It\u2019s a role some Navy supporters say is much needed, as the service has borne the fallout from budget fights since 9\/11 that favored the military branches closer to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Retired Navy Capt. Lory Manning, now the government relations director of the Service Women\u2019s Action Network, said Luria is helping the Navy \u201cmake up for 20 years of being underfunded or under-resourced.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe need people like her who really know what they\u2019re talking about with Navy ships because there\u2019s not that many Navy officers in Congress, and they need to know they can\u2019t bullshit,\u201d Manning said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a focus Luria\u2019s betting will resonate in Virginia\u2019s 2nd District, home to a high concentration of shipyard workers, service members, veterans and their families. The district is adjacent to the Hampton Roads area, whose local economy is tied to Naval Station Norfolk, home of the most U.S. Navy personnel, and to Norfolk Naval Shipyard, which services nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines on the East Coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI spend the majority of my time talking about defense and veterans issues, and it affects everybody in my community,\u201d Luria, who also serves on the House Veterans\u2019 Affairs and Homeland Security committees, told Defense News during a June 24 interview in her office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe way I look at it is if we don\u2019t get this right with defense, especially with China\u2019s increased aggression against Taiwan, investing in the right Navy and air forces, none of the other stuff matters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luria is well known in defense circles for using her 20 years of Navy experience to scrutinize the sea service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Birmingham, Alabama, native, she entered the Navy at 17 after attending a U.S. Naval Academy summer science and engineering program during high school. She graduated from the academy in 1997 and was among the first women to serve in the Navy\u2019s nuclear power program and to spend her career on combat ships before retiring in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In uniform, Luria capped a globe-spanning career as executive officer of the guided-missile cruiser Anzio and then as commander of Assault Craft Unit 2, which supplies amphibious forces on the East Coast. The Virginia-based command supplied ships for Hurricane Matthew relief in Haiti and the multinational exercise Cold Response in Norway, among other missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luria and her husband, also a retired naval commander, opened and later sold a shop called the Mermaid Factory, where customers painted sculptures of mermaids, the symbol of Norfolk. By owning a business, Luria said, she became attuned to local, state and federal policy, and \u201cwas looking at ways to continue to serve\u201d when she launched her successful campaign against incumbent Scott Taylor, a former Navy SEAL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luria is one of five self-described \u201cbadass\u201d women among the 2019 class of national security-focused freshman Democrats. They were considered a new kind of candidate, the kind of moderate that might be able to win in a more polarized environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another in that group, New Jersey Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, told Defense News this year\u2019s reelection fights will be more difficult against an energized GOP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cElaine is a badass,\u201d Sherill said. \u201cShe is on message. We might be talking about Ukraine or some concern we might have about our NATO allies, or the overuse of special operators, and Elaine Luria, without fail, no matter the context, will tell you why it\u2019s important we don\u2019t have enough ships and why we have to fight harder for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Luria is a generally reliable Democratic vote, she\u2019s bucked the Biden administration to take stances on defense and shipbuilding primarily championed by Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The administration last year laid plans to stop spending money on weapons ill suited to a notional fight with Russia or China and to instead reinvest in forward-leaning technologies. But Congress reworked those plans as part of a $25 billion boost to defense spending. In response, the White House scolded lawmakers over budget bloat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Administration opposes the direction to add funding for platforms and systems that cannot be affordably modernized given the need to eliminate wasteful spending and prioritize survivable, and resilient forces that credibly deter advanced threats,\u201d the White House said in a policy statement in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the past two defense budgets, Luria has rejected the administration\u2019s plans and joined groups of Republicans and centrist Democrats to pass separate proposals, adding billions of dollars in funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2021, Luria was among centrist Democrats who supported a Republican amendment to increase Biden\u2019s flat budget, which in turn helped Congress add two destroyers and rescue two ships planned for decommissioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year, she co-sponsored Maine Democratic Rep. Jared Golden\u2019s amendment to the House Armed Services Committee\u2019s defense policy bill to add $37 billion for five more ships, among other hardware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The boost included roughly $7.4 billion to cover inflation. It also added $3.6 billion for an additional destroyer, an additional frigate, an additional T-AO oiler and two expeditionary medical ships, as well as $2 billion for eight additional F\/A-18 jets and other Navy and Marine Corps aircraft. It would save five of the nine littoral combat ships<\/a> the Navy wants to retire early because they\u2019re not suited to high-end fights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HASC Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., and a critic of ever-rising defense budgets, denounced the $37 billion increase his panel passed 42-17. But Smith said he\u2019s not rankled to have opposition from a fellow Democrat on what\u2019s arguably the committee\u2019s defining issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luria, among 14 veterans on the committee from both sides of the aisle, is \u201cincredibly effective,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a sign of HASC\u2019s unique bipartisanship, Smith and Rep. Mike Rogers, the committee\u2019s top Republican, had a hand in crafting the amendment before it was proposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smith said \u201cElaine was a crucial part of that process, of getting to the right amounts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luria is one of the House Armed Services Committee\u2019s most biting inquirers, especially when it comes to Navy matters. Less than a year into office, she grilled service officials on complex issues, often with coolly withering or rapid-fire questions, rarely glancing at her notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a naval readiness hearing in 2019, Luria peppered the three-star chief of Naval Sea Systems Command with questions about maintenance delays for carriers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though Navy plans called for the carrier George H.W. Bush to sit in drydock for 16 months of a 36-month cycle, Luria wanted to know why it would instead take 28 months<\/a>, forcing another carrier to extend its deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NAVSEA\u2019s commander said the Bush faced unique repair issues and that Norfolk was overburdened by other work. Luria told him she\u2019d talked to the shipyard commander personally; the work didn\u2019t seem unique to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAre you going to say it was successful if we complete it in 28 months, or is it already a failure because it\u2019s 28 instead of 16, which it should have been?\u201d Luria asked pointedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The larger issue to her was that seven out of 11 Navy carriers were not deployable, including the problem-plagued carrier Gerald R. Ford<\/a>. She roasted that ship as \u201ca $13 billion nuclear-powered berthing barge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luria has also regularly argued Navy officials do not advocate enough for their service and budget. She has criticized the Navy for backtracking on plans to build a 355-ship fleet<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For their part, service officials have said fleet size is not all that matters. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro have, for example, tried to convince Congress to let the service decommission its old and worn-out cruiser fleet, arguing the ships are irrelevant to future fights, unsafe and a drag on the Navy\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019re eating us alive in terms of our ability to get maintenance back on track, which is where we need to be,\u201d Gilday said at an industry event in March. \u201cWe are paying tens of millions of dollars beyond what we expected to because of growth work and new work on ships that are beyond their service life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be clear, Luria hasn\u2019t called for a specific number of ships; she agrees with the sort of aim Mich\u00e8le Flournoy \u2014 former undersecretary of defense for policy \u2014 has espoused<\/a>, that the U.S should be able to \u201ccredibly threaten to sink all of China\u2019s military vessels, submarines, and merchant ships in the South China Sea within 72 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWith such a defined goal, we could design a fleet not based on size, but based on capability,\u201d Luria said<\/a> in 2020. \u201cDeterrence must be credible and is only effective when an adversary believes, through our daily actions, that the cost of their armed aggression will be met with such overwhelming force (damage) that the loss would be too extreme for the benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Republicans in Washington have sought to paint Democrats as weak on China, but it\u2019s hard to draw a line between those Republicans and Luria, who has called on the Biden administration to end U.S. ambiguity about whether it would defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Navy officials appeared on Capitol Hill last year to defend plans to decommission 15 ships, Luria was among lawmakers who pointed to assessments from two successive Indo-Pacific Command chiefs that China wants to be able to seize Taiwan by 2027. Beijing considers the island a breakaway province and has vowed to incorporate it back into the mainland, by force if necessary<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. Navy\u2019s focus on the future, Luria and other lawmakers said, would leave it too small to face that fast approaching threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re looking at this Battle Force 2045, a plan that\u2019s far off, a 355-ship goal that we\u2019re never going to get to when we decommission more ships every year than we actually build. \u2026 What are we going to do in 2025 to counter this threat?\u201d Luria asked. \u201cWe\u2019re creating a gap, and I\u2019m afraid that the Chinese will find a way to exploit that gap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When this year\u2019s budget proposal aimed to retire 24 ships, Luria made headlines in April for calling it out in a Twitter thread that invoked Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Navy owes a public apology to American taxpayers for wasting tens of billions of dollars on ships they now say serve no purpose,\u201d she said, adding the Navy has \u201cNO PLAN\u201d to replace lost firepower quickly enough to make a difference against China. \u201cLastly, the Navy has no strategy. Stop saying you do, because if you did you would be able to explain how this Fleet size will allow us to defend Taiwan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luria followed up with a lengthy analysis<\/a> published by the Center for International Maritime Security that decried the \u201ccatastrophic loss\u201d of firepower she said would result from that budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Luria\u2019s number crunching, those plans would translate into a loss of MK 41 Vertical Launching System cells, which fire a variety of missiles. She forecast a loss of 756 cells by 2024, 1,668 cells by 2027 and 1,980 by 2035.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To convince China it can\u2019t outgun the U.S. and its allies in the Pacific region, Luria offered several options, including keeping and extending the lives of 12 cruisers, refitting expeditionary fast transport ships with a 64-cell capacity, and building eight additional ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That approach has won her plaudits from some Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, a former Marine intelligence officer on the House Armed Services Committee, is a frequent collaborator. Also a China and sea power hawk, Gallagher was Luria\u2019s co-sponsor on an amendment to establish a congressional commission to review the Navy\u2019s force structure plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe\u2019s really knowledgeable and wants to build a bigger Navy,\u201d said Gallagher, crediting her as the committee\u2019s most vocal member about the Navy\u2019s shrinking firepower. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve done a billion amendments together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luria\u2019s budget inspiration stems from the Reagan administration. Then-Navy Secretary John Lehman\u2019s 600-ship plan was meant to signal strength to the Soviet Union. As Luria sees it, the Democrat-run White House no longer grasps the urgency of a bigger naval budget, and the Navy\u2019s not helping its own case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe administration was not prioritizing this with that sense of urgency and view, so I just continue to be loud about it,\u201d Luria said. \u201cI know that it\u2019s frustrating to people in the administration that here you have a Democrat just continuously criticizing the administration on defense-related things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The previous Republican administration said \u201cthe right words,\u201d she added, when then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper unveiled plans to boost the Navy\u2019s fleet to 500 manned and unmanned ships by 2045, and a fleet of 355 traditional battle force ships by 2035.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, in October 2020, it came too late, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was a commitment to an investment,\u201d Luria said. \u201cIt needs to come from the top \u2026 and I just don\u2019t feel like it\u2019s been high enough of a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though Biden has signed a flurry of executive orders that seek to revive America\u2019s manufacturing and industrial base, the Navy\u2019s budget submission is out of step and doesn\u2019t offer any certainty of consistent work for shipbuilders, according to Luria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we really want to make a commitment to grow the industrial base, we have to send a steady demand signal about what we are going to build,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luria wants a chance to craft that signal. But it will require winning another election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The contest for Virginia\u2019s 2nd District is a key part of the GOP\u2019s drive to recapture the House, and it will be among the most closely watched in the country. Redistricting in 2021 means it tilts at six points in Republicans\u2019 favor, according to FiveThirtyEight<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luria maintains her record in Congress now positions her better than in past races. She pointed to her efforts to expand care to veterans exposed to toxic chemicals, win federal funding to improve rural 911 coverage, deepen Norfolk\u2019s harbor and, of course, boost defense spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Republicans think they can beat Luria with State Sen. Jen Kiggans, a nurse practitioner who served as a Navy helicopter pilot. Kiggans, who prevailed in the GOP primary June 21 with the backing of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, used her victory speech to link Luria to Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery one of Joe Biden\u2019s disastrous policies are on the ballot this November, and in the 2nd District, these policies go by the name of Elaine Luria,\u201d said Kiggans, 51. \u201cFrom $5-a-gallon gasoline to runaway inflation, and from an open border to Afghanistan and the Ukraine, Elaine Luria has been Joe Biden\u2019s chief enabler.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s unclear whether Luria\u2019s work as a member of the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection will be a liability in her Republican-leaning district. A majority of voters across Virginia, 68%, say Biden\u2019s election was legitimate, but 26% disagree, according to polling last year by Christopher Newport University, based in Newport News<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An Associated Press poll<\/a> released last month found that 48% of Americans think former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the events of Jan. 6, 2021. However, 86% of Democrats support criminal charges, while 68% of Republicans oppose them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luria said her service on the investigative panel marks a \u201cclear contrast\u201d with Kiggans, who was not definitive when recently asked by reporters whether Biden won in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP21235521465474.jpg.jpg\")
More than two decades in the Navy<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Tough questions<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Hawkish on China<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Swing district<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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