Olivia Troye, a national security official in President Donald Trump’s first administration who became an outspoken critic, plans to run for Congress in Virginia as a Democrat, joining other former Republicans alienated by Trump now seeking office.
Troye was a homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Trump’s first vice president, Mike Pence, but resigned in 2020 and accusedthe president of “flat-out disregard for human life” during the coronavirus pandemic. She opposed Trump in the 2020 and 2024 elections, even speaking at the Democratic National Convention in support of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
“The evil I saw in that White House was staggering,” Troye says in her campaign launch video released Tuesday, which highlights her aide-to-critic journey. “In 2020, I finally said ‘enough.’”
Troye joins a crowded field preparing to run in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District if voters next week pass a statewide proposal to change district lines to favor Democrats.
Troye is among the former Trump administration officials and Republicans running for office as Democrats — campaigning on their breaks with the president and testing voter appetites for candidates who have changed parties.
In Georgia, the Democratic field for governor includes the state’s former Republican lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan, who spoke out against Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. In Florida, former Republican congressman David Jolly is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — a retired Army officer who played a central role in Trump’s first impeachment — is running for Senate.
In Virginia, the seat Troye is seeking is currently held by Alexander Vindman’s brother, Eugene Vindman, who helped report the phone call at the center of Trump’s 2019 impeachment while working at the National Security Council. Rep. Eugene Vindman (D) has said he will run in Virginia’s 1st Congressional District if the state redraws its map. Troye’s run is contingent on the new lines passing.
A slew of candidates have already announced campaigns for the proposed 7th district, which leans blue. The Democratic field includes several state lawmakers — Saddam Azlan Salim, Dan Helmer and Adele McClure — as well as Dorothy McAuliffe, the former first lady of Virginia, and J.P. Cooney, a top deputy to Jack Smith, the government special counsel who investigated Trump. Cooney was fired last year after Trump took office and purged federal prosecutors who worked for Smith.
Troye’s launch video recounts her break with the GOP. She says she worked in counterterrorism under President George W. Bush as well as President Barack Obama and “kept showing up to work” after Trump won — even though she voted for Hillary Clinton — “because serving your country isn’t supposed to be partisan.”
At the Democratic National Convention in 2024, Troye said that leaving the Trump administration was a “hard decision” as “a Republican who dreamed of working in the White House.”
“But as an American, it was the right one,” she said to big cheers.
In recent years, Troye has served on boards and launched a podcast and Substack.
Virginians are set to vote next Tuesday on a redraw that could net Democrats four more seats, giving them 10 out of 11 seats in Virginia’s House delegation. Democrats have pitched the ballot measure as a way to temporarily counter GOP-led redistricting in red states.
A slim majority of Virginia voters support the plan, according to a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll.
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