Candidates campaign for House seats in districts where they don’t live

A handful of congressional candidates are seeking office in districts where they do not live, putting their local ties in focus as the midterm election season heats up.

In Arizona, Democrat Amish Shah and Republican Jay Feely are vying to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District despite both of them living outside its boundaries.

A similar dynamic is unfolding in New York, where Republican Rep. Nick LaLota and Democratic challenger Chris Gallant are competing in the 1st District. LaLota lives in Amityville, in the neighboring 2nd District, while Gallant resides in Amity Harbor.

These races, among others, underscore the distinction between the constitutional requirements for serving in Congress and voters’ expectations that their representatives have local ties. The Constitution requires House members to be inhabitants of the states they represent but does not require them to live within their congressional districts.

Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist, however, told The Hill that it makes it hard for candidates living outside the districts they are campaigning in to get to know the “community and the people.”

“And so it puts both parties at a disadvantage,” Seawright said.

Some candidates have pledged to move into their districts if elected, while others have found themselves outside district lines because of redistricting.

In Virginia, for example, Democrat Elaine Luria is running for the 2nd Congressional District, which she represented in the House for two terms beginning in 2019. Luria lost to GOP Rep. Jen Kiggans in the 2022 midterms and is now fighting to win the seat back.

Virginia’s legislature — then led by Republicans — redistricted House lines in 2021, which Luria blames in part for her defeat.

“In 2020, when Elaine became the first Democrat in decades to win VA-02 two times in a row she scared Virginia Republicans so badly that they had to gerrymander her out of the district,” Zach Emanuel, a spokesperson for Luria’s campaign, said in a statement.

Luria is now running for the seat outside the district, given the redrawn lines. Independent candidate J. Matt Baker is also running for the seat while living outside the district.

Baker wrote on his website that his neighborhood was moved to Virginia’s 3rd District after the district boundaries were redrawn.

“I did not leave the district; the mapmakers simply shifted a line less than a mile to the east. My community and the people I identify with are unchanged. Fortunately, the law is clear, and I only need to be a resident of the state to run in the 2nd District. And there is nowhere else I would rather represent,” Baker wrote.

Redistricting isn’t an issue in Arizona or New York, where Democrats sought to redraw lines but had their map blocked in court.

Feely said in a statement that he and his wife are currently building a house in Arizona’s 1st District.

“Although 4 of 9 current Arizona congressional representatives don’t live in their district, we believe it’s important to be closer to those I hope to represent in Washington,” Feely said. “I’ve spent the last year on the campaign trail listening to voters from all corners of the district, and I’m running to address their concerns and deliver results in Congress.”

A source familiar with the matter said that Shah lives a mile outside the district and has represented portions of the district while serving in the Arizona state legislature.

The Hill had reached out to LaLota and Gallant’s campaigns for comment.

GOP analyst Rob Stutzman said a candidate’s address may matter less when a district and their surrounding area share the same broader community.

“For instance, if you’re in a massive suburban sprawl district in the Phoenix Metro, and you live outside that district, but you’re still essentially part of the same metro area, it may not be that distinguishing of a characteristic because it’s all one large type of community. We’ve seen this in California suburban districts,” Stutzman said.

The Republican analyst also said a candidate’s name recognition could help offset concerns about living outside a district, pointing to Feely’s status as a former professional football player.

“Someone like Feely, who’s maybe a bit of a celebrity candidate, right? You know, has some of that fame. Sometimes that overrides … and I don’t know exactly how that district is drawn, but … if it’s, you know, Mesa versus Chandler, you kind of don’t care as much because the guy’s from the area and he’s kind of got a bit of that fame aspect going for him,” Stutzman said.

Even so, candidates who live outside the districts they’re running to represent can also find themselves on the defensive, as opponents seize on their addresses to paint them as outsiders disconnected from local voters.

The Republican National Committee, for instance, put out a press release in August citing an article from the Washington Examiner that Luria bought a second home out of her district.

“Maybe Luria should ‘work out the logistics’ of actually living in the district she’s running to represent instead of lying to Virginians,” the committee wrote at the time.