After Tuesday night’s Democratic primary election in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, candidate Dan Helmer, who sought to be the main challenger to Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., fell flat on his face.
Helmer finished fourth in his primary, only bringing in just more than 6,700 votes or 12 percent of the vote. State Sen. Jennifer Wexton, D-Va., won the primary race with over 22,000 votes, or over 41 percent of the vote.
So, why are we talking about a candidate who finished fourth in a Democratic primary in a congressional district that hasn’t been represented by a Democrat since 1981?
Perhaps it has more to do with the high profile stunt he pulled when announcing he was running for Congress to begin with. Back in September 2017, Helmer belly-flopped into the race with arguably the worst campaign ad of the 2018 election cycle: a riff off the film “Top Gun” where Tom Cruise’s character, Maverick, sings to “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” to Kelly McGillis’s character, Charlie.
Watch Helmer’s truly awful rendition of the song directed at Comstock:
Helmer backed up that ad with another one in which he compared President Trump to deceased al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, saying, “After 9/11, the greatest threat to our democracy lived in a cave; today he lives in the White House.”
Helmer even got a response from the White House, where Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah called it “nothing short of reprehensible.”
While Tuesday’s primary races sent a lot of mixed messages about the direction of the GOP, at least we can take joy in seeing a Top Gun-spoofing Democrat crash and burn in hilarious fashion.
