Dan Helmer
From Ballotpedia
Dan Helmer
Virginia House of Delegates District 10
Tenure
2024 - Present
Term ends
2026
Years in position
1
Predecessor
Prior offices
Virginia House of Delegates District 40
Compensation
Elections and appointments
Military
Personal
Contact
Dan Helmer (Democratic Party) is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, representing District 10. He assumed office on January 10, 2024. His current term ends on January 14, 2026.
Helmer (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Virginia's 10th Congressional District. He lost in the Democratic primary on June 18, 2024.
Biography
Helmer is an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea, and several domestic postings. He works as a business strategist in the private sector advising both U.S. government agencies and companies. He is a Rhodes Scholar.[1]
Committee assignments
2023-2024
Helmer was assigned to the following committees:
- Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee
- Communications, Technology and Innovation Committee
2020-2021
Helmer was assigned to the following committees:
- Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee
- Communications, Technology and Innovation Committee
- Public Safety Committee
- House Transportation Committee
The following table lists bills this person sponsored as a legislator, according to BillTrack50 and sorted by action history. Bills are sorted by the date of their last action. The following list may not be comprehensive. To see all bills this legislator sponsored, click on the legislator's name in the title of the table.
Elections
2024
See also: Virginia's 10th Congressional District election, 2024
Virginia's 10th Congressional District election, 2024 (June 18 Democratic primary)
Virginia's 10th Congressional District election, 2024 (June 18 Republican primary)
General election
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Dennis Aryan (Independent)
Democratic primary election
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Brandon Garay (D)
Republican primary election
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Brooke Taylor (R)
- Clair McDade (R)
- Rodney Ferguson (R)
- John Beatty (R)
Endorsements
2023
See also: Virginia House of Delegates elections, 2023
General election
Democratic primary election
The Democratic primary election was canceled. Incumbent Dan Helmer advanced from the Democratic primary for Virginia House of Delegates District 10.
Republican primary election
The Republican primary election was canceled. James Thomas advanced from the Republican primary for Virginia House of Delegates District 10.
Endorsements
2021
See also: Virginia House of Delegates elections, 2021
General election
Democratic primary election
The Democratic primary election was canceled. Incumbent Dan Helmer advanced from the Democratic primary for Virginia House of Delegates District 40.
Republican convention
Campaign finance
2019
See also: Virginia House of Delegates elections, 2019
General election
2018
General election
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Nathan Larson (Independent)
Democratic primary election
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Michael Pomerleano (D)
- Shadi Ayyas (D)
- Julien Modica (D)
- Kimberly Adams (D)
- Deep Sran (D)
- David Hanson (D)
Republican primary election
Campaign finance
Democrats
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Dan Helmer did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.
2023
Dan Helmer did not complete Ballotpedia's 2023 Candidate Connection survey.
2021
Dan Helmer did not complete Ballotpedia's 2021 Candidate Connection survey.
2019
Dan Helmer completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2019. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Helmer's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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1. Ensuring that Northern Virginia finally gets its fair share of transportation funding so that we spend less time in traffic and more time with our families.
2. Investing in our teachers and schools to ensure every NOVA student has access to a high quality public school education that prepares them for citizenship and the 21st Century work force, including high quality trade apprenticeships and community college.
3. Protecting Virginian's access to healthcare, including ensuring those with pre-existing conditions can’t be denied coverage, driving down the cost of healthcare, and protecting women’s access to reproductive health services.
1. Everyday I get up, put my son on the bus, and begin an hour-long commute to the small business I help run. Like so many Virginians, this commute takes days away from my time with my family, costs my business and our staff vast sums each year, and creates pollution that hurts our health and our climate. For a generation, some local politicians have chosen to serve partisan interests instead of the interests of our community. While cynically claiming credit for minor transportation improvement enacted by the County, these politicians have starved Northern Virginia of hundreds of millions of dollars in transportation funding – all while sending our hard-earned taxpayer money to build roads in other parts of the state. As a result, too many of our roads are in disrepair, we have limited pedestrian options, and parts of our Metro system are shutting down for months of repairs due to a lack of maintenance. I’m passionate about fighting to ensure Northern Virginia finally gets its fair share of transportation funding and investment and that we develop transportation solutions that ease traffic, address pollution, and have us at home with our families.
2. My family and I have access to healthcare as a result of my military service and for years I’ve worked to help solve some of the most vexing challenges in healthcare access and cost for America’s veterans. I believe that EVERY Virginian should have access to affordable healthcare. This means protecting access for those with pre-existing conditions, lowering costs, expanding access to mental healthcare in Virginia, and ensuring recent assaults on women’s access to reproductive health services in places like Alabama and Missouri don’t happen here in Virginia.
3. My wife Karen is a Fairfax County Public School teacher and both of my children go to Fairfax County Public Schools. For far too long we’ve underinvested in our schools leading to an 8% drop in per-pupil funding in the last decade. My son spends part of his day attending class in a trailer, while my wife is often up working until 10 or 11 PM at night because she doesn’t have the resources she needs in her classroom and she’s not going to let her students fail. This is simply unacceptable. Every child deserves a high quality public education and it’s time we finally had a representative who will fight for our families.
Leadership, service, and the ability to put community interests ahead of partisan ones are critical characteristics for any elected official. As a leader in the Army in combat zones you never ask the person sitting next to you in a HMMWV whether they are a Republican, Democrat, or Independent. You focus on getting the mission done, serving the interests of our country, and bringing soldiers home safely. Politics should work the same way but too often some local politicians have used their office to personally enrich themselves from campaign accounts, serve special interests instead of the public interest, and gerrymander districts to deny constituents the ability to change representation. This is out of step with our ideals and has contributed to vast dysfunction in Richmond. That’s why we need elected officials who will lead and serve the community by enacting campaign finance reform, ending partisan gerrymandering, and focusing on pragmatic problem-solving to address the needs of our community.
I was still in high school and I picked up a girl from her family’s house. Her parents looked skeptically at what they regarded as a slovenly approach to dress and read me the riot act about getting her home on time. I then took her out to dinner at pizza place that probably later gave her food poisoning. We went to a movie. but neither of us really enjoyed it and we had to leave early to make it home on time. I’m not sure what she saw in me but she kept dating me, first through high school, then through four years at West Point. Finally, we got married and have two beautiful boys together. Karen is my best friend and the love of my life and is proof that sometimes love can transcend a terrible, awkward date.
We are a Jewish family and my favorite holiday is Passover, the celebration and remembrance of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. As a child, my extended family would gather each year at my Great-Grandma Lina and Great-grandpa Sam’s home. There, we would recall the tale of the Exodus. For our family this isn’t an event from the deep Biblical past. Instead, it is a remembrance of our own Exodus – survival of our family in hiding in Poland during the Holocaust, escape from the Soviet Union, and finally safety in our Promised Land -- the United States of America. Growing up with this story left me deeply dedicated to serving our country, which welcomed my family and gave us the opportunity to live in peace. It’s why I attended and graduated from the United States Military Academy and, after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, am still an officer in the US Army Reserve. It’s why, today, I’m running for public office, because I believe we deserve public servants who will put our community first and know we can do better than our current politics.
Just reading this question now has the Cranberries’ song “Zombie” stuck in my head.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
Scorecards
A scorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.
Ballotpedia is in the process of developing an encyclopedic list of published scorecards. Some states have a limited number of available scorecards or scorecards produced only by select groups. It is Ballotpedia’s goal to incorporate all available scorecards regardless of ideology or number.
Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states. To contribute to the list of Virginia scorecards, email suggestions to editor@ballotpedia.org.
2023
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2023, click [show]. |
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In 2023, the Virginia State Legislature was in session from January 11 to February 25.
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2022
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2022, click [show]. |
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In 2022, the Virginia State Legislature was in session from January 12 to March 12.
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2021
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2021, click [show]. |
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In 2021, the Virginia State Legislature was in session from January 13 to February 8.
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2020
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2020, click [show]. |
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In 2020, the Virginia State Legislature was in session from January 8 to March 12. A special session was held from August 18 to November 9.
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See also
External links
Footnotes
Leadership
Speaker of the House:Don Scott
Majority Leader:Charniele Herring
Minority Leader:Todd Gilbert
Representatives
Democratic Party (51)
Republican Party (49)
Senators
Representatives
Democratic Party (8)
Republican Party (5)
