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Govt. Documents Dispute Va. House Candidate’s Claim She Created 1,000 ‘Local’ Jobs

LuAnn Bennett
LuAnn Bennett / AP
August 29, 2016

A Virginia Democrat running for Congress released her first television ad purporting that her D.C.-based real estate company created 1,000 "local" jobs without clarifying whether any actually landed in Virginia.

LuAnn Bennett’s real estate company lists 34 projects in its online portfolio, 31 of which are located in Washington, D.C. while the remaining three are in Virginia. Two of the three Virginia projects were houses personally owned by Bennett. The company does not currently have any projects under management, according to the Bennett Group’s website. They are only listed as under renovation or construction.

Bennett, who is challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock in Virginia’s 10th district, owns a 100-acre farm in Delaplane, Va. and in December began renting a home in McLean, Va. Both addresses are listed as projects on the Bennett Group’s portfolio.

The real estate company, located two miles from the White House, has only five full-time employees excluding the House candidate, according to the Bennett Group’s recertification application with the D.C. Department of Small and Local Business Development, which appears to undercut Bennett’s claim that she created 1,000 local jobs.

Republicans have questioned Bennett’s allegiance to Virginia’s 10th district.

The real estate agent has owned a $1.35 million condo at the D.C. Ritz-Carlton hotel less than a mile from the Bennett Group since February 2014. She began renting her McLean home located in Virginia’s 10th district just a week before announcing her candidacy.

Bennett wrote in a now deleted Facebook post that she had moved to D.C. in April 2014. She was accused in May of evading D.C. taxes over the past several years. Bennett denied the accusations.

Rasmussen Reports predicted in April that Donald Trump’s candidacy could hurt Comstock’s reelection bid given the 10th district’s socioeconomic makeup. The region has the nation’s highest medium income, and more than half of its residents have a college degree.