How veterans and military voters are helping Democrats expand their House majority

When Navy veteran Michael Dunn met Congresswoman Elaine Luria for the first time in her Virginia Beach office at a town hall event in early 2019, he warned the freshman Democrat she shouldn’t take his vote for granted.

“I'm one of the electorate that politicians don't like,” he told her, “because I'm informed. And if I have an issue, I will tell you.”

Mr Dunn is a case study of the kind of military voter that has increasingly distanced himself from the GOP in the age of Donald Trump, helping House Democrats build a firewall around once-purple parts of the country like Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District.