You can find our story on Republican Ben Cline here.
Beth Macy broke out into a jog up a hill on Main Street in Salem, emblematic of how she had spent the past few months of her congressional campaign to unseat Republican incumbent Ben Cline in Virginia’s 6th Congressional District.
That Saturday, she had made a promise to a supporter to check out a classic car he was showing at Olde Salem Days before she left the street festival for her second of three stops, and she was afraid she was running late.
Macy launched her campaign for Congress in November 2025, after the question of whether Virginia would redistrict its congressional map was first posed, and before the first prototypes of what that new map could look like had been released. The Virginia Supreme Court struck down the effort in May, after it was approved by the General Assembly and voters.
The General Assembly’s new congressional map had drawn Macy into a new, salamander-shaped 6th District that would have been competitive for Democrats, and into a competitive Democratic primary with former Congressman Tom Perriello. After the referendum passed, it was challenged by Republicans in court.
“I was going to drop out if the referendum was upheld,” she said, and added that she faced pressure to drop out before the court weighed in. “It was just hard, waiting. Didn’t know when the ruling was going to come.”
The Virginia Supreme Court overturned the referendum and returned Macy to the original 6th to face GOP incumbent Rep. Ben Cline in a solidly Republican district.
Now, Macy faces an uphill battle in her effort to unseat Cline in a district that he won with a 28-point margin in 2024. The Republican gubernatorial candidate, former Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, won the district by a 17-point margin the following year, even as Gov. Abigail Spanberger went on to win statewide by 15 percentage points.
Regardless, Macy has remained hopeful and has determined to meet those odds with hard work and optimism and largely without the financial support of the national Democratic Party apparatus.
“I think we have a chance, but it’s going to depend on every Democrat voting for us and turning out. It’s going to depend on students, and it’s going to depend on light turnout by the Republicans, because they’re not excited about what’s going on,” said Tom Landon, Macy’s husband and campaign videographer. “If those three things happen, that’s our path to victory.”
Macy’s grassroots effort has paid off, financially.
She has raised more money than any other candidate across the political spectrum in any one 6th District congressional race since 1978 — the first year with data available on the Federal Elections Commission website. She has outraised Cline — $2.9 million across 4,513 contributions to Cline’s $1.9 million across 1,225 contributions — as of Oct. 14, while pledging not to take a cent from corporate political action committees. Macy’s haul includes $712,989 in small-dollar contributions, compared to $81,034 that Cline garnered in small-dollar contributions. The Federal Elections Commission considers small-dollar contributions to be less than $200.
The money her campaign raised, Macy said, has gone toward campaign advertisements on the digital, radio and television airwaves, on social media and in printed campaign literature to mail across the district, and toward door-knocking and events.
“I’m not getting a dime of it. I’m not even getting reimbursed for mileage,” she told supporters at a fundraiser in Broadway in mid September.
Whether Macy’s effort pays off at the ballot box remains to be seen.
Lisa Neall, of Fulks Run, attended the Broadway fundraiser that Saturday evening.
Neall said she thinks Macy will win Harrisonburg and Roanoke without a problem but that there are a lot of people living outside of the district’s cities, and they need a reason to vote for her. For most of them, all it would take is a knock on the door, she said.
“My guts say no, my heart says maybe. We’ll see,” she said when asked if she thinks the 6th District is flippable. “This is a tough place.”
A journalist reports on her own congressional bid
Macy walked down Main Street in Salem earlier that morning, escorted by a handful of volunteers who carried “Beth Macy for Congress” signs that were decked out in streamers and on sticks about six feet high. Those signs made it easy to pick the candidate out in a crowd. She shook hands and talked with everyone she could as she made her way down the packed street during Olde Salem Days, adhering campaign stickers to the chests of the people she met.
She talked to people who recognized her from her decades as a reporter at the Roanoke Times and others who recognized her as the author of Dopesick and other nonfiction books, and some who had never heard her name. At one point during the troupe’s march down Main Street, Macy stopped and led a cheer of “Ben Cline has no spine,” in front of a building that had Republican campaign signs pasted to its facade.
In an interview later that evening, Macy said she could not remember offhand the exact day that her campaign began pushing full steam ahead with her attending a handful of events each day.
“It felt really busy from the very beginning,” she said. “And at the beginning it felt higher stakes just ’cause I really like having my alone time and writing. What I love most about being a reporter is, you’re out being extroverted and you get alone time to process it while you’re writing. It’s like two different jobs. So I don’t have that alone time as much.”
Macy may be the only Congressional candidate in Virginia to report on her own campaign.
“I’m taking notes and doing a lot of town halls and listening sessions and interviewing people and I work them into my talks,” she said.
“For 40 years I have been running up and down the valley with a notebook just like this in my hand,” she told the group at the fundraiser in Broadway, as she raised her reporter’s notebook.
Macy, who comes from Ohio and a working-class background, listed the story topics she worked on during her decades as a journalist: yearlong series about mistreatment of senior citizens, Roanoke’s high rate of teen pregnancies, the effect of North American Free Trade Agreement on manufacturing, and how the opioid crisis devastated the Appalachian region.
“I have a track record of doing the reporting, the analysis, the work, building relationships to make change,” she told the crowd. “When I get up in the morning, I don’t see a Republican or Democrat in the mirror, I see someone who’s always written about working people.”
Earlier that day, at Olde Salem Days, Macy met a woman who was on the fence about supporting her in the midterm election. Macy told the woman, “If you’ve read everything I’ve written, then you know me.”
Macy said she has learned that grassroots campaigning is similar to writing a news story: You get to know the major players in a community, and they introduce you to more people, who then introduce you to more people.
One of those people happened to be a candidate for the Democratic nomination to run in the 6th District. Pete Barlow, an Augusta County resident, dropped out of the race before the primary and endorsed Macy. Through him, she met a number of farmers across the county.
Macy has hosted a number of town halls during the campaign with different topics as the focus. In early September, she took part in a town hall focused on veterans services. Later in the race, she held town halls focused on healthcare, data centers, artificial intelligence and the workforce.
“I go out. I try not to keep it political. I say, ‘I’m here to listen to you,’” she said of those events.
The second event of that mid-September day was slated as a brief speech that Macy had planned to give ahead of a Roanoke City Council forum.
She had been invited to speak ahead of the forum, hosted by the Roanoke Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., Gamma Alpha Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. and the Roanoke Branch NAACP. That speaking invitation was rescinded at the last minute, however, because Cline had not been invited, and the sorority and fraternity had strict rules about giving both candidates an equal opportunity to address voters.
Instead, Macy was recognized at the start of the forum to applause from the crowd. She left shortly after that introduction to make it to the fundraiser in Broadway, her third engagement that day.
Campaigning as a Democrat in the red valley
That evening, she stood against a backdrop of campaign signs hung up on a clothesline and made her pitch with a chorus of cicadas signing in the background. A group of a few dozen attendees gathered in lawn chairs and nibbled on snacks, including pretzels, chips and dip. One brought a bucket of home-grown cucumbers that he tried to offload onto attendees.
Both Tom and Linda Pence are self-proclaimed Democrats who attended the fundraiser. They have lived in Broadway for years and said the area has been Republican for as long as they can remember.
“In my eyes, Mr. Cline has not had anything to offer this area, except for the money people, and he’s following right behind the president,” said Linda Pence. “Our friends and neighbors just follow him to the hilt.”
Issues motivating the couple to vote this year include access to veterans benefits — Tom is a Vietnam veteran, and he had been diagnosed with cancer after being exposed to chemical compounds overseas — and whether or not their grandchildren will ever be able to afford to buy a home.
“Ben Cline don’t have anything to do with working people,” said Tom Pence. “[Macy is] going to be lucky to win this thing. I wish her the best. I’m just glad somebody’s running.”
Linda Nachtigall, a Democrat who lives in Broadway, called this year the “perfect time” to flip the 6th District.
“Everything is going wrong. There are a lot of farmers here, and they’re being hurt by policy,” she said. “I think people are tired of the dissension — I hope they are. I am. And it’s hard to live.”
Macy told attendees that, if elected, she would like to serve on the Health and Human Services Committee and the Veterans Affairs Committee.
She added that she is running to overturn H.R. 1, the federal spending bill that passed largely on party lines in 2025. The bill, supported by most Republicans including Cline, made sweeping administrative changes to the Medicaid and federal food assistance programs, including new eligibility requirements and changes to the way doctors and hospitals are paid, and it increases the state’s cost and responsibility share for the programs.
Macy said, in response to a question from a fundraiser attendee, that she would immediately sign on in support of an effort to establish a national, single-payer health insurance program, better known as “Medicare for all,” if elected. She added that she would like to sponsor an effort to create a “Ryan White-like Act” for addiction treatment. The Ryan White Act, signed into law in the 1990s, created a federal program to provide HIV/AIDS care, medications and support services to low-income, uninsured and underinsured individuals. Macy is the author of “Dopesick,” a nonfiction book that became a Hulu miniseries.
In an interview later that evening, she considered the odds of Democrats winning in both the 5th and 6th Congressional Districts, both once considered to be solidly Republican.
The race has tightened in the 5th District, where Perriello is challenging freshman Republican Rep. John McGuire — the nonpartisan Cook Political Report recently adjusted the race from “solidly Republican” to “likely Republican,” and Sabato’s Crystal Ball has rated the race more competitively as well. Cook Political maintains the 6th District is “solidly Republican” and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, run by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, also lists that race as “safe Republican,” but Macy thinks if the neighboring 5th District can flip, so can the 6th.
“I think we’ve never been at a point in our history as bad as things are now, and I don’t think polling is going to tell you that much — although we’re doing it, very expensive — I think that anything could happen,” she said. “People who are even triple-Trumpers, they’re saying, ‘This is not what I voted for.’”
Recent increases in grocery, fuel and energy costs have also informed Macy’s campaign. Increased costs have been largely driven by U.S. involvement in the conflict in Iran as well as tariffs levied by the Trump administration against trade partners.
“I have always been just for working people, not necessarily Dems or Republicans. I have always fought for working people — I’ve always told their stories. The challenge is convincing them. People that don’t know me, that that is what I do,” she said.
She added that she thinks she has a shot at winning over a large swath of independent voters but admitted that she likely won’t make inroads with MAGA-loyalists. And in the solidly Republican 6th District, Macy said she has occasionally seen friction when she is out campaigning. Overall, she said, the people she meets in person are friendly or at the very least respectful, regardless of their political affiliation.
She said, during that mid-September interview, that she was unsure if the Democratic Party establishment “liked” her.
“I can’t be bought, and I can’t be controlled, so I must be kind of threatening to them in some way,” she said. “I agree with the Democrats on a lot of stuff, but I think they made a lot of mistakes, and they need to own up to them — like NAFTA was really bad, the trade deals were really bad. The opioid crisis was allowed to go unchecked, and it still is unchecked. That’s really bad.”
Since then, the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has listed the 6th District race as one that they considered “in-play,” though spokespersons for the committee declined to provide details regarding the metrics it used to make that designation.
