page_title: Frank Wolf (politician)
section_title: Elections
hierarchical_section_title: Frank Wolf (politician) / U.S. House of Representatives / Elections
caption_attribution_description: English: Senator Dan Coats (R-IN) in brown jacket, and Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) visit the 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH), Camp Bedrock, Bosnia-Herzegovina, during Operation Joint Endeavor, 4/13/1996
context_page_description: Frank Rudolph Wolf is an American politician who represented Virginia's 10th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives, as a member of the Republican Party, from January 1981 to his retirement in January 2015. He announced in December 2013 that he would not run for re-election in 2014, and retired at the conclusion of his 17th term in office. At the time of his retirement, he was the dean of the state's congressional delegation, having served for 34 consecutive years.
context_section_description: During the 1976 presidential election year, Wolf's first campaign for Virginia's 10th congressional district ended with his loss in the Republican primary to Vince Callahan by 45%–42%. Two years later, amidst the 1978 midterm elections, he won the Republican nomination unopposed, but lost the general election to the incumbent Democrat, Joseph L. Fisher, 53%–47%.
  Along with Ronald Reagan's decisive victory over incumbent President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election, Wolf's third run for the House seat proved to be successful, as he won the Republican primary with 75% of the vote and then defeated Fisher in a re-election, 51%–49%. In the 1982 midterms, Wolf won re-election with 53% of the vote. He would never face another contest anywhere near that close.
  Wolf did not face a Democratic opponent in 1994 and 2000. After 1982, his closest races in the Democratic wave elections of 2006 and 2008. On both occasions he defeated professor Judy Feder, by 57%–41% and 59%–39%, respectively. Those were the only occasions after 1982 that he received below 60 percent of the vote.
  In 2012, as Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney carried the district by 1%, Wolf was re-elected by 20%. In September 2013, it was announced that Wolf was to be challenged in the 2014 election by Democrat Richard Bolger, a Fairfax attorney and small business owner.
  Wolf's district was significantly redrawn several times during his tenure. It was initially a purely Northern Virginia district covering Fairfax, Arlington, and Loudoun counties. The 1990 redistricting by a Democratic Virginia General Assembly drew heavily Democratic Arlington County into the neighboring 8th District. To make up for the loss of population, the 10th was pushed to the west and south to encompass parts of the congressional district held by U.S. Rep. George Allen, which was eliminated to create a black-majority district in accordance with the Voting Rights Act. Allen chose not to challenge Wolf, instead running for Governor of Virginia in 1993. The district kept approximately the same complexion after the 2000 apportionment by a Republican Virginia General Assembly, but lost territory in the outlying areas of the district to allow for population growth in Fairfax and Loudoun. In 2013, the Fairfax portion of the district holds about 40 percent of the population, Loudoun county holds 30 percent, and the remainder of the district at 30 percent.
caption: Wolf and then Senator Dan Coats visit the 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital at Camp Bedrock in Bosnia-Herzegovina during Operation Joint Endeavor in 1996
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