Dan Helmer

Daniel Isaac Helmer (born September 27, 1981) is an American politician who currently serves in the Virginia House of Delegates. Helmer currently serves as Campaigns Chair of the Virginia House Democratic Caucus and chairs the Committee on Counties, Cities and Towns.

A member of the Democratic Party, Helmer currently represents the 10th district, which is located entirely in Fairfax County. In 2019, he successfully ran for the Virginia House of Delegates in district 40, defeating Republican incumbent Tim Hugo. The majority of the pre-redistricted 40th district's population and landmass was located in Fairfax County with a small part in Prince William County.

Military career

Helmer is a graduate of the United States Military Academy (West Point). While at West Point, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree. He earned a master's degree at Wolfson College, Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. Helmer served tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and South Korea, and ended his service in the United States Army Reserve as a lieutenant colonel in 2024.

Virginia House of Delegates Elections 2019 In 2019, Helmer was the Democratic nominee for Virginia's 40th House of Delegates district. He ran against Republican incumbent Tim Hugo, who had been in office since 2003. The race broke Virginia's fundraising record for a House of Delegates election, with Hugo and Helmer raising a combined $3.6 million. Helmer won with 52% of the vote.

2021

In 2021, Helmer's Republican opponent, Harold Pyon, distributed a campaign mailer to homes in the 40th district, which featured Helmer at a table piled with gold coins. Helmer, who is Jewish, said in the mailer, his nose was also accentuated and his West Point military insignia was removed from his jacket. He claimed the flier exhibited "antisemitic tropes" which distracted from talking about the issues. Pyon's spokesman claimed the mailer was not antisemitic and could be used against any politician who raises taxes. An opinion article by The Washington Post editorial board claimed the mailer was paid for by the Virginia Republican Party. It also claimed "The antisemitism conveyed by Mr. Pyon's campaign mailer is classic and blatant. To claim that it was unintentional is to assert blind ignorance of history." While the article said "We have no reason to assume Mr. Pyon, a retired federal worker and former Army medic, is himself an antisemite," it claimed the mailer "fits a recent pattern among Virginia Republican candidates in this fall's legislative elections."

2023

In 2023, after redistricting caused Helmer's district to lose its Republican-leaning Prince William County part for areas in the more Democratic-leaning Fairfax County, the district was renumbered from the 40th to the 10th in the process, he sought to maintain his incumbency advantage by falsely claiming to be the incumbent of the newly added redistricted areas in targeted campaign mailers. Helmer acknowledged the mailers in a statement to the Post, but he did not offer an apology for the confusion, stating that his office is ready to assist people outside his district.

In 2017, one of Helmer's campaign videos titled "Helmer Zone" went viral, reaching number four on the YouTube trending list within 24 hours. The video, in which Helmer spoofed the film "Top Gun" and sang "You've Lost That Centrist Feeling", garnered mixed reactions.

Helmer had been an early and vocal proponent of impeaching president Donald Trump. Another of Helmer's campaign ads sparked controversy by saying, "After 9/11, the greatest threat to our democracy lived in a cave (Osama bin Laden). Today, he lives in the White House (Donald Trump)." The ad faced bipartisan criticism from the Trump administration as "nothing short of reprehensible" as well as from Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

2024 In November 2023, shortly after winning reelection to his House of Delegates seat, Helmer announced his intention to seek the Democratic Party nomination for a second time in Virginia's 10th congressional district after the incumbent representative, Democrat Jennifer Wexton, declined to run for reelection due to illness.

The Loudoun Times-Mirror reported that Helmer indirectly received over $5.4 million from three political action committees (PACs) in support of his run through June 2024. He garnered over $4 million from a PAC supporting the cryptocurrency industry.

According to The New York Times, a Democratic Party official, through an anonymous statement from her attorney in June 2024, accused Helmer of "groping her and later making sexually crude remarks." Current and former Loudoun County Democratic Party officials said that the committee "developed its sexual harassment policies in response to "the egregious harassment" of a Loudoun County party member by Mr. Helmer." Helmer was accused of grabbing the woman's breast after a political event during his 2018 campaign as he lewdly referred to her body and the different sexual positions he wanted to try with her.

Numerous Democratic Party politicians and officials, including three former Loudoun County party chairmen, and the National Organization for Women (NOW) called on Helmer to withdraw from the race. NOW also alleged that Helmer bullied a female colleague into voting down a bill, during a subcommittee hearing, that would have mandated employer-provided training for anti-sexual harassment and anti-discrimination behavior. In June 2024, Helmer lost the Democratic Party nomination to Subramanyam; Helmer collected 26.6% of the vote to Subramanyam's 30.4% in a 12 candidate field.

In February 2025, Dan Helmer sued for $15 million in Fairfax County Circuit Court, arguing that the sexual assault allegations against him were unfounded and maliciously intended to defame him. The defendants include the woman who accused Helmer of groping her; Charles King, the woman's attorney; Avram Fechter, former chairman of the Loudoun County Democratic Committee; and two others (listed as John and Jane Doe). Helmer claims their purpose was to derail his bid for the Democratic nomination in Virginia's 10th District, for which he was leading in the polls prior to the allegations. The lawsuit alleges that Fechter funded a PAC that blasted text messages to voters accusing Helmer of sexual assault days before the election. It also claims that the woman who made the allegations had supported Helmer's candidacy before receiving $10,000 for work performed for a rival campaign. Additionally, the suit contends that the woman's lawyer has a history of working with groups known to use false claims to discredit political opponents.

2026 Helmer briefly ran for the Virginia's 7th congressional district in 2026. The district was newly redrawn as a result of the passage of the 2026 Virginia redistricting referendum. Helmer withdrew from the race after the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the amendment.

Political positions

Donald Trump Helmer opposes Donald Trump. In May 2018, he compared Trump to Osama bin Laden, the perpetrator of the September 11 attacks and also called him the biggest threat to democracy. In 2026, Helmer introduced a bill that would require schools that choose to discuss the January 6 United States Capitol Attack in classrooms to tell the truth about what happened without citing misinformation about the 2020 Election.

Electoral law

Helmer sponsored legislation, commonly called Helmer's Law,

Gun rights Helmer supports universal background checks, banning high-capacity magazines and silencers, regulating private gun sales, and red-flag laws that law enforcement may use to temporarily remove firearms from persons deemed dangerous to themselves or others.

In May 2018, Helmer purchased a semi-automatic rifle, without a background check in under 10 minutes, at a gun show in Chantilly, Virginia. The video, produced by his campaign, was picked up by major news organizations such as The Hill, The Washington Post, and Vox. In January 2020, Helmer introduced HB 567, a bill that would outlaw indoor firing ranges in buildings with more than 50 employees. Also in January, when gun rights activists descended on Richmond, Chris Hurst and Helmer allowed students representing March for Our Lives to sleep in their Richmond offices in order to be able to participate in gun control advocacy.

Healthcare

Helmer supports adding a public option to Medicare.

Housing In 2026, Helmer introduced a bill to allow by-right zoning for multifamily and mixed-use residential development in commercial and business zoned districts, which failed to pass the Senate.

Labor rights In 2021, Helmer supported Lee J. Carter's bill to repeal Virginia's right-to-work law.

Women's rights Helmer supports abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment, and eliminating taxes on menstrual hygiene products.