A Virginia congressional candidate went viral after sharing what appeared to be a happy family photo in which he posed with a friend's wife and three children.
Derrick Anderson, a former Army Green Beret running for the open seat in Virginia's 7th Congressional District, is pictured smiling alongside a woman and three girls, as if they were having a meal together. He posted a campaign video that included another image of him sitting at a dining table. It's family.
However, the Republican candidate has no children and was only recently engaged to the woman in the photo. In fact, he lives alone with his dog, according to his campaign website.
A capture from the video quickly went viral in a single tweet. Viewed over 6 million times — After Anderson's campaign Confirmed by New York Times The image shows him “with a female supporter and her children,” which the Times said were the wife and children of one of his longtime friends.
But the newly engaged candidate slammed them for trying to portray them as his own family.
“Mr. Derrick's opponents and other candidates in the United States appear in similar photos and videos as supporters of all kinds,” his spokesperson told the Times.
The video has not been used in official campaign ads, but can be viewed on Anderson's YouTube channel and on a website paid for by the National Republican Campaign Committee.
But many people used the viral image to criticize Anderson, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which accused him of “misleading” voters with “deceptive” tactics.
“Derrick Anderson is trying to hide his anti-abortion views and appear to be a family man by taking fake family photos,” said DCCC spokeswoman Lauryn Phan Nguyen. said in a press release. “He is clearly not worthy of misleading the people of Virginia, and he certainly cannot be trusted to represent them in Congress.”
Anderson's campaign did not immediately respond to The Post's request for comment Tuesday morning.
This will be Anderson's second run for Congress, having lost the 7th District Republican primary in 2022. The seat is currently held by Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who is running for governor of Virginia in 2025.
Anderson is running against Democrat Evgeny “Eugene” Vindman, a fellow military veteran who served on the National Security Council under President Donald Trump.
Vindman gained national attention in 2019 as the whistleblower in the first impeachment attempt against a former president, stemming from the Ukrainian-born candidate's reporting of a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Collected.
The Vindman campaign is facing an FEC complaint over alleged illegal coordination between his campaign and VoteVets, a PAC run by his twin brother. The complaint follows media scrutiny of the candidates' military records. He launched a campaign to have journalists' questions referred to his brother's advocacy group.
