to flip a chamber of the General Assembly while the other party’s governor held the governor’s mansion. Because of that historic victory, Democrats have advanced constitutional amendments to protect abortion rights, gay marriage, and voting rights – and to level the playing field against Republican attempts to gerrymander away accountability for Donald Trump.
In 2025, Dan did it again – leading the Democrats to their largest majority in Virginia in nearly 40 years by recruiting the largest and most diverse body of challenger candidates in party history and competing in every corner of the Commonwealth. Dan’s leadership as Campaigns Chair received universal acclaim, including by the Washington Post, which praised the “savvy campaign operation quarterbacked by Del. Dan Helmer (D-Fairfax).” A progressive champion, Dan did this all without taking a dime of corporate PAC money.
With their new progressive majority, they immediately got to work. Dan introduced and passed out of the House the bill to finally ban assault weapons from our streets. He co-led the effort to keep Trump’s lawless ICE agents out of our communities and ban them from hiding behind masks. He introduced and passed bills to end the glorification of the Confederacy at VMI and on Virginia license plates, as well as prevent Virginia’s National Guard from being deployed against Virginians on Donald Trump’s unconstitutional whims. And he passed a bill to ensure that the truth about January 6th is taught in our public schools – and the law ensuring that the perpetrators of that violent attack could never run for public office in Virginia.
In this moment, we need fighters in Congress who know the stakes, know how to win, and won’t back down. And that’s why we need Dan Helmer in Congress.
Dan is endorsed by dozens of Democratic elected officials and progressive leaders in Virginia, because they know he’s the battle-tested leader with a proven track record who eviscerates Trump’s minions at the ballot box and will drive progressive policymaking in the Capitol.