Politics

Former Mike Pence Aide Appears To Run For Congress As Democrat In Lobster-Shaped Gerrymandered Seat

Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons/Flickr

A prominent Trump detractor who served as a top aide to former Vice President Mike Pence appears to be running for Congress as a Democrat in a new seat the party is seeking to gerrymander in its favor, a Federal Election Commission filing shows.

Olivia Troye, 49, who spent time as Pence’s counterterrorism advisor before becoming the top staffer on his COVID task force, appeared to have filed paperwork with the FEC to run in the crowded Democratic primary for Virginia’s Seventh district — which the state party is redrawing pending voter approval on April 21. Troye resigned from President Donald Trump’s first administration in July 2020 and endorsed Joe Biden the following month, then spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in support of failed presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

The FEC Statement of Candidacy form was listed as being signed by Troye and dated Monday, setting up her campaign committee, Olivia for Virginia. The form lists the candidate’s address as being in Arlington, part of which is included in the redrawn Seventh district. Troye was reported to have lived in nearby Alexandria — which is not in either the current or redrawn Seventh district — as recently as summer 2025.

Troye has yet to publicly announce a run and did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request to confirm or deny that she is the individual listed on the FEC Form.

The Seventh district is currently held by Democratic Virginia Rep. Eugene Vindman, who succeeded now-Gov. Abigail Spanberger in January 2025. However, Vindman said he will run for reelection in the First district if Virginia voters approve the proposed lopsided Democratic gerrymander on April 21.

Assuming the new partisan map passes, Troye will compete in a packed primary that includes former Virginia First Lady Dorothy McAuliffe, Dels. Adele McClure and Dan Helmer and State Sen. Saddam Salim. Both Helmer and Salim sponsored their respective chamber’s versions of a restrictive ban on so-called “assault weapons.”

The Seventh district under the proposed gerrymander stretches over 100 miles to combine population-rich, wealthy suburbs of Washington D.C. with heavily Republican rural areas to create a solidly Democratic seat. Its odd shape has been widely likened to that of a lobster.

Troye, who grew up in Texas, had described herself as a “John McCain Republican” in an anti-Trump 2020 video.

“Being inside Trump’s White House was terrifying, but what keeps me up at night is what will happen if he gets back there,” Troye, who at the time still presented herself as a Republican, said at the 2024 DNC. “The guardrails are gone. The few adults in the room the first time resigned or were fired.”

In her DNC plea to her “fellow Republicans” to back Harris, she exhorted them, “You aren’t voting for a Democrat. You’re voting for democracy. You aren’t betraying our party, you’re standing up for our country.”

Troye also writes on Substack, where she has 365,000 subscribers. She claims in her bio on her Substack’s homepage, “I had a front-row seat to history during Trump 1.0 – and blew the whistle.”