While the candidates present similar profiles on paper, each has drawn support from a distinct Republican camp ahead of the June 18 primary: Top House GOP leaders are backing Anderson, while most members of the far-right Freedom Caucus have endorsed Hamilton.
The dueling ads — and the ensuing fallout in recent days — have turned that intraparty fracture into a full schism.
A television ad from the Anderson campaign, which started airing May 24, points out that his rival served for years under the Biden administration — a claim that Hamilton has tried to reframe by saying he resigned from a federal post in frustration with Democratic policies.
But the loudest fireworks have erupted over a negative video from Hamilton that alleges Anderson, a lawyer, is under investigation for fraud. Anderson’s campaign called that charge “false and defamatory” this week given that a legal ethics complaint against Anderson filed with the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel has not resulted in a formal probe.
The source of the complaint itself is unclear — something that has also become a subject of dispute, with Anderson charging that it came from a Hamilton affiliate and the Hamilton campaign denying any knowledge of who filed it.
The spat marks a sudden escalation in the Republican primary for the 7th District, a geographically diverse mix of suburbs and rural areas stretching from Prince William County to the Virginia Piedmont. This year’s contest is expected to be especially competitive because the seat is open; incumbent Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) is running for governor.
Democrats, who have won this swing district by small margins in recent elections, are picking between seven candidates in their own primary, including several local and state lawmakers and Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, who has raised millions of dollars in donations as he has emphasized his role in the first Trump impeachment.
On the GOP side, Anderson and Hamilton are leading the field in endorsements, fundraising and outside spending. Both candidates released ads playing up their ties to Donald Trump while throwing out barbs about the other’s work or personal history.
Hamilton’s digital and streaming ad, titled “We Have a Better Choice,” seeks to paint Anderson as a creature of Washington, calling him “D.C. Derrick” over photos of the U.S. Capitol.
“Derrick claims he lives here, but he’s under investigation for fraud and lying about his residency,” a voice-over says in the 30-second ad. “If you love D.C., you’ll love Derrick Anderson.”
The line appears to be a reference to a Daily Beast article from last fall, which reported that Anderson had purchased a townhouse in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County — well outside the district lines — using a Veterans Affairs loan meant for a “primary residence.”
Anderson is not required to live within the district as a congressional candidate but has called himself the “hometown guy” in the race and repeatedly insisted that he lives in Spotsylvania County, where he grew up. His campaign maintained that he has complied with the requirements of the VA loan.
Still, an April 3 legal ethics complaint citing the Daily Beast report argued that Anderson, a lawyer who practices in the District, violated D.C. Court of Appeals rules of conduct with the “deceitful and dishonest behavior” laid out in the news story.
The complaint also questioned whether Anderson had committed voter fraud. According to the Daily Beast, Anderson’s voter card had since 2021 listed an apartment in the Fredericksburg area as his primary address — even though he had purchased the Fairfax townhouse that year.
“Derrick’s a constitutional attorney and Green Beret: he follows the rules, and he follows the law,” Anderson campaign manager Diego de la Pena said in a statement.
De la Pena, who added that “our opponent’s failing campaign” was “getting desperate,” took things one step further: He demanded that YouTube stop airing that digital advertisement.
“Hamilton for Congress’s irresponsible and untruthful assertion … is a deliberate falsehood,” de la Pena wrote to YouTube TV in a cease-and-desist letter Wednesday. He called the ad defamatory because no investigation had been launched in response to the ethics complaint. (A spokesperson for YouTube did not respond to a request for comment.)
The D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which receives and processes ethics complaints for lawyers admitted to the D.C. Bar, must first conduct a “preliminary screening” before docketing any complaint for formal investigation.
Rules enforced by the office prevent the complaint about Anderson from being docketed before the election on June 18. Any complaint made about a political candidate less than 90 days before the election they are running in must wait until after the election is over if it has any merit, according to those rules.
Hamilton P. Fox III, the D.C. disciplinary counsel, said the 90-day rule around elections is in place “to prevent people from manipulating the disciplinary process to affect the outcome of an election.”
He said he could neither confirm nor deny whether his office had received a complaint regarding Anderson because the process remains confidential if and until a complaint is docketed and charges are then brought. But most complaints are never docketed because they have no merit, he said.
“Anybody can file a complaint,” he said. “You can file a complaint based on something you read in the newspaper.”
A copy of the complaint obtained by The Washington Post had the name and address of the person who submitted the document redacted. The same is true of a version disseminated online by the conservative journalist Emerald Robinson.
De la Pena’s letter to YouTube also alleged the ethics complaint regarding Anderson appears “to have been released by the Hamilton campaign or someone working in concert with their campaign” — an allegation that Hamilton’s campaign denied.
Jonathon Nave, Hamilton’s campaign manager, did not address charges of defamation in a statement and instead said the existence of the complaint highlighted that Anderson was “a time bomb for Republicans in Virginia 7th.”
In the meantime, the Anderson campaign has not shied away from issuing its own attacks.
A recent ad from the Anderson campaign, “Secure the Border,” ties Hamilton, a former Homeland Security official, to “corrupt secretary Alejandro Mayorkas,” President Biden’s appointee to oversee that department.
“Cameron Hamilton worked for the Biden administration,” a narrator says in the digital and TV ad, which debuted about a week ago. “Mayorkas led in millions of illegals, smeared Border Patrol agents, even got impeached. Cameron Hamilton served him.”
Hamilton has emphasized on the campaign trail that he was appointed to his DHS role overseeing emergency medical services during the Trump administration. His campaign has acknowledged that he continued to serve in that post through summer 2023 but tied to reframe his exit as a push against the Biden administration.
“I ultimately resigned while working under Secretary Mayorkas because I was disgusted at what I was seeing coming out from policy and out of the White House,” he said in a video on X last month.
But the video didn’t just have him on the defensive — offering a clue to the accusations and clashes that would follow in this primary race.
Hamilton pledged to continue forward, he said, “no matter the lies that come out of D.C. or by swamp creatures.”