Avsnitt
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00:00.66
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode we will talk to Lowell Feld who runs Blue Virginia, the go-to Democratic blog in Virginia.
00:13.78
Sam Shirazi
I find that Lowell is well regarded on both sides and people on both sides cite his blog, which I think that's usually a sign someone, if someone's more partisan, that they're good if other people on the other side are able to look at their work, because I mean, it means the other side is also interested in what they're doing. So anyways, thanks for joining me, Lowell.
00:36.08
Lowell
All Well, thanks, Sam. I appreciate you having me on. And thanks for the kind words about Blue Virginia. hope they Hope they're accurate.
00:42.90
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, well, you know, I appreciate you. You often allow me to post longer articles on there and you cite my work. So I always like looking at Blue Virginia, specifically on the Democratic side. I mean, you you often have, you know, really good insights and kind of scoops.
00:57.00
Sam Shirazi
And generally, i think you just have good political IQ about what's going on in Virginia. So that's why I wanted to talk to you about that and mainly want to talk about the upcoming Democratic primary. But before that, just kind of want to ask a little bit about like why you started the blog and how do you you think the roles of blogs have changed maybe since you first started Blue Virginia?
01:17.67
Lowell
Yeah, well, this will really date me, of course, and everyone can figure out you know how not young I am. I guess I should retire by this point, but know based on the on the youth movement these days. But yeah, because I started in really the heyday of the rise of the blog, political blogs, was like in the early to mid-2000s. started in 2005 with a blog called Raising Cain, K-A-I-N-E.
01:40.67
Lowell
back then to help elect Tim Kaine governor of Virginia. And were a million political blogs back then because there was no, think about a world with, I mean, it's unimaginable, right? No YouTube, no Twitter, no Facebook, no, no, and that dial up still really. So that was, that was what, you know, I got going.
01:58.86
Lowell
And what happened was, you know, John Kerry lost the, 2004 election to George W. Bush. And i mean, I was just really frustrated and and kind of like trying to figure out what I could do to stay involved.
02:11.34
Lowell
And then I was thinking about i was brainstorming with a friend of mine and we were like, what's going on Maybe something here in Virginia. It's like, wait a minute, there's an election every year in Virginia, pretty much, including the year after the presidential election. There's always an election in Virginia for governor.
02:26.78
Lowell
And so we're like, well, wait, maybe we could try something for that, you know, do a blog or whatever. And so that's how Raising Cane got going. I was working for the federal government at the time still. So I did this in my spare time.
02:38.60
Lowell
But eventually I moved, you know, I left my federal job and I, uh, co-founded the draft James Webb for us Senate movement. And then eventually I just got totally into politics and, you know, pretty much left the federal government and just did this, uh, which is maybe crazy, but, it's been interesting and, and certainly, uh,
02:59.60
Lowell
fun at times, a lot of times and rewarding. Many times there have been like, you know, some years that were terrible for Democrats and some years that were great for Democrats. And it's been, but it yeah, it's been like 20 years.
03:12.94
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, you mentioned there were used to be a lot of political blogs and i remember some of them and most of them have gone away. And and what do you think the role of your blog or blogs are today in the political environment?
03:25.84
Lowell
I mean, i you know, I think that, yeah, a lot of those political blogs, that that's where people went back then to get – if you were a hardcore political junkie, you know, that was – you couldn't go to Facebook. There was no Twitter, like I said. So political blogs were the the really the go-to place, and they they were – Very lively. And there were a bunch of them on the you know Democratic side and Republican side. But I think I think there's still I still have play a role. I mean, i just think, you know, today, like my blog, I mean, i incorporate a lot more video content, audio content, things, you know, I can upload stuff now and.
04:04.42
Lowell
seconds that would have taken me, you know, hours back then if the connection even held together. But I think it's still the hardcore political junkies to a lot of, to a large extent. I mean, the other day I went to the false church Memorial Day parade and I just know, i mean, I think just based on the reactions by people when candidates were coming up and introducing themselves the people at the parade, I don't think most people are like really follow this stuff that closely because they didn't seem to know who the candidates were. And I just think that's how it is. i mean, but so, you know, we get several thousand
04:37.01
Lowell
you know, this views per day or whatever page views per day. And so I think it's mostly people who are really following either active democratic activists or people who are in politics and and Virginia policies are following it very closely. So that's kind of who I think my core audience is for this.
04:58.98
Lowell
For me, it's an outlet to be able to sort of think globally, act locally is the way i call it. And, you know I think you can make somewhat of a difference. I'm not saying a huge difference necessarily, but if you have any chance of making any difference, it's probably more at the local and state level, I feel like, as opposed to trying to change the world.
05:19.76
Lowell
you know so i think you know over the years, we had some success with that. with We helped elect Tim Kaine, helped draft James Webb, helped him win that election, take back the U.S. Senate, whatever. he but yeah Approaching it from the local and state level you know, going that direction instead of top down, sort of more bottom up.
05:39.43
Lowell
And I mean, I've been and but you know involved with local county board races, school board races, House of Delegates races, you know, whatever. And i think at that level in a primary or even in a general election, there might only be a few thousand people voting. So, you know, if you have a a point of view and a voice and you can get that out there, i think you can have some impact. But again, it's hard to measure.
06:04.52
Lowell
and you know, but yeah, so that's, it's kind of what I've been, been up to with, with blue Virginia. I mean, it was raising Cain and I changed it eventually to blue Virginia. I didn't want it to be tied to, it wasn't specifically about Tim Cain. Initially it was, but then once he got elected, it it was more about electing Democrats and, and it was aspirational to turn Virginia blue. It wasn't blue.
06:26.58
Lowell
I still don't think it's dark blue or anything. I think it's, depends on the election year and it depends on the electorate that shows up. but yeah, blue Virginia is more like of an aspiration.
06:37.24
Lowell
Maybe one day it will all be, you know, safe blue.
06:41.33
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, in terms of the last election, so obviously after Democrats lost in 2024, there's been a lot of talk about the media environment and Democrats needing to reach people. And, you know, there's there's been a lot of, you know Democratic self-reflection because that's what Democrats tend to do.
06:57.06
Lowell
Yeah.
06:57.05
Sam Shirazi
i mean What do you think Democrats can do to fix that specific problem of maybe getting their content to more people so that they're getting the Democratic messaging out there?
06:57.18
Lowell
Yeah.
07:07.66
Lowell
I mean, there's been a lot written on this and a lot of discussion on this. I mean, the thing is that a lot of the people who are only marginally paying attention or barely not even paying attention at all, they may only get a snippet of something when they're watching a comedy show or they're watching or they're listening to a sports podcast or whatever.
07:26.100
Lowell
So, yeah, there's there's some talk now about investing money into trying to ah create the Democrats' own version of of Rogan, Joe Rogan whatever. i don't know.
07:37.48
Lowell
good luck. I'll say, I hope it works, but you know, I mean, I, I'm not, I'm not holding my breath on that, but yeah, I think to reach people, you have to go kind of where they are. I mean, I'm not sure you can draw someone who's not interested in politics or doesn't know a ton about, like they're a normal person basically. And they, they're not like us and following this stuff 24 seven. And you know, if you just start rattling off stuff about this, lg primary and ag for whatever it is they're they're not going to really even understand what you're talking about and so i mean i try to write it in an accessible way but it's still you know so i think probably have to democrats are going to have to uh the thing is what happened was over these years republicans spent a lot of money
08:23.93
Lowell
hundreds of millions of dollars probably over the many years in developing their own right-wing information ecosystem, ah whether it's on TV, radio, you know,
08:35.41
Lowell
on and the internet or whatever. And I think it, I think it worked. Um, I think it definitely helps them a lot. And Democrats just assumed that the mainstream media would kind of do the job for us. But the problem is the mainstream media doesn't do our job for us. i mean, it doesn't get out the democratic messaging the way we want it and need it to get out.
08:55.63
Lowell
the The mainstream media tries to do kind of an equivalence as two sides to everything and whatever. So one side says there's a climate crisis. The other side says there isn't.
09:08.13
Lowell
Let's debate the topic. Well, it's not really a debatable topic. But anyway, so so that's the mainstream media. and And they're trying to never offend people. Certainly they're not, they don't want to offend the right.
09:19.64
Lowell
And, and so anyway, that's where we're at with the but Democrats are kind of way behind on this because we allowed the right to spend decades building up.
09:31.26
Lowell
i mean if you go on AM radio, let's say, or FM, any radio, You're not going to get, and you hear talk talk radio, whatever. It's almost all right-leaning.
09:42.40
Lowell
There's almost no liberal content out there. i mean, there was like the famous, era infamous, I guess, Air America. And everyone points to that and says, oh, will never work. We can't have democratic...
09:53.31
Lowell
you know me because that one didn't work well maybe that was a unique case that just didn't work for a variety of specific reasons but but so yeah i mean the democratic democrats right now still kind of rely on the mainstream media and look i mean the washington post you can see what happened in 2024 they backed off even making an endorsement in the presidential race so it shows you kind of where a lot of these a lot of these people who own these media companies or papers are billionaires and they have a lot of interests and there are not they don't want to anger anyone and certainly not the person who could be elected.
10:33.95
Lowell
President and maybe go after them in some way. So, so yeah, I mean, Democrats need to invest in a variety of different approaches, I think, ah ah to reach of people wherever they are, and with different voices. And, and, you know, it's just going to be a long effort, but we got to get going with it.
10:52.58
Sam Shirazi
Well, I think that's all you know helpful background on what's going on nationally. but Obviously, we want to see what's going on in Virginia this year. So first, I wanted to spend a little bit of time just talking about the Democratic primary, because obviously, you know, you have a pretty good sense of how things are going on the Democratic side.
11:11.12
Sam Shirazi
And I guess I'll just start with the lieutenant governor's race, which has the most candidates. There's six candidates running. know, what are you seeing in terms of the lieutenant governor primary? Because that does seem like the one where there's at least a few candidates who have a shot at winning.
11:25.69
Lowell
mean, the thing is with the with both of the primaries, LG, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, there's really, there's been no public polling to speak of. What we have to go on is campaign finance numbers, and the last ones of those are from the first quarter.
11:42.81
Lowell
We'll be getting new ones soon in early June, in about a week or so a little over a week, but have some internal polls, a couple of internal polls from a couple months ago, which I really, at this point, I wouldn't even necessarily even consider anymore. But even at that time, they showed a very close race between Aaron Rouse, who's a state senator from Virginia Beach, state senator Ghazala Hashmi from the Chesterfield, Richmond area, and former Richmond mayor LeVar Stoney. Those seem to be
12:14.85
Lowell
the top three contenders. And, you know, could still be the case. i have But at this point, it's been a couple months. And at that time, almost nobody even knew who the candidates were.
12:25.31
Lowell
It was a huge undecided. and um I presume at this point, some of the, I think those top three candidates, assuming they're still the top three, are on TV. They're their're advertising. Presumably their name ID is higher.
12:38.50
Lowell
And so, we just don't, it's very hard to know, given the absence of any public polling or any, you know, object to any, anything, any poll. So we'll see the campaign finance numbers. You can see who's up on TV.
12:52.88
Lowell
are two other candidates, you know, actually three other candidates, Prince William County School Board Chair, Barbara Lateef, and Alex Bastani, who's a lawyer and labor leader, and then Victor Salgado, who's was a longtime Department of Justice prosecutor and left that job in December.
13:09.40
Lowell
And so, but i think the I think it's still between, you know, Rouse Hashmi and Stoney. And I just, you know, it's it's just very difficult.
13:18.91
Lowell
to know i mean, one thing I'll say about Democratic primaries in Virginia for since Trump was first elected, i think women have done quite well in it was like the year of the woman, quote unquote, almost every year.
13:34.41
Lowell
in the, in the, when Trump in Trump's first term. So I don't know if that's going to continue, the LG race, you do have one woman, because Allah has me running against, you know, all other five men.
13:45.06
Lowell
And so I, and I don't know, I mean, and how much are people going to be considering regional? Do they want someone make sure we get someone from Hampton roads because, or you know, cause Abigail Spanberger a woman obviously from central Virginia. So you could end up with a woman,
14:00.70
Lowell
for LG from central Virginia and also for, we haven't gotten to attorney general yet, but ah you you could we have a woman from central Virginia from, for AG attorney general as well. And so, you know, I don't know how many people are going to be voting strategically thinking we want balance. We want to make sure we have, let's say an African American on the ticket or someone from Hampton Roads.
14:21.52
Lowell
And then turnout, We just don't really know. we have the automatic ballot ballot, you know, ballots are mailed to people now automatically. And so that alone should increase the turnout from because I remember back in 2005, the first time I voted in a primary in Virginia, from it was just only the lieutenant governor and there were only like 175,000 people showed up. I mean, but we've had when they're governor primary, it's much higher. So this time it's lieutenant governor and attorney general.
14:51.29
Lowell
So, and then attorney general, you have two candidates, you know, former delegate Jay Jones from the Norfolk area, and then Henrico Cardinal's attorney, uh, Shannon Taylor. And again, no public polling.
15:01.89
Lowell
We had an internal poll a long time ago from the Taylor campaign. Uh, I wouldn't even go by that anymore. Jones has more money than Taylor, but I heard, i' I'm hearing that Taylor has been doing quite well in fundraising. I don't know. I don't have any, i just heard that.
15:18.83
Lowell
And, uh, from a good source, but whatever, um, don't know for sure. Uh, and so she's on TV, I guess as well. Jones is on TV. So yeah, that's where we're at kind of right now. And we have just till June 17th.
15:32.28
Lowell
I mean, voting is going on now and, but, the elections on June 17th. So, not that much longer, two and a half weeks,
15:39.95
Sam Shirazi
Well, whoever ends up being the nominees for the Democrats will be facing ah the Republicans, obviously, in the November general election. And I think the sense is maybe this is from because of 2017, Democrats seem pretty optimistic. They think because of what's going on in D.C. and how much of an impact that's having on Virginia, that this year is going to be a good year for Democrats in Virginia. And, you know, it it's it's hard to know.
16:06.72
Sam Shirazi
Right now, because we honestly haven't gotten a lot of public polling, and I think it's a little hard to you know jump to conclusions given the election is still like five months away. But what is your sense about how things might be looking in November?
16:19.88
Lowell
Yeah, I mean, you know, I thought Larry Sabato had a good summary of this the other day. I mean, and i mean this is nothing new necessarily, but I think he expressed it well. But of all, Virginia oi almost always, and for like this has been going on for since the early 70s, goes the opposite.
16:39.12
Lowell
and often hard opposite of whatever parties in the white house. So one exception to that was 2013 and that was barely. But other than that, I mean, and we've had some landslides too. I mean, 2009, Bob McDonald won by 18 points.
16:55.20
Lowell
Not sure that can ever happen again, but you know, Ralph Northam won by nine points in 2017. So, you know, but so Democrats are favored. know, especially also, you know, i don't know what the economy is going to look like with the tariffs and everything, but by November, by the fall.
17:12.32
Lowell
And, it's usually, you know, the motivated people who turn out to vote. And that's, I think why this happens. Whoever has their person in the white house is usually, you know, somewhat fairly content or whatever.
17:25.60
Lowell
They're not maybe angry. And angry voters, angry people, the expression goes, turn out and vote. And people who are basically satisfied don't, they tend to more stay home.
17:38.38
Lowell
And so Democrats are favored, but it's definitely not, you know, we we can't take anything for granted. Obviously we all have to do the work, run, run, you know, through the tape and all that. But I think we have a, you know, potentially um very strong ticket. I mean, the top of the ticket Spanberger, she's won some tough elections.
17:56.25
Lowell
in in a purple district when she was you know running for Congress in 2018, 2020, 2022. twenty twenty two So, you know, she knows how to win close elections, tough elections.
18:06.89
Lowell
I honestly am not impressed. I mean, I'm biased. I admit it, but I, I just look at the quality of the Republican ticket right now and the top of their ticket. And I, I'm just not super impressed. I mean, I think they've had, like, I objectively, I think Yunkin,
18:23.74
Lowell
was a strong candidate for a bunch of reasons. He had a ton of money. He didn't have profile. He didn't have a voting record, so he could be all things to all people. He hadn't said a bunch of extreme or crazy stuff in the past.
18:36.85
Lowell
You know, Spam, I mean, Winsome Earl Sears has a there I'm sure the Spamberger people have a very thick opposition research book on Winsome Earl Sears. And as you saw it earlier today, they already started rolling some of it out.
18:52.85
Lowell
on her views about abortion and contraception and other things. And so I think Democrats are in in in good shape. I mean, how big ah ah we win, Democrats win, how large the margin is will make a big difference.
19:06.49
Lowell
Now, as Larry Sabato said when he was, I mentioned Sabato, what he was saying was that the down ballot, the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General and the House of Delegates tend to be mostly just coattails off of the top of the ticket.
19:19.60
Lowell
So assuming that's the case, so however Spanberger does, if she wins by five points, 10 points, more points, whatever she ends up winning by, that's going to kind of pretty much see what he's arguing. And I tend to agree.
19:31.88
Lowell
The Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and House of Delegates candidates will kind of just follow along on those coattails. But you still need candidate quality. And, you know, each race, you know, the they don't run. i mean, they run as a ticket, but in a way they're kind of running by themselves. I mean, it's not a ticket like the president and vice president.
19:52.57
Lowell
you can You could split your ticket. I don't think we're going to see a ton of that. Just don't think that happens anymore. and so, yeah, I think that's where we're at. If Spanberger, you know, wins the election, by a decent margin, I think Democrats should win the Lieutenant governor, attorney general, and then we should pick up seats in the house of delegates as well. And, you know, know, um,
20:13.51
Lowell
Right now, it's it's very close in the House of Delegates. We had had up to 55 to 45 margin for Democrats before Youngkin was elected.
20:23.72
Lowell
Maybe we can get back to that for Democrats or maybe even a little more. I mean, interestingly, the Republican leader in the House of Delegates for a variety of reasons, seems to be moving on. And i mean I tend to think it's because, in part, he's up for a job in you know as as a U.S. attorney, but I also think that he may be reading the writing on the wall here. So I know i don't know what you think, but I think he may be... he may be looking at it and not seeing a very optimistic scenario for house Republicans going into November. So, yeah. And then, you know, I think historically there, there have been a few cases where there's been a widespread between the highest vote getter on the democratic ticket and the lowest, but yeah I just, it's possible, but most likely they'll be within a few points of each other.
21:15.60
Lowell
So, you know, unless there's like a dramatic difference in quality, uh amongst you know maybe let's say the two of the l republican lg candidate and the dem just saying it it could be anything but i i just i think mostly it's just going to be within a few points of of the top of the ticket so so that's where we're at now mostly i mean
21:37.85
Sam Shirazi
Yeah. And, you know, you mentioned that Virginia has elections every year. So let's assume the Democrats get a win this year in Virginia. you know, looking ahead to 2026,
21:48.04
Sam Shirazi
Obviously, the second congressional district going to be a target for Democrats. I mean, it's almost always ah ah battleground district, and it was very narrowly carried by Trump. So obviously, that's going to be a top target for Democrats.
22:00.98
Sam Shirazi
I did want to ask you about, but you know, feel free to talk about that district and or i'm I'm curious about the first district because the Democrats do seem to be making some moves to try to compete there.
22:01.45
Lowell
Yep.
22:13.63
Sam Shirazi
you know, i'm I'm still kind of unsure about how realistic that is given the that Trump won the district by about six points and then Whitman, the incumbent, won the district by double digits like, you know, in the teens, even though, and so overperformed Trump by a decent amount. So I think the November numbers for the governor's race in each of those districts will be helpful to get a little bit of a better sense of how competitive they're going to be in 2026. But what are your some early thoughts on Virginia in 2026?
22:43.39
Lowell
I mean, you know, assuming we have, you know, free and fair elections. I mean, I hate to even say that in a way. It sounds crazy. but But anyway, ah so and and it's hard to know what the state of the country will be. it's hard to know. But traditionally, in a midterm election...
23:00.59
Lowell
Traditionally, the party out of the White House tends to pick up seats. If there's a recession, if there's if people are very unhappy, if Trump's approval rating is, let's say, low 40s or thirty s or whatever it is, Democrats should do well. And if Democrats do pick up seats in you know November 2026 Virginia here,
23:22.99
Lowell
I mean, the two districts that the Democratic national people seem to be targeting are the second, which is in the Hampton Roads area. That's Jen Kiggins is the Republican who, you know, is the Congresswoman there. i mean, she but she ousted the Democratic Congresswoman, Elaine Luria.
23:41.73
Lowell
And so, you know, that's flipped back and forth ah ah in in the second. And then in the first that Whitman's been there a long time. But I guess the National Democrats are seeing like what you're seeing and what you're saying is that the, there's some sign of the first congressional district, maybe slowly, but surely, or I don't know if it's fast, but at least slowly, but surely moving more edging towards maybe a more purplish direction. I don't know. And the other thing is, of course, these, these Congress people are taking votes like Kiggins and Whitman just voted for this Republican budget, this house budget, which would slash Medicaid and,
24:18.55
Lowell
rack up, you know, crank up the deficit. and And mean, this is by the Congressional Budget Office. They can claim whatever they want, but the Congressional Budget Office is the definitive, you know, a referee on that. And so, ah you know, they're going to have to run on that.
24:32.01
Lowell
And that's to be that's going to be kind of tough in districts that depend heavily on ah the the federal government, the military, whatever it is. the Hampton Roads certainly is one of those districts.
24:44.15
Lowell
And the first as well has a lot of federal employees. And, um know. So, and then, I mean, an outside one would be, I guess, the fifth, but that's, that's tougher. I guess that's John McGuire, very hard right. He defeated Bob Good, who was a very hard right.
24:59.09
Lowell
But, you know, so right now I think it's probably the first and and the second. You also have, we also have a U Senate race in Virginia in 2026. Mark Warner will be up and he's definitely sounds like he's running for reelection and, you know, we'll see if there's any primary or anything, but,
25:16.84
Lowell
i you know I don't know of anything right now. but yeah, he would be, i presume, the favorite. We'll see if Yunkin, maybe, i don't think he will, but he could throw his hat in the ring for U.S. Senate in 2026. But I think he's more thinking about president in 2028.
25:35.48
Lowell
So yeah, there's some things to keep an eye on, definitely, in 2026. But a lot you know lot can change between now And 2026, the economy, obviously Trump's approval rating in Virginia and a million other things could happen.
25:50.96
Lowell
it's ah ah It's an eternity. Like, so it's interesting to speculate, but those are the districts, the second and first that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is like, you know, targeting right now, subject to change.
26:04.30
Sam Shirazi
Well, I know you will be covering it all, and i appreciate you coming on the podcast to give people the perspective from your end where you're you're living and breathing this stuff every day on Blue Virginia. And so I definitely recommend people to check out that blog in the run-up to the Democratic primary and obviously all the way up until November because I do think it's a really good source of info, particularly if you're a Democrat. I think...
26:26.19
Sam Shirazi
ah If you're Republican, there's also good stuff there. But some of the things Lowell says might they may might not be what you're looking for. But i I think it's good. yeah There's a lot of good stuff that he's able to to find and put on there. So anyways, thanks again for joining me. And, you know, I'm sure we'll see you on Blue Virginia.
26:45.16
Lowell
right. Thanks a lot, Sam. All right. Take care.
26:47.52
Sam Shirazi
Thanks. And this has been a Federal Fallout. And I'll join you next time.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.70
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, i amm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode we will go over the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General Democratic primaries which are heating up right now.
00:14.13
Sam Shirazi
And I will first go over the Lieutenant Governor primary, and then i'll go over the Attorney General primary. So we are less than three weeks away from the primary. Early voting has been going on for a while. So the races are definitely starting to heat up. And I think it's it's a good time to kind of touch base about them.
00:31.15
Sam Shirazi
And probably all the way up till June 17th, this will be the main focus of a lot of what's going on in Virginia, because The nominees will have to get finalized on the Democratic side.
00:42.72
Sam Shirazi
And there's also a lot of House of Delegates races that have primaries. But obviously, those are not getting as much attention. And I did do a preview of the House Delegates primary in one podcast, but I would say most of the attention is definitely on the Democratic side for attorney general and lieutenant governor.
01:00.67
Sam Shirazi
So on the lieutenant governor's side for the Democrats, there was a debate, a televised debate with all six candidates. And I thought it was interesting. you know, you heard a lot of the things, you know, common themes about, you know, opposing what the Trump administration is doing and and things you would expect in the Democratic primary.
01:18.31
Sam Shirazi
I think the one area where the candidates had differences that was highlighted was on the issue of gambling and casinos and specifically a casino in Fairfax. So I would say Aaron Rouse and Ghazal Hashmi were more on the pro-gambling side, if you want to call that.
01:36.21
Sam Shirazi
And then you had Babur Lateef, who came out very strongly against the casino in Fairfax. And I think Victor Salgado has also come out against the casino in Fairfax. So I think that was a little bit of differentiation among the candidates. Often when I hear talk to people...
01:53.32
Sam Shirazi
they They either don't know a lot about the candidates or they're a little unsure about who to support because, know, there there are a lot of different candidates running. And it's not as easy as sometimes where it's just two people running and it's a pretty straightforward decision on who to vote for.
02:10.04
Sam Shirazi
And so I think it'll be interesting to see. I think this is the type of race people will make up their mind. Basically, ah ah not all everyone, but a decent amount of people are going to make up their mind last minute and they might.
02:20.45
Sam Shirazi
be you know getting their ballot and they decide who to vote for at the last minute, which makes it really unpredictable in terms of who's going to be ahead. in the lieutenant governor primary. There hasn't been any sort of public polling.
02:32.40
Sam Shirazi
And it's just unclear right now who would have the advantage when you have six candidates running. So what I'm going to do is go through each candidate, talk a little bit about you know how they might be able to put together a coalition to win. you know This week, I also had Lowell Feld on from Blue Virginia, and he talked about you know, what he's seeing lieutenant governor and attorney general races. And so i wanted to kind of go through what I'm seeing and maybe more so which candidates might be able to put together a coalition to win. Because the reality is when you have six candidates, it's very unlikely that any of them are going to get a majority or 50 percent of the vote. think the winner of this primary is almost certainly going to get less than 50 percent of the vote.
03:12.56
Sam Shirazi
And in that environment, it gets really unpredictable. There's no ranked choice voting in Virginia. So whoever gets the most votes, it doesn't matter if it's 30%, it doesn't matter if it's less than that, will win. i think realistically in a race like this, I'm expecting the winner to get between 30% and 40%, probably like 35% is the number that they'll need to get to to win. And if you think about what happened in 2021 with the Democratic primary Virginia,
03:38.82
Sam Shirazi
Virginia for lieutenant governor, there were a bunch of candidates running just like this race. And in the end, Hala Ayala was able to win with, I think, around 37% of the vote. So I think it's going to be similar this time. And so when you think about, okay, which candidates are able to put together the coalition that they need to hit that number, we can kind of go through the candidates and, you know, think about how they might be able to get there. So First, I want to talk about State Senator Aaron Rouse. So he is from Virginia Beach, and he's the only candidate from Hampton Roads.
04:09.11
Sam Shirazi
So I think right off the bat, he's going to do pretty well in the Hampton Roads area, and he's going to be able to get a good chunk of votes there. I also think he's going to be doing well with the African-American community. So he was endorsed by Congressman Bobby Scott, and I think Congressman Scott's endorsement carries a pretty significant weight in the African-American community.
04:32.10
Sam Shirazi
So I think just on those things, Rouse is going to get a pretty high number, but based on Hampton Roads and part of the support in the African-American community. So I think he has a pretty high floor, if you want to put it that way, in the sense of I think he's going to get a good chunk of votes.
04:48.11
Sam Shirazi
The question for him is, can he get you know up to 35% roughly to to be able to win. and I think a lot of it, and you'll hear it for basically all these candidates, a lot of it is going to come down to Northern Virginia. So,
05:00.41
Sam Shirazi
You know, the Rouse is going to do well in Hampton Roads, but what is his number going to be in Northern Virginia? Because I think for all these candidates, whoever wins, they need to get a decent number in Northern Virginia. I think Rouse can do relatively less well, if you want to put it that way. He doesn't need to get as high of a number in Northern Virginia as maybe some of these other candidates, because I think he will be getting a decent amount of votes out of Hampton Roads.
05:24.65
Sam Shirazi
So in that and that way, you could kind of see Rouse putting together this coalition where he does good enough in and Northern Virginia. He gets African-American voters and then he gets Hampton Roads and that that'll get him to 35 percent.
05:39.33
Sam Shirazi
The next candidate i want to talk about is State Senator Ghazala Hashmi. she is She represents the Richmond suburbs in Chesterfield. And so, again, you think she probably will do decent in the Richmond suburbs. um That'll be kind of part of her base.
05:56.98
Sam Shirazi
And I think the big question mark for Hashmi is her support among women. And I think she's definitely leaning into the women vote. think that's where she really needs to run up the margins. And Northern Virginia, there'll be another place, particularly with women, that she'll need to do well in order to win this primary. I think she knows that. I think that's kind of her strategy. and And it just, you you know, for a lot of these candidates, I'll be a little bit of a broken record. I mean, it really just depends...
06:23.47
Sam Shirazi
Is she the going to be the candidate that's going to win in Northern Virginia? Because I think if she comes in number one in Northern Virginia and she's able to do pretty well in the Richmond suburbs, you could see ah ah her putting a ah ah coalition together where she's going to get like 35 percent of the vote.
06:37.60
Sam Shirazi
Again, I'll talk about that number because I think that's the magic number you need to get the Louisiana governor primary. However, if you're seeing a different scenario where all the candidates kind of pretty much just split Northern Virginia, i don't think she'll be able to get enough out of the Richmond suburbs alone to be able to win if if the candidates are pretty much just splitting Northern Virginia. So that's um that's her strategy. is to she's going to be and and I think she has the advantage of being the only woman in the race. And so that's going to be...
07:05.04
Sam Shirazi
what she's going to be leaning into to, to try to finish the race for her. um The next candidate I want us to talk about is former Richmond mayor, LeVar Stoney.
07:15.14
Sam Shirazi
So he will obviously hope to do well in the city of Richmond and hopefully also in the suburbs of Richmond. Although, as I mentioned, he's going to have to ah ah compete with Hashmi to with, for the votes in the Richmond suburbs.
07:30.31
Sam Shirazi
And I also think he's going to hopefully do well with African-American voters. I think the issue for him is Bobby Scott decided to endorse Aaron Rouse. And so if I had to guess, I'm guessing Rouse is going to be getting more of the vote from the African-American community. It doesn't mean he's going to get 100 percent of the vote.
07:46.92
Sam Shirazi
I do think Stoney will get a decent amount of votes also from the African-American community. I think the the thing LeVar Stoney may be trying to lean into is some of his political connections. So he's been involved in democratic politics in Virginia for a long time.
08:01.43
Sam Shirazi
He was chair of the Democratic Party. He was in the McAuliffe administration. So I think he has a lot of connections. there's a lot of people who know him. He's definitely paid his dues in a sense of working for the party, working for the Democrats.
08:13.68
Sam Shirazi
elect Democrats across Virginia. And I think a decent amount of the Democratic act activists remember that and remember the and effort he's put in the Democratic Party.
08:23.54
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, can he kind of use that in Northern Virginia? Again, he needs to get a decent margin in Northern Virginia. Can that kind of be his springboard to become the Northern Virginia candidate who gets the most votes?
08:35.78
Sam Shirazi
Because I think, you know, realistically, if he's, you know, getting Decent amount of votes in Richmond and and maybe some of the African American community. i don't think that's going to be enough by itself. He'll need to do well in Northern Virginia and kind of lean in towards his years in the Democratic Party.
08:52.88
Sam Shirazi
And I think the challenge with that is that, know, a lot of the you know regular voters who may not be super tuned in to politics, I mean, they might not know his history in Virginia and he might just be the former Richmond mayor and, you know, they'll consider him among many of the other candidates.
09:11.66
Sam Shirazi
And so I do think part of the challenge in this primary is Generally, the voters are not super tuned in. I mean, most people are not living and breathing this stuff and they don't necessarily know the difference between all these candidates and they might have six candidates on a ballot and they have to make a decision.
09:27.70
Sam Shirazi
So I think it's going to be really hard for them to distinguish themselves, particularly when, you know. All the campaigns are trying to reach voters either through mailers or through TV ads or other ways of just reaching and the voters. But often it's just it's it's hard to get your message across.
09:45.12
Sam Shirazi
And you don't often have a lot of time to give your whole bio and all everything you've done. i mean, voters make decisions very quickly based on very limited information. They might just hear you're the former Richmond mayor or you're a state senator. I mean, that might be the entire basis of their decision. So I do think um that's a challenge that all the candidates are going to have as they are trying to figure out how to put together a winning formula.
10:06.34
Sam Shirazi
Okay, so next I want to talk about Prince William County School Board Chair, Barbara Lateef. So he's the main candidate from Northern Virginia, and he's definitely going to be leaning into the Northern Virginia thing. So
10:19.48
Sam Shirazi
Prince William County is the second biggest county in Virginia and has a huge population of over half a million people. So I think that's going to be a decent amount of votes that he's able to get there. And, you know, I think he's made the decision to be the candidate that is most vocally against the Fairfax Casino.
10:37.48
Sam Shirazi
And I think that's going to hopefully get, from his perspective, get him some votes in Fairfax County. Fairfax County is obviously the largest county in Virginia, lot of voters. And I think there's a scenario where if he's able to really break through and be the Northern Virginia candidate,
10:54.49
Sam Shirazi
and lean into that and really just drive up the margins in Northern Virginia and it did the other candidates just aren't able to get those numbers, then i think he's he's going to be able to put together the numbers to get there.
11:08.20
Sam Shirazi
And it's a little bit what I would say happened in 2021, where Sam Razul in the Democratic primary did pretty well in Western Virginia.
11:20.31
Sam Shirazi
where he where he's from in Roanoke, but Halayala did much better in in Northern Virginia. And obviously there's just so many more votes in Northern Virginia and up in a Democratic primary. And so she was able to win that primary pretty easily.
11:32.71
Sam Shirazi
And so we'll see if he's able to do that. I think i think the challenge he's going to have is, you know the all the candidates know that Northern Virginia is maybe the key to success. And so they're all going to be trying to get those votes in Northern Virginia.
11:44.27
Sam Shirazi
And there is a chance that the votes just get split among all the candidates in Northern Virginia. because they're all trying really hard to compete there. So I think that's his strategy is Northern Virginia 100%.
11:55.84
Sam Shirazi
And we'll see if that works for him. And then there is a former DOJ prosecutor, Victor Salgado. i think his strategy is partly going to be to focus on the Hispanic community in Virginia.
12:09.91
Sam Shirazi
which is pretty sizable. You don't always hear about it, but I think there there is a growing Hispanic community and in a Democratic primary that can give you, get you a good chunk of votes. I think the challenge he's going to have is, you know, building a base outside of that. And, you know, the Hispanic community will kind of get you a decent amount of votes in Virginia, but it's a little unclear if you can kind of get up to the numbers you need to win statewide just with that. And, you know, I think with all these candidates running, sometimes it's hard to break through So we'll see if he's able to to do that. And similar story with Bastani, who is a attorney and former labor official. So I think his strategy is to maybe lean into the pro labor side of things. He's very pro repealing right to work.
12:57.03
Sam Shirazi
And he also, I would say, probably ideologically is the most progressive of the candidates. And so he may be able to mobilize some of the progressive community to to to vote for him.
13:08.38
Sam Shirazi
I think he's going to have a challenge of, you know, that's, again, not going to be able to get you up to the numbers you need statewide. And again, there's so many people running and it's hard to break through, particularly if you are not an elected official and are coming at it from a little bit of a different angle So all that's to say is like there's a lot going on in the lieutenant governor's race. There's a lot of different ways people could win.
13:33.84
Sam Shirazi
i think it's still unclear who has the advantage. i could see it shaking out several ways. And I do think in some ways that actually will drive turnout because If it's a competitive race, it's, you know, people who pay attention know that this thing is not decided yet. And so all the candidates are going to be working to get out their supporters. So I do think the lieutenant governor's race is probably the most interesting race on primary night, given all the candidates, given that it's hard to pick the clear front front runner right now.
14:05.62
Sam Shirazi
I do think... you know, there are paths to victory for different candidates and we'll just have to wait and see how it all shakes out. I mean, I do think it's one of those races where I had to guess, you know, the winner is not going to be getting a whole lot of votes, the percentage of the vote.
14:23.62
Sam Shirazi
And, know, when when all the votes come in, it'll be interesting to see who ends up being on top and the coalitions that we're getting able to put together and what are... Certain parts of the state, who are they voting for? i think that'll all be really interesting. It'll be a really interesting map to look at day after the election just to see how things shook up in the lieutenant governor primary. So anyways, all that's to say is definitely pay attention. going to try to do my best to cover it, but I will, you know, not, it's just one of those races. It's very hard for me to kind of give a prediction about who's going to end up on top.
14:55.30
Sam Shirazi
All right. Now let's move on to the attorney general race, which is much simpler because there are only two people running. And I'll talk again a little bit about where each candidate will have some strengths and ah the path to victory that they need to get.
15:07.86
Sam Shirazi
And because there are only two candidates, the winner does need to get to 50%, 50.1% win the primary. and the The first candidate I want to talk about is former delegate Jay Jones.
15:19.41
Sam Shirazi
So he comes from the Norfolk area. So I'm assuming he's going to be doing pretty well in Hampton Roads. He was also endorsed by Congressman Bobby Scott. So I think he's going to, again, be doing well with the African-American community.
15:31.97
Sam Shirazi
And I think that's, again, going to give him a decent amount of votes just right off the bat from Norfolk and Hampton Roads. And the question, again, it's similar to LG primary, you know what is Northern Virginia going to look like? I think the strength that j Jay Jones has is that he doesn't need to win Northern Virginia outright. I think if he can keep Northern Virginia competitive and you know he doesn't need to get an outright win because the margins he's going to be getting from and Hampton Roads and the African-American community and Southside and Richmond area...
16:05.76
Sam Shirazi
that will get him in a lot a bunch of votes. And as long as it's not a huge blowout for Shannon Taylor in Northern Virginia, that should be able to get him enough votes. And so talking about Shannon Taylor's path, so she's the Commonwealth's attorney for Henrico County, which is in the Richmond suburbs.
16:22.03
Sam Shirazi
I do think she'll do relatively well you know in that area where she represents in the Richmond suburbs. I think Honestly, I don't think she's going to get as many votes as as Jones will and from Hampton Roads from Richmond because Richmond area has a decent amount of African American voters. And I do think ah Jones will be doing decent with the African American community in the Richmond area. So I could almost see Richmond being maybe almost a tie.
16:47.36
Sam Shirazi
And you know as I mentioned, Jones will be doing better in Hampton Roads. So that will really bump up his numbers. And it comes down to Northern Virginia. And I think Taylor's strategy would be similar to Hashmi to try to win women in Northern Virginia by really big margins.
17:03.19
Sam Shirazi
I think she would really need like a blowout win in Northern Virginia. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it just seems, you know, hard to get the numbers that she would need to.
17:14.34
Sam Shirazi
So for those reasons, I think Jones has the advantage just because he doesn't need to get a blowout victory in Northern Virginia the way Taylor does. And, you know, the thing with Northern Virginia is people tend to think about it as is all, you know,
17:31.74
Sam Shirazi
wealthier ah suburbs, but, you know, it's a pretty diverse area in its own way. And for example, Prince William County has a different, yeah decent African-American population. So I could see Jones getting a decent amount of votes there.
17:43.10
Sam Shirazi
And so if you think about the margins Taylor would need to get with women voters in Northern Virginia, it's pretty high. You know, conceivably it could happen, but it's not... something that is as easy.
17:56.09
Sam Shirazi
In other words, she doesn't have as easy a path to victory, I think, as Jones, where Jones just has to do well in Hampton Roads, do well with African American voters and keep Northern Virginia close. She'll really need to blow out margins in Northern Virginia.
18:09.97
Sam Shirazi
So we'll see we'll see if she's able to do that. I think Jones definitely has an easier path to victory. And I will say that And regardless of who ends up being on the ticket, i think there'll be some interesting dynamics for the general election.
18:24.15
Sam Shirazi
So i think I think there's a decent chance, given the odds, either in the AG race or the lieutenant governor's race, that... At least one of those nominees will be African-American. It's not i mean, it's conceivable they're not. But I think more likely than not, at least one of the LG or AG nominees will be African-American.
18:43.01
Sam Shirazi
i think that's something that can help the Democrats this year in Virginia, because. realistically at the top of the ticket. Abigail Spanberger, she has a lot of different strengths, and I think she's particularly strong with suburban women.
18:54.04
Sam Shirazi
But there's a little bit of a question mark about the African-American community. I think she's working to to win those voters over. Recently, State Senator Luis Lucas has endorsed Spanberger, so I think that'll help her.
19:05.63
Sam Shirazi
I think you know it it obviously helps if there's another person on the ticket who comes from a different part of Virginia and a different community.
19:15.73
Sam Shirazi
And I think that's also the regional dynamics of maybe having someone from Hampton Roads, which again may happen for a Lieutenant Governor or Attorney General.
19:24.56
Sam Shirazi
So I think that's another interesting dynamic to see how the tickets are split regionally. Okay. And the last thing I should just talk about is, you know, how independent of races in the general election will the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General races be? Because I think there's often talk about, oh, well, maybe Meares will be able to hang on even if the Republicans lose at the top of the ticket because he's an incumbent.
19:47.90
Sam Shirazi
I mean, certainly, I think if you're an incumbent, it helps and it doesn't... you know It should give you a little bit of advantage if you are an incumbent. you My personal theory is that ticket splitting in Virginia is really starting to to go away. And I think it's relatively unlikely that we're going to see a split ticket in terms being elected in November.
20:09.48
Sam Shirazi
I think if Spanberger is winning by at least a few points, then I think she'll just take the rest of the ticket with her. you know Conceivably, if it's a close race, you know either for lieutenant governor or for attorney general, Republicans might be able to win.
20:23.92
Sam Shirazi
the last four Virginia elections, the candidate that's won at the top of the ticket has been able to carry over the lieutenant governor and attorney general spots of the ticket.
20:35.29
Sam Shirazi
So I don't think there's going to be a lot of strategizing about who's the strongest candidate. My sense is most of the Democratic voters are going to just go for who who thinks who they think is going to be the best candidate.
20:46.29
Sam Shirazi
You know, just given the ticket splitting has really gone away in Virginia, it just seems really unlikely. And, you know even if for attorney general in 2021, so we had an incumbent Democratic attorney general with Mark Herring, and he didn't end up winning, even though he was the incumbent.
21:02.46
Sam Shirazi
And the top of the ticket wasn't that big of a victory for Yunkin. He only won by two points, but that was enough where he was able to carry the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General over the line. And I just think something similar would happen.
21:15.72
Sam Shirazi
the margin would have to be a little bit bigger than two points. I can't imagine a scenario where that wouldn't be enough for the rest of the ticket to win. So I do think there's a lot riding on the Lieutenant Governor Attorney General spots on the ticket.
21:28.49
Sam Shirazi
you know, conceivably they could help at the top of the ticket if you get a little bit more diversity ah ah in terms of geography and different communities in Virginia. But I ultimately don't think the those spots are in and of themselves going to be competitive. and And often you see in Virginia, there truly is a ticket. candidates run on shared kind of platforms and they campaigned together. and And so there is more ticket voting in Virginia. And I do think on the Republican side, it's going to be interesting to see if the GOP nominee, Winston Merle Sears, is going to be able to make up with the lieutenant governor nominee, John Reed, because obviously there's been some tension from when he became the nominee.
22:12.31
Sam Shirazi
And do they do joint campaign appearances? They haven't done them yet. And typically, there was one scheduled for when John Reed became the nominee, and that was canceled last minute. And so it's a little bit of an open question, are the Republicans going to have a unified ticket?
22:25.56
Sam Shirazi
I think the Democrats, given these candidates, regardless of who is nominated for the Senate Governor or Attorney General, I think they will be fairly united. So I do think there's just a lot of interesting things going on this year in Virginia.
22:36.60
Sam Shirazi
for the tickets specifically. And and obviously the June 17th primary is coming up soon. So I will but do my best to cover it all. It's going to be a lot of interesting dynamics and I'll try to do my best to keep everyone informed. But for now, this is Federal Fallout and I'll join you next time.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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00:00.85
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode I will be interviewing Dr. Mark Downey. He is the Democratic candidate in the 69th House of Delegates District in the Yorktown area.
00:17.69
Sam Shirazi
This is a seat Democrats are targeting and was narrowly carried by President Trump by a little over one points in November. The current incumbent is Republican delegate Chad Green, and I would be happy to have him on or any other Republicans on in the future. But today we have Mark. Thank you for joining me.
00:36.80
Mark downey
Thank you for allowing me to come on your podcast. Thank you.
00:41.25
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, so don't you tell me about yourself and what made you want to run?
00:45.80
Mark downey
Yes, so I'm a pediatrician living in Williamsburg, grew up in this area, been here in the community since age two, went to all the local public schools in York County, went undergrad UVA, med school at MCB,
01:04.58
Mark downey
and after residency had an opportunity to come back and practice pediatrics here and in my hometown. Inherited the house I grew up with so grew up in, so I was able to raise my kids in the same house I grew up in, and really have gotten to know my community, taking care of kids, and now taking care of people that I took care of, taking care of their children.
01:29.98
Mark downey
So i think Being a pediatrician, being a medical doctor, that is really is what driven me to run again in this this cycle.
01:40.81
Mark downey
I ran twice in 2019 and 2021. But I think what really prompted me to get back into this election cycle is really wanting to be an advocate for quality health care for all Virginians, not just my patients, but their families, their grandparents, their relatives that are are being affected by all the changes that are coming from the federal level and making sure that Virginia maintains strong and quality access to healthcare.
02:12.67
Sam Shirazi
And I appreciate your perspective as ah ah as a doctor, because you know typically you think of politicians, a lot of lawyers, and you know you have people from that background or maybe small business owners, people who are have the means to do this. And and you know doctors are obviously usually pretty busy and don't always have time to run for office and or serve.
02:32.06
Sam Shirazi
you know What perspective do you think you bring in as a doctor that might be missing from other people who are currently serving in the House of Delegates?
02:41.95
Mark downey
Well, I think just like any field, it's it's good to have people with expertise in that field to provide perspective, provide you know good data, information on on what these policies, what these potential legislation may have an impact in in that particular field.
03:00.85
Mark downey
got off a candidate training with Planned Parenthood, and you know I was able to share a lot of information about you know, access to reproductive care, access to just health care in general for for all folks. And i think that's where my strength is. That's where I feel like I can contribute to the discussion and make sure that policies that are being proposed are are are really going to do what they intend to do and actually benefit the most people.
03:31.69
Sam Shirazi
And I wanted to ask you one question about kind health care in general, because the Republicans currently are trying to pass a bill and there's been a lot of talk about cuts to Medicaid. And can you kind of explain, you know, what Medicaid is, why it's important and and what could potentially happen if there are those cuts?
03:50.92
Mark downey
Yeah, Yeah, um great question. I mean, Medicaid is one of those very foundational safety nets that we have in our country that really primarily looks to help out those that are lower income or disabled or near the end of end of their life when they need elder care.
04:10.44
Mark downey
And it provides that critical safety net where a lot of folks prior to Medicaid being around didn't have access to care. So there was a great disparity and and basically rationing of healthcare where they weren't able to receive the same level care that folks that had yeah employee-based insurance and for Virginia, we were able to expand Medicaid, and Medicaid expansion in 2018, but it came with restrictions on it or a trigger that if the federal funding ever dropped below ah ah current level of 90%, that all those individuals that were added under Medicaid expansion would potentially lose lose their coverage.
04:56.20
Mark downey
So it's critically important as we look to see what the federal government is planning or trying to do, that we have a plan, a backup plan, or a way to protect those individuals that have health care so they don't find themselves without the ability to get the care that they need.
05:15.63
Sam Shirazi
Well, another thing I wanted to ask you about is ah other cuts the federal government and and also potentially the job cuts that have been happening with the federal government. you know as ah ah As I mentioned in other podcasts, that's typically viewed as more of a Northern Virginia story. But I do think down in your area, there there have been impacts.
05:35.49
Sam Shirazi
And i was wondering specifically about your district because you have two large military installations. There's york Yorktown Naval Station. and Fort Eustis.
05:45.39
Sam Shirazi
Have you heard anything or what are you hearing on the ground in terms of the impacts of the federal cuts on the military side?
05:53.68
Mark downey
Well, I think you hit it right on the head. This is a yeah an area that has a tremendous amount of folks that come here for the military, either in active duty as they rotate through, but then a lot of folks end up retiring after they finish their 20 years or 30 years in the military and they retire here and oftentimes take on civilian jobs.
06:17.08
Mark downey
And those are Those options are are not going to be there anymore as the cuts get made and they're not the hiring freezes that are being imposed on civilian contractors for the local military bases.
06:31.36
Mark downey
So that means we're going to lose out on on people that actually want to stay in this area and and really support the area. you know Growing up here, I'd have friends that I would see for two or three years and they would go away you know as their family got PCS to a different location, but then they a lot of them would end up coming back here and and finishing their high school and and settling in this area.
06:53.02
Mark downey
And I think that brings you know brings no opportunity for growth and sustaining our economy in this area. So all that is at risk.
07:02.92
Sam Shirazi
And I should ask a kind of a follow up. You know, I often find doctors when patients come in, they often tell them a lot of the problems they're having and things that they're experiencing.
07:15.04
Sam Shirazi
ah ah You as a doctor, you know, what are you seeing when your patients are coming in? Are they telling you things that maybe aren't covered in the news necessarily? or Or what are some of the things that people are telling you as they they come to visit your office?
07:29.26
Mark downey
Well, lately, it's been a lot of questions, concerns about how federal policy may be changing towards vaccinations and in general, you know, healthcare and education support for their kids.
07:47.33
Mark downey
Obviously, i deal with pediatrics and their families, but it's it's we're seeing more and more questions about Are we gonna continue to make sure that our kids get the vaccinations that they need and required and making sure that our community is safe?
08:05.45
Mark downey
I think that's becoming more front of mind to people, things you Prior to the election cycle, we didn't have to worry about as much. I had a new parent, very first visit, they asked, are we still going to be allowed to get our child vaccinated? I'm like, absolutely.
08:22.10
Mark downey
And I'm planning on running for house of delegates to make sure that Virginia stays a state that really follows the science and data on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines and encouraging folks to keep up to date.
08:35.36
Sam Shirazi
Well, that's interesting to have that perspective and being able to talk to your patients about those issues. I did want to ask, so you mentioned you previously ran for the House of Delegates and you came up short in those races. What did you learn running previously that you're going to try to apply this time and hopefully and for you from your perspective have a different outcome?
08:58.23
Mark downey
Well, i I do this, well, I did in the first two elections. I'm planning on doing it this election. I'd like to share with folks that as a pediatrician, I take care of all walks of life. I take care of families that I know support more Republican candidates, Democratic candidates, independents, low income, medium income, high income.
09:19.81
Mark downey
i treat every individual in front of me every patient, the same, regardless of their background, their income status. And I think that allowed me to overperform in the first first two times I ran because I've earned that trust from individuals and families that may not see me solely as a Democratic candidate, but they see me as their pediatrician that they've trusted with their children and their grandchildren.
09:45.33
Mark downey
and I heard a lot of people on the doors last few times I ran, like saying, I've never voted for a Democrat before, but you've taken care of my kids for the last 15 years.
09:56.48
Mark downey
And I know you and I trust you. And, you know, you have my vote. And I think we we plan on leaning into that again this year, this cycle. And I think people are really...
10:07.62
Mark downey
looking for that, people that are are genuinely wanting to get into office help them, help their families, help their loved ones. And I think that's that's a winning message message. It should be a winning message every election cycle.
10:21.41
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, I think that's all helpful background and certainly gives some perspective on why doctors tend to be overperforming because people in the community know them and might like doctors more than they like lawyers who are typically running in elections.
10:35.23
Sam Shirazi
And you touched on this and in your previous answer, but you know I'd like to look at the different districts and this district slightly voted for Trump in November.
10:46.68
Sam Shirazi
But there is a part of the district over the York River in Gloucester, not a huge part of it, but about 10 percent of the district that's much redder. You talked about trying to win over some people. um know, what is your plan to try to convince people who vote who may have voted for President Trump in November vote for you this November?
11:05.100
Mark downey
Well, I think just like we need to compete in every district and ah across the Commonwealth, we need to you know make sure that we get our voice out and our message out to every precinct in our district, and including ones that traditionally haven't haven't favored the Democratic candidate.
11:25.34
Mark downey
But again, i have quite a few families and come across the river that seat that come to our practice. So I have families that I take care of over there as well.
11:35.45
Mark downey
So it's I don't plan on changing my message too much yeah over there, except letting them know that I am running. My opponent last time ran unopposed.
11:46.03
Mark downey
So let them know that there is an option out there if they're not happy with running. the current delegate and they not happy with what's happening at the state level or the federal level that there are, there's an option. And I, you know, I want to present myself as someone who is willing to listen, to understand their concerns and every district, every precinct is different.
12:08.24
Mark downey
And I understand that. And that's, I think ah ah my background as a physician allows me to yeah Take in information, answer questions, listen, and and find common ground. And I think that's what will win over voters, even in the reddest of precincts in my district.
12:25.69
Sam Shirazi
And I did want to ask a little bit about your district general. You know, tell me about the district. I think one thing I found interesting is politically it's it's kind of a 50-50 district. you know You know, why do you think that is? And and what but do you think people who aren't super familiar with that part of Virginia should know about your district?
12:46.31
Mark downey
Yes, actually, we have four separate counties and that are involved in cities in my in my district. I have two precincts in Gloucester County, two precincts in Newport News City, four in lower James City County, and 10 in York County.
13:02.86
Mark downey
And I think what makes it kind of competitive is that they're they are all different. But I think there is a common thread in that it tends to attract a lot of, it's more of a suburban area.
13:17.24
Mark downey
We get a lot of families that live here that work elsewhere, that work in Hampton, work in Newport News and Norfolk, also work up in Richmond. So I think we have a very highly educated, very engaged voting population in our precinct.
13:34.38
Mark downey
We have throughout Presidential elections, governor race, we have oftentimes the highest or some of the highest voter turnout for all of the Commonwealth.
13:46.60
Mark downey
And I think that speaks to the the the strength of our supporting committee, that we have a good established base, that we can reach out to feed people and make sure that each election cycle is emphasized and the importance of it.
14:02.20
Mark downey
And I think that allows us to really reach that you the people that we need to to get out to vote.
14:09.32
Sam Shirazi
Well, I will ask you one other question that's a little bit more fun because I visited your district recently and I actually really like that part of Virginia. I think it's really a beautiful part of Virginia and your district contains Yorktown and I believe it also contains Jamestown.
14:26.18
Sam Shirazi
and Busch Gardens, although I think technically Colonial Williamsburg is in the neighboring 71st District, but you can count it for that this area.
14:32.71
Mark downey
Correct.
14:35.12
Sam Shirazi
you know What's your favorite local attraction and and why do you think it's such a fun spot for people to come visit in terms of taking a vacation?
14:45.29
Mark downey
Well, growing up in York County, spent a lot of my youth along the York River, including Yorktown, but even along the parkway there, going going um going on walks on the beach, crabbing.
14:58.67
Mark downey
I have very fond memories of crabbing off of Yorktown Beach and collecting a bushel of crabs in two hours and going home and cooking them and picking them with my my parents and family.
15:12.53
Mark downey
So I think that image in my mind, that memory, is what really wanted me to come back to this area to allow my kids that experience it It has everything. It has access to the river. It has Columbia Williamsburg, Historic Jamestown, Yorktown.
15:33.08
Mark downey
you know Kids read about that in their kindergarten and elementary school classes, and then they can go and actually see and walk it and and be part of it. So I think that, to me, is one of the fun fondest memories that I have growing up here, and I want to preserve that and make sure that it is a great location for families to raise their kids and also for people to retire here. There's lots of adult education opportunities for the College Wayne Mary.
16:02.07
Mark downey
So I know a lot of people take advantage of that. It's just, it has something for everyone, including the thrill seekers at Busch Gardens and even Water Country. There's also Water Country here. So we have lots of, Great Wolf Lodge in Upper York County. So we have lots of attractions that can entertain people that are looking more for adrenaline.
16:20.10
Mark downey
adrenaline
16:22.43
Sam Shirazi
Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about your campaign and also about your district. Last question, how can people find out more about your campaign?
16:30.74
Mark downey
Well, thanks again for having me on. And i ah ah look forward to reaching out to more and more voters. And one way that they can find out more about my campaign is going to my website at downeyforvirginia.com.
16:44.84
Mark downey
We have opportunities to learn more about my campaign and hopefully join our campaign and volunteer going forward in the election cycle.
16:54.15
Sam Shirazi
All right. Well, thank you so much again. i appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. And this has been Federal Fallout, and I'll join you next time.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.70
Sam Shirazi
Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over two new Virginia polls, talk about early voting picking up, and finally, we will talk about Elon Musk perhaps exiting the political stage.
00:17.57
Sam Shirazi
But first, I wanted to note the passing of Congressman Jerry Connolly. This is an immense loss for Northern Virginia and all of Virginia. And I know that he will be missed in Fairfax, which he represented for so long.
00:32.81
Sam Shirazi
Everyone knows how much he loved Fairfax and how hard he fought for it. I will always be grateful for his advocacy of the Silver Line, which brought Metro to Dulles Airport and led to the redevelopment of Tysons, Herndon, Reston, and all the way out to Loudoun.
00:49.57
Sam Shirazi
I think this will be an important part of his legacy, and I just wanted to make that note of his passing and send my best wishes to his family, friends, and his colleagues.
01:00.87
Sam Shirazi
Okay, now we will move on to the first Virginia polls we have gotten in a while. The first poll was from Roanoke College, and it had Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger at 43% of the vote, Republican nominee Winsome Earle Sears at 26% of the vote, and Undecided at 28%.
01:22.63
Sam Shirazi
And in terms of Trump's approval rating, it was 31 to 65 disapproving of President Trump's approval. And in terms of Yunkin, he had a 46 to 48 percent disapproval, which I believe this is the first poll I've seen, at least in a long time, where Governor Yunkin actually had a negative approval ratings.
01:42.91
Sam Shirazi
So I wanted to caveat a couple of things about this poll. One is that there's just a lot of undecideds. I mean, it's pretty rare to see a poll where you have the Democratic and Republican candidates listed that has that level of undecideds.
01:57.37
Sam Shirazi
I there probably are a decent amount of undecideds, just given that the election is still a few months away and people aren't really thinking about it. But I think if you put a D and an R next to someone's name, usually, at least in a state like Virginia,
02:09.12
Sam Shirazi
that'll get you up to at least 40% off the bat. And so the fact that there's 28% undecided is a little bit odd in this poll, but you know it shows that Spanberger definitely has maybe higher name ID and or she has higher support among her base in the Democratic Party.
02:27.36
Sam Shirazi
Maybe that's something that Lieutenant Governor Earle Sears needs to work on to get her numbers up. think at a minimum, even on the worst possible night for the Republicans, Winston Earle Sears is going to get at least 40% of the vote. So I just, I would kind of caveat some of these numbers.
02:44.20
Sam Shirazi
And I will say that I think, you know, in my personal opinion, I think this poll is a little bit too good to be true for Democrats. In terms of Trump's approval rating, like I think, you know, I certainly think he's he's negative in Virginia.
02:57.04
Sam Shirazi
I don't know if he's at 31% approval in Virginia. I mean, if you told me he's maybe at 35% or 40%, that seems a little bit more believable. I think 31% is really low, given that, you know, again, Virginia is not a super blue state. I think, you know, on a and any random night, the Republicans are going to get 40% of the vote.
03:16.62
Sam Shirazi
And so not every person that votes for the Republicans is always going to be supporting President Trump. But it's hard for me to believe that he's at 31% approval in Virginia. And then with Governor Youngkin, you know, this is the first poll that I've seen in a while that he's had negative approval ratings.
03:33.78
Sam Shirazi
I imagine his approval probably has come down from some of the highs that you saw earlier because of some of the things that have been going on with the federal fallout and the impact of cuts to the federal government.
03:45.27
Sam Shirazi
But at the same time, you know, it's Virginia governors usually, I mean this is a trend that's gone back, you know, 20 years or so, they almost always have positive approval for whatever reason, people like their Virginia governor, it doesn't matter if they're Democrat, doesn't matter if they're Republican, they almost always have positive approval for whatever reason.
04:02.90
Sam Shirazi
And it's possible that polarization is catching up to that. And now people are starting to maybe not like their governor if they feel like you know, the federal cuts are hitting Virginia. But overall, I would say like, this is certainly a good poll for the Democrats. Sometimes when the polls seem a little bit too good to be true, I tend to be a little bit cautious and take it with a grain of salt. But I think it's the couple things that are kind of indisputable right now is almost certainly Trump has a negative approval in Virginia.
04:32.12
Sam Shirazi
and I think most people would say that the The Democrats with Abigail Spanberger have a little bit of an edge right now in the governor's race. So I think you're kind of seeing that reflected in this poll. Maybe the exact numbers aren't exactly correct, but I think it's kind of in the ballpark of where I'm seeing things.
04:47.54
Sam Shirazi
Okay. And now there was another poll put out the same day. This one was from an organization called Virginia Free, which is, I would say, a more pro-business deregulation type organization. it was led by a former GOP delegate, Chris Saxman.
05:06.57
Sam Shirazi
They put out a poll from Harris X, which is a polling organization. And their poll showed little bit of a different thing than the Romano College poll. So this poll showed Abigail Spanberger at 52%, Winsome Earle Sears at 48%. It had the Trump approval as 44 to 56 disapproval, and it had the Youngkin numbers as 54 to 41% approved.
05:36.47
Sam Shirazi
I think the Trump approval with being negative 12 in Virginia, it's also possible. I think, you know, given his national numbers, you would think it would be a little bit lower than negative 12 approval. Youngkin plus 13 approval in Virginia probably sounds maybe closer to the ballpark.
05:52.01
Sam Shirazi
than the Roanoke College number. So long story short, I mean, you never want to just take one poll and kind of hyper fixate on the numbers in one poll. I think if you have the Roanoke College poll and then you have the Harris X poll and you kind of throw them together and you kind of get a sense of, okay, what's going on.
06:06.38
Sam Shirazi
And I think it both those polls, you know, even if you look at the Harris X poll, like the most favorable you would think for Trump would be negative 12 approval in Virginia. And that's just a very hard number for the Republicans to run on. So
06:19.07
Sam Shirazi
Frankly, I think negative 12 approval in Virginia is a good outcome type night for the Virginia GOP. It's very possible that Trump would have a lower approval in Virginia just given the impact of the federal cuts.
06:30.54
Sam Shirazi
And so if you're looking at that environment and you're looking at, you know, Spanberger being up by four, I mean, that's kind of in the ballpark. I mean, frankly, you know, this is just my personal guess right now.
06:41.80
Sam Shirazi
I think that's kind of the lower end of what the Democrats might be able to get. i think the upper end might be, I don't think Spanberger is going to be winning by the number in the Roanoke College poll, which is 17%. But I do think, you know, double digit, like 10 point lead is not out of the question.
06:59.57
Sam Shirazi
I don't know if that's the number right now, but by November, we might be getting to that point when all the voters tune in. And the campaign issues really start hitting. And so all that's to say is I think these polls are interesting. We haven't had a polls in a long time. I'm glad we got them.
07:15.42
Sam Shirazi
But I wouldn't overthink them. i think the the main takeaway is, you know, and if you ask observers on both sides, they'll say that they think the Democrats right now are up a little bit in Virginia.
07:28.05
Sam Shirazi
And that doesn't mean they're definitely going to win in November. A lot of time still left. But I do think, you know, you have to just kind of get it ah sense of where things are right now and, I think it's reasonable to assume Democrats have a little bit of an edge.
07:41.17
Sam Shirazi
We'll have to wait and see what happens in the summer. Typically in the summer, there's a little bit of a lull. And then after Labor Day, that's kind of the old adage, that's the beginning of the fall campaign. And early voting starts pretty quickly right after Labor Day.
07:54.53
Sam Shirazi
And so we'll have to get another pulse check at the end of summer to see where things are. I think this was helpful to get it at this time the year. I'm sure we'll get some more polls. I'll obviously talk about those polls. And I don't always want to spend all this time talking about polls, but I do think it's important because we haven't gotten them in a while.
08:12.48
Sam Shirazi
think they both roughly show the same thing. Again, not getting hyper fixated on the numbers, but I think both polls show that Trump's approval is negative in Virginia. And I think the political reality is, is if Trump has a negative approval, and if it's hitting double digit negative approval, that means the Democrats are almost certainly going to have an edge in the governor's race right now. And, you know, the exact margin of the governor's race.
08:36.04
Sam Shirazi
matters for down ballot for lieutenant governor, attorney general, House of delegates. So I'm not saying, you know, we'll need more precise information down the line with some more polls when we get closer to the election day to get a sense of where things are going.
08:49.41
Sam Shirazi
But at least at the top of the ticket, think most people are anticipating that the Democrats have a little bit of an edge right now. And we'll just have to wait and see where things shape up as the summer goes on.
09:00.79
Sam Shirazi
All right. Now let's move on to early voting, which is definitely picking up steam. It's hard to believe. We basically had like three weeks of early voting already. And we have more early voting all the way up to the June 17th primary.
09:13.48
Sam Shirazi
The first half of early voting, which we've seen so far, I would say primarily is from the permanent absentee list. So that's a lot of mail ballots coming in. There have been a trickle of in-person early votes, but definitely the bulk of the early vote right now is by mail. So I would say by the time this podcast is released, there's probably going to be almost 75,000 ballots either cast or being sent in through the mail.
09:38.29
Sam Shirazi
And you know the vast majority of that, more than two-thirds of that, are going to be mail votes that have come through the permanent absentee list. And I know I talk about the permanent absentee list a lot, but I just wanted to kind of show you how much it's changed Virginia voting patterns.
09:51.82
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, how many votes are just coming in through the permanent permanent absentee list? I mean, we've already got tens of thousands of votes in the permanent absentee list. And, you know, it's just skyrocketed the number of early votes that we see, particularly early in the process. So I will say, as we get closer to election day or primary day,
10:11.66
Sam Shirazi
There'll be a lot more in-person votes. The mail but ballots will start to slow down because a lot of them, people have already filled it out and sent it in. So I do expect the in-person early vote to really pick up. It's going to pick up a lot when there's two Saturdays of early voting.
10:25.31
Sam Shirazi
That means people are going to be able to go during the weekend when maybe they don't have to work. And so I think those two Saturdays will see a lot more early voting. And I'd be curious where the final early voting number ends. I mean, at this point, it's hard to predict, but I wouldn't be surprised if we hit 150,000 just in the early vote.
10:42.24
Sam Shirazi
And again, a bulk a lot of that is going to come from the permanent absentee list. And that's why we're seeing so much early vote right now in Virginia. And what all this early voting is doing is just turning it. It's really ratcheting up all the turnout in Virginia overall. And I'll talk about a few elections to give you some context. So in 2013, there was a Democratic primary.
11:03.32
Sam Shirazi
for lieutenant governor and attorney general, but there was no governor primary. And that's very similar to what happened right now in Virginia. But in that election, there were just 145,000 total votes in the Democratic primary in 2013.
11:16.44
Sam Shirazi
And remember, I said this year, just in the early vote in Virginia, we're going to get probably close to that, if not more than that. So it just shows you what changes in early voting And also engagement can do when in 2013 we had 145,000 total votes.
11:33.02
Sam Shirazi
And this year in Virginia, we're probably going to have roughly that number in just the early voting. And then obviously we're going to bunch of election day votes as well. So I think and we'll talk about a couple other elections to show you why the turnout has gone up so much in Virginia.
11:47.48
Sam Shirazi
All right. I will talk about the 2017 Democratic primary for governor. And there was also lieutenant governor primary that year. And that year, there was a lot of turnout in Virginia. There was almost 545,000 votes in 2017.
12:04.13
Sam Shirazi
Now, obviously, a governor's race is going to bump up the numbers a lot compared to a lieutenant governor's race. But I also think a lot of that was from the increased engagement that we saw after the 2016 election. And I do think in a lot of these primaries, there's kind of a time period where before the Trump era, where there were some people who voted, but not a whole lot. And then the Trump era just really ratcheted up engagement among Democrats and Republicans.
12:30.97
Sam Shirazi
And so we saw in 2017, even before all the changes to early voting, that there was 545,000 early votes in Virginia. So we went from hundred forty five thousand In 2013, with just the lieutenant governor's race, 2016, Donald Trump's elected.
12:48.07
Sam Shirazi
And that's just four years. So really a huge explosion, over three times the number of people voting from 2013 to 2017 because of the increased engagement that Donald Trump brought into the process.
12:59.99
Sam Shirazi
All right, now let's fast forward to 2021. And remember, in 2021, it was a lot easier to early vote because the Democrats had removed the need to have an excuse to early vote.
13:11.32
Sam Shirazi
And so it was much easier to early vote. The permanent absentee list hadn't been up and running yet, but still, it was a lot easier to early vote in 2021 than was 2017. And yet, in 2021, was only about 495,000 votes in the Democratic primaries.
13:24.07
Sam Shirazi
And if you think about it, that's a drop from 2017 from where we had almost 545,000 votes in the Democratic primary to 495,000. And, you know, I think at the time that should have been a little bit of a red flag because early voting was easier.
13:44.40
Sam Shirazi
So you would think there would be even more people turning out for a governor primary in 2021 compared to However, obviously, 2020, Joe Biden was elected president. And so we didn't have the same level of maybe and engagement or enthusiasm among Democrats in 2021.
14:00.91
Sam Shirazi
And so maybe the numbers in the primary were a little bit of a preview of what happened in November of 2021 when the Democrats lost the governor's race. And if you think about what happened in 2017, the Democrats got a big win in the governor's race because obviously the people who came out in the primary, they were engaged. They kept voting in the in the general election.
14:20.67
Sam Shirazi
And in 2021, we just had a different environment. Democrats were not as fired up, and we saw that eventual outcome in November. So I give you all those numbers to kind of think about 2025 and where we are.
14:33.78
Sam Shirazi
So I'm guessing we're going to get at least 150,000 roughly early votes in Virginia. And typically the rule in Virginia is that a third of the votes come early, and then two-thirds of them come during the actual election day.
14:49.97
Sam Shirazi
I think this year, probably there's going to be a little bit more on the early voting side just because of the permanent absentee list. So the permit absentee list is like bumping up turnout because some people who probably wouldn't have voted in the primary But because they got that a mail ballot in the mail, they realized there was a primary, they started to vote. So the permanent absentee list definitely starts bumping up the turnout. So I think we're going to have a little bit more early vote this year.
15:12.74
Sam Shirazi
But I do think we're going to hit roughly 400,000 total votes this year in Virginia for the Democratic primary. I think on a good night, it can be more than that. And I'm going to be really curious to see if we're going to be able to hit the 2021 number which I think is probably unrealistic. So 2021, remember, there was almost 495,000 votes.
15:34.36
Sam Shirazi
That was a governor primary. So obviously, governor primary, a lot more people are going to pay attention. There's more money in governor pra campaigns. You had more people competing in the governor race. So I think it's unlikely that we're going to hit 495,000 total votes this year in Virginia just with the lieutenant governor's and attorney general's race. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility, but I'm thinking more somewhere around 400,000, you know, and and on a good night, it can be more than that.
16:03.90
Sam Shirazi
But it is important to just kind of think that through. So I think if the if the Democrats get around 400,000 votes in the Democratic primary, I think that's still a very solid number, especially considering the 2013 number.
16:15.88
Sam Shirazi
And given that, you know, realistically, yeah there's not a governor primary. And so it's going to be pretty engaged people who end up voting. So I think getting up to 400,000 is a pretty strong number for the Democratic primary.
16:29.86
Sam Shirazi
We'll see what happens. and And I should say there there are there is also some early voting in the Republican primary. You really can't use it to compare it to the Democratic primary. And the numbers are much less.
16:40.98
Sam Shirazi
And the the numbers on the Republican side generally for the primary are going to be a lot less because realistically, they only have House of Delegates primaries in a handful of districts. And there are some local districts Republican primaries for local offices.
16:55.83
Sam Shirazi
So there's just no really we really way to compare the Democratic and Republican primaries. Some years where they both have governor primaries, it's kind of interesting. You see how many Democrats voted, you see how many Republicans voted, but it's just not possible to do that this year because it really is such an apples to oranges comparison.
17:11.42
Sam Shirazi
And I guess the last thing I should make a point I should make on this this area is that you hear a lot about the importance of primaries, and particularly in 2026, we might see more primaries on the Democratic side and incumbents facing primaries.
17:25.14
Sam Shirazi
and think there's a big debate about are primaries good or bad? you know, one school of thought I would say is more kind of the quote unquote establishment school of thought is that primaries, they take money away from the general election.
17:37.64
Sam Shirazi
And then sometimes because, you know, the people coming out in the primaries are are the most progressive people generally, because they're the ones who are pretty committed Democrats, it causes the candidates to take more left wing positions that will generally be not as popular in the general election. And so you kind of It leads to candidates being less popular in the long run because um have to both spend money on the primary and then they have to take these positions, which might hurt them in the general election.
18:05.54
Sam Shirazi
Now, that's one school of thought. I think the other possibility or the other school of thought is actually primaries are good because. The candidate has to test themselves first in the primary, has to appeal to voters in a primary, win that election, and it gets more people engaged because both candidates are bringing in their people and usually, or there could be multiple candidates running, and usually that engages different parts of the base.
18:26.91
Sam Shirazi
And it's not just the same people who coming out in these elections. And then the the candidate that goes into the general election is much stronger because they've already gone through that process and there's more people engaged in the election.
18:40.66
Sam Shirazi
And I think there's examples of both. So if you you think about 2017, you had a primary for the governor's race on the Democratic side. There was Tom Perriolo, who was challenging Ralph Northam in that primary, and Ralph Northam ended up winning.
18:54.01
Sam Shirazi
I think that was a pretty clean primary between Perriolo being a little bit more progressive, Northam being a little bit more establishment. Both sides really got engaged. Both sides brought out their voters.
19:04.92
Sam Shirazi
Northam won that primary. And I think that kept people engaged in the process. And obviously Northam got a big win in November. So I think that's the example of a primary where it actually was a net positive. I think Northam probably came out of that primary stronger because he had to compete for those votes. And he and after the primary, you you know the progressives that were fired up by Tom Perriello, they kind of continued with the Democrats and they were able to win in November of 2017 with a big victory.
19:30.81
Sam Shirazi
You could talk about 2021 maybe being a little bit of a different example on the Democratic democratic side where you had Terry McAuliffe who was being challenged by three by four different people and there was a sense that it was a bit of a coronation and People got a little bit jaded by the process and and it might have hurt McAuliffe a little bit in the general election.
19:52.43
Sam Shirazi
Now, I don't know if it ultimately was that big of a deal. and And I don't think that's why he lost the election. But it just shows you that primaries can be tricky. Obviously, this year for governor, we don't have a primary for either candidate. So neither of them are going to have a primary. It's an open question about whether, you know, the fact that Democrats have a primary for lieutenant governor, attorney general.
20:41.61
Sam Shirazi
ah
20:42.03
Sam Shirazi
And I think generally that points to Democrats being probably more engaged after the election of Donald Trump. And so we'll just have to wait and see what the final numbers are going look like. Obviously, after the primary, I'll do kind of more of a breakdown once I have the final numbers and kind of give a better sense of what the Democratic primary numbers might mean for November.
21:02.29
Sam Shirazi
All right. One more topic before I sign off for this podcast, and that's about Elon Musk. So this week, Elon Musk said, quote, I think in terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future.
21:15.95
Sam Shirazi
And he added, i think I've done enough. So just for some context, obviously, what Elon Musk got really involved in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April. He spent a lot of money. He went on the campaign trail.
21:29.33
Sam Shirazi
And that didn't exactly work out because Democrats were able to win that Supreme Court race by 10 percent. And I think after that, there was a general sense that Elon Musk was going to be a liability for group Republicans if he was able to continue campaigning in that role.
21:44.16
Sam Shirazi
And I think this news overall, I think the Virginia GOP is probably breathing a sigh of relief. While I'm sure you know they wouldn't necessarily mind having more money, I don't think they would have wanted the money directly from Elon Musk with all the strings attached and also the Democrats being able to run on that issue and basically portray the Republicans as being the party of Elon Musk.
22:07.73
Sam Shirazi
I do think there was a world where if Elon Musk kind of came in like he did in Wisconsin, it was not going to end well for the Virginia GOP.
22:15.03
Sam Shirazi
So overall, I think, and it was an open question. I mean, you know, I think if the Wisconsin Supreme Court race had gone a different way, i think it was very possible that Elon Musk would continue getting involved in these campaigns.
22:26.98
Sam Shirazi
And so I think one question we had for November is a little bit answered. I don't think Elon Musk is going to be directly on the campaign trail like he was in Wisconsin. I think the bigger question is, will Elon Musk and or people associated with him kind of try to find a way to give money to the Republicans in Virginia or set up PACs so that they can spend money on their own in Virginia?
22:48.53
Sam Shirazi
It's hard to tell. I mean, I think that money would eventually appear somewhere in the campaign records. And the thing with Virginia is there's unlimited campaign contributions directly to the campaigns, but you have to disclose that. And while, you know, if you gave a thousand dollars or $2,000 here and there, you know, it's not really going to raise anyone's eyebrows, but if you start seeing checks that are half a million, a million dollars, eventually people are going to figure out, okay, there's money coming from somewhere and they're to try to track it down. So,
23:16.55
Sam Shirazi
While I think it's possible that money still kind of gets the Republicans um from Elon Musk and or his supporters, I do think it's it's somewhat hot hard to hide it. I mean, it's not impossible, but you just have to kind of see what happens as we head into the November election.
23:34.70
Sam Shirazi
And I think for Democrats, I mean, there's still very much going to be running against Elon Musk and or Doge. I think the issue is not going away. Obviously, the cuts the federal the cuts to workers and the the federal spending that's been cut, I mean, that is not going to go away. And regardless of Elon Musk who's on the campaign trail.
23:52.94
Sam Shirazi
or not, Democrats are going to be talking about that issue. And, you know, I think we've seen a little bit of a shift in Democratic mis messaging. They still mention Elon Musk. I think he's still important. But given that he's taken a step back and he's not as public as he was certainly during the first couple months of the Trump administration, I think we'll see him a little bit less even in the Democratic ads. I think the focus will be more on Trump more on the cuts and maybe trying to link that with Trump. And obviously they're going to try to link it with, to governor Youngkin and Lieutenant governor went to Earle Sears.
24:26.12
Sam Shirazi
I think with Elon Musk, everyone kind of knew that was not going to go well for the Virginia GOP. They knew that the Democrats knew that. And I think that's part of the reason Elon Musk has stepped back because I think I didn't hear any Virginia Republicans screaming, I really hope Elon Musk comes campaigns in my district. I think they all kind of knew that was not going to end well for them.
24:46.52
Sam Shirazi
I think the big question mark is Donald Trump, because the Republican Party right now is basically Trump's party.
24:53.51
Sam Shirazi
And the Republican candidates generally are not going to be able to run away from Donald Trump because they they fall in this trap where if they run away from Donald Trump, I mean, there, there's a whole MAGA base that's going to get upset with them and they're going to try to keep them in line and try to keep the Republican candidates this year in Virginia from back. They're going try to make sure that they are backing Donald Trump.
25:15.02
Sam Shirazi
Obviously the Democrats on the other side are going to have the exact opposite strategy where they're going to say, yes, these people are totally with Trump and, and the Republicans in Virginia are totally but back backing Trump.
25:27.45
Sam Shirazi
And, The Republicans running in Virginia aren't going to deny that because they can't do that. And so I do think the Republicans are in a tough place in Virginia with Donald Trump, because realistically, Donald Trump, I mean, almost certainly is going to have a negative approval rating in Virginia. I mean, it's hard for me to imagine a scenario where by November, Trump's approval is going to be positive in Virginia.
25:47.46
Sam Shirazi
And if you think about it. you know November 2024, Donald Trump was probably at his height of popularity in Virginia, and he's still lost by 6%. And what has happened since November 2024, there have been cuts to the federal government. There's been federal employees let go. i mean, I just can't imagine a scenario where he's going to be more popular than he was in November 2024 in Virginia.
26:10.71
Sam Shirazi
I'm not saying that Donald Trump has no base of support in Virginia. He certainly... Still very popular in parts of Southwest Virginia and Shenandoah Valley and Southside Virginia. i mean, there are clearly a lot of people in Virginia who do support Donald Trump, but that almost creates this problem for the Virginia GOP because they need those Trump supporters to come out and vote for the Republicans.
26:31.22
Sam Shirazi
But they also probably need people who don't approve of Donald Trump to vote for the Republicans this year in Virginia. And that's a very hard line to walk. And if you think about 2021, Governor Youngkin was able to walk that line because he was able to not alienate the Trump supporters, but he was able to win enough independent and moderate voters in the suburbs where he was able to win the election.
26:53.18
Sam Shirazi
Obviously, Donald Trump was not president in 2021. We had joe biden There's a lot of different factors in play. i think this year with Donald Trump in the White House, it's just going to be very difficult for the Virginia GOP to keep their arms distanced from Trump, but then to try to appeal to the moderate voters because you risk alienating the Trump people if you are too critical or you're you're not close enough to Donald Trump if you're a Republican this year in Virginia.
27:21.51
Sam Shirazi
And we saw a little bit of this recently where I think there were some articles that came out about Governor Winslow Merrill Sears and one of them was about some photos that she had on her campaign website.
27:33.20
Sam Shirazi
Now they were some pretty bland stock photos that she got and she put on her website. I think one of them, they forgot to remove the serial number of the photo or something like that, which you know in the grand scheme of things is pretty minor, but it's not a great look if you're a campaign.
27:49.10
Sam Shirazi
But what I thought was really interesting was that Chris LaSavita, who was a senior advisor to President Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign, he said that he said that this showed that the winsome Earl Sears campaign was being run by amateurs. And so, you know, he didn't have to say that. Obviously there's a reason he said that. I think maybe it was to send kind of a warning shot to say like, Hey, you guys got to step up your game.
28:18.18
Sam Shirazi
It's also possible. He's trying to show that, um know, he, Trump world may not be super happy with Winston Merle Sears because, there were times in the past where she has kind of distanced herself from Trump.
28:29.40
Sam Shirazi
Currently, she's not necessarily running away from Trump, but she isn't necessarily also talking about him every day. And so I think she's in a tough spot because she she knows that Either way, it's kind of a no-win proposition. If she gets too close to Trump, then the Democrats are going to use that and slam her for being too close to Trump.
28:48.74
Sam Shirazi
I think if she starts dissing herself too much from Trump, then MAGA world is going to get upset. And so all that's to say is like Elon Musk may be out of the picture for now. And maybe the Virginia GOP don't have to worry too much about Elon Musk. But I do think there's this unresolved question about what they do with Donald Trump.
29:06.43
Sam Shirazi
And does Donald Trump come to campaign in Virginia? you know, there's been two examples of that kind of backfiring in Virginia history. So in 2005, very late in the campaign,
29:17.12
Sam Shirazi
George W. Bush came to campaign in Virginia for the Republican nominee for governor. And the general consensus is that that didn't really help the Republicans. And if anything, that helped Tim Kaine win in 2005. And in 2021, we saw a few instances where President Biden came in to campaign for Terry McAuliffe.
29:34.82
Sam Shirazi
And the Republicans were really able to use that against McAuliffe and to help fire up their own base. Now, do I think those two visits by themselves led to the losses those years? No. But I do think it's going to be interesting. does President Trump hold campaign rallies in Virginia.
29:50.28
Sam Shirazi
Maybe he holds them in rural areas that might help drive the turnout for the Republicans, but you got to think that's going that might have hurt the Republicans in other parts of Virginia where Donald Trump's less popular. So I think it's going to be really interesting. I started off this podcast. My first episode was called the Doge election question mark.
30:09.83
Sam Shirazi
I think Doge is very much still going to be a part of this election. I think Elon Musk might be taking backseat in the election a little bit more than he was maybe in the beginning of the year, but certainly he's not out of the picture either.
30:23.29
Sam Shirazi
And I think Donald Trump's going to be the big question mark heading into the November campaign. So all that's to say is there's a lot going on in Virginia. I'm going to cover it all. I think we're getting close to the primary, which will be really interesting. And then once the primary is over, we're going to be heading into the general election. So a lot of stuff going on in Virginia. I hope if you enjoy this podcast,
30:41.88
Sam Shirazi
Please do share it. You know, I think it's it's always good for people to know about what's going on in Virginia. If you know people who are interested in politics, feel free to mention the podcast to them and share it with them.
30:53.24
Sam Shirazi
If you feel like writing a review and giving it positive reviews, feel free to do that. I think that definitely helps people know about the podcast. So I'm going to keep trying to do this all the way through the election, and I hope you will continue to stay with me. And for now, that is Federal Fallout, and I will join you next week.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.46
Sam Shirazi
Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, I will be checking in on the Federal Fallout because obviously the premise of this show has been that what's been going on in Washington, D.C is going to affect the Virginia elections this year. And I've been covering other topics and they're all very interesting, but I haven't really spent a whole lot on the federal fallout issue in a while. And I wanted to check in because there were two pieces of interesting news that I wanted to talk about.
00:41.59
Sam Shirazi
So at the University of Virginia, they have something called the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. And every once in a while, they will put out different studies and different forecasts.
00:52.60
Sam Shirazi
And so recently they put out a forecast about the job losses in Virginia this year. And according to this forecast, they say that about 32,000 net jobs will be lost in Virginia this year.
01:05.07
Sam Shirazi
That means Virginia won't be creating jobs. That means that 32,000 jobs will be lost. And obviously, main cause of that is the federal fallout in in regards to what's going on with all the federal cuts.
01:16.45
Sam Shirazi
Now, I should say this is a forecast. Things can change. I don't want to take it 100% certain Virginia is going to be losing jobs. It's possible that Virginia gains jobs this year, forecast change. So you know I would take the specific number with a little bit of grain of salt. But I think the broader point is still there that Virginia is seeing job losses, both directly from people getting fired, but also from businesses that are suffering, specifically government contractors. So a lot of government contractors, they technically aren't employees of the federal government.
01:45.36
Sam Shirazi
But they are making money off the federal government through these contracts. And so there have been a lot of contracts that have been cut. And so obviously, if you're a contractor, your contract's been cut. You can't play it pay your employees. You have to let your employees go.
01:56.81
Sam Shirazi
So that's another source of job losses. And I think the other thing I should mention... which I don't think is talked about a lot in the news, is the fact that a lot of federal employees are leaving under either early retirement or through incentives to leave the federal government, such as the original fork in the road that Doge offered where people would be able to leave the federal government, still get paid until September 30th while they were not working.
02:25.26
Sam Shirazi
And a lot of times those people who've left through these voluntary early separations are not necessarily counted as technically being fired. They aren't necessarily eligible for unemployment. So you may not see them in the official statistics, but they are still very much being affected by what's going on in the federal government.
02:45.04
Sam Shirazi
And I guess the the one other thing I should mention along these lines is Obviously, Northern Virginia has a lot of federal employees who work in D.C. who commute into D.C. And so while they may not have been technically jobs located within Virginia, if someone either voluntarily leaves or they are being fired from their job in Washington, D.C., that may be reflected in the Washington, D.C. employment numbers.
03:08.18
Sam Shirazi
But it's going to affect Virginia because obviously people who come come back to Virginia after they work in D.C. They're bringing most of their money and most of their paycheck back to Virginia.
03:18.81
Sam Shirazi
And so we're seeing a lot of these effects from the federal fallout about what's going on in D.C. And The Washington Post recently did a poll of the D.C. area, but they had specific questions about Northern Virginia. So they asked people in Northern Virginia,
03:34.19
Sam Shirazi
About the federal cuts and only 25% of people in Northern Virginia approved of them and 68% disapproved. And then they asked people about whether the federal cuts will help or hurt the DC area economy.
03:47.93
Sam Shirazi
76% said it would hurt the D.C. area economy, while only 12% said it would help the D.C. area economy. Now, obviously, Northern Virginia is known for being a blue area, and obviously, Northern Virginia is very impacted by the cuts in the federal government.
03:59.97
Sam Shirazi
So these numbers are not super surprising, and that's about what you expect to see. And I think some Virginia Republicans, their response would be, well, what do you expect? It's Northern Virginia. Of course, they're not going to like the just the cuts to the federal government.
04:12.74
Sam Shirazi
And these people aren't going to vote for the Republicans anyways. I mean, I think there's certainly some truth in that. I think the problem for the Republicans is they need some people in Northern Virginia to vote for them. And if you look at 2021, part of the secrets to the success of Glenn Youngkin was that he was able to keep the margins in Northern Virginia, particularly the outer suburbs of Loudoun and Prince William, somewhat competitive.
04:36.51
Sam Shirazi
And he wasn't totally blown away in Northern Virginia. And so while he didn't win Northern Virginia, the margins were close enough where combined with some good turnout in the rest of the state, he was able to win in 2021. And he really improved on President Trump's 2020 performance in Virginia. And that's part of the reason why he was able to win.
04:54.76
Sam Shirazi
And so if you think about what happened in 2024, former Vice President Harris was able to win win Virginia by about six points.
05:02.91
Sam Shirazi
So if you think about a Republican this year in Virginia, they have to do better than what President Trump did in 2024, because obviously President Trump didn't win Virginia in 2024.
05:11.82
Sam Shirazi
And so when you look at those dynamics, I mean, i think it's it's getting tricky for the Virginia GOP because I don't know exactly what the plan is in terms of trying to win Northern Virginia voters over or at least not lose as many of them as President Trump did in 2024.
05:30.69
Sam Shirazi
And I guess the other thing I should mention is in the Northern Virginia area, there are four House seats in the House of Delegates that could be competitive this year. So that's House District 22 in middle Prince William County.
05:43.94
Sam Shirazi
There's House District 30 in western Loudoun County. There's House District 64 that is in middle stafford and there is house district 66 which is in spotsylvania county for the most part and all four of those districts are currently held by the republicans the democrats are targeting those four seats and those are basically the last four seats in Northern Virginia that the republicans have been able to hold on to and you know i think traditionally those have been republican districts.
06:13.28
Sam Shirazi
There's an open question about whether some of those people in those districts who have voted for Republicans in the past may be open to voting for Democrats this time, either because they've been directly impacted by what's going on in the federal government or they know people who've been impacted, or even if they aren't really connected the federal government, maybe their businesses have or the place they work has seen a slowdown because of what's going on with the federal government.
06:34.65
Sam Shirazi
And if you think about what happened in 2017 in Virginia, so there were a lot of Republican seats, surprisingly, in places like Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, that had been Republican for a long time. And everyone just assumed, well, yeah, these are kind of traditional Republican seats.
06:49.27
Sam Shirazi
And the Democrats were able to flip some of those seats really easily in some cases because of the backlash to the first Trump administration. And by the end of the Trump administration, there were no Republicans left in Fairfax County at the House of Delegates or state Senate level.
07:06.59
Sam Shirazi
And I think there's a possibility if there's a lot of federal fallout in Northern Virginia that the same thing could happen with these last seats in Prince William, Loudoun and Stafford.
07:17.56
Sam Shirazi
And the other thing I should mention, I mean, I think a lot of the federal fallout has directly hit the civilian side of things with different agencies with different agencies. For example, we've seen a lot about USAID and the Department of Education and Health and Human Services. So those have been the the agencies most directly impacted and where we've seen a lot of news about the changes to those agencies.
07:42.24
Sam Shirazi
But I also think it's an interesting thing to see what happens if, for example, some of the the workers who are in and around military bases, are they seeing the federal fallout? Are they feeling differently about what's going on in D.C.?
07:55.89
Sam Shirazi
And if that's the case, I mean, that affects a lot of people. So there are military bases in the Richmond area and certainly in Hampton Roads. There's a lot of military bases. And I'm not going to go through every single district, but I mean, there are a lot of districts where the Republicans are trying to hold on.
08:09.22
Sam Shirazi
to seats where potentially the changes and the impacts of the federal government could make a difference in November. So again, i think the conventional wisdom is that this is going to help Democrats. Democrats are certainly running on this issue. They are talking about how they are focused on helping Virginia and wanting to help the federal workers who are been losing their jobs.
08:29.86
Sam Shirazi
And they they're attacking the Republicans for not doing that and for basically backing what President Trump is doing. And so, you know, the conventionalism is you would think that would play pretty well, at least in Northern Virginia, if not in other parts of Virginia.
08:42.66
Sam Shirazi
And I did want to step back and kind of maybe Think about that. And is there a scenario where maybe the federal fallout will not be that big? I mean, I think the Republican story or plan is that, well, yeah, there's these impacts to the federal government. Yeah, Virginia is kind of dependent on federal jobs and federal spending.
09:02.86
Sam Shirazi
But again, those people mainly vote for the Democrats anyways. And there's a lot of different parts of Virginia and maybe Southwest Virginia or the Shenandoah Valley or Southside Virginia. I mean, those people are much more supportive of what President Trump is doing.
09:15.83
Sam Shirazi
And if you know they get really fired up because they support President Trump and his agenda and they come out in huge numbers, then the it doesn't really matter what's going on in these other parts of Virginia because the the Republicans are still going to be able to win this year.
09:29.60
Sam Shirazi
I mean, I think the the problem with that thinking and the problem for the Republicans is that those areas have gotten close to maxing out. So maxing out is when you've kind of hit your peak in terms of the votes you can get out of those counties.
09:44.97
Sam Shirazi
And so if you think about Southwest Virginia, there are parts of Southwest Virginia where the Republicans are getting 80 plus percent of the vote. And I mean, at some point, there's really not much else you can get out of those places.
09:55.92
Sam Shirazi
Whereas think part of the reason President Trump did better in 2024 than he did in 2020 is because he really did do better in Northern Virginia to a certain extent. And particularly among, let's say, people from a diverse background, whether it's the Asian community or it's the Hispanic community, I think President Trump in 2024 did a little bit better than what people were expecting. I think the impact was a little less in Virginia as compared to other states. But certainly, I think, know, if you think about 2020, President Trump lost Virginia by 10 points, whereas in 2024, he only lost it by six points.
10:30.50
Sam Shirazi
So that was about a four-point swing towards the Republicans in 2024. And a lot of that was in Northern Virginia and you know, if that gets reversed, there's not a lot of the Republicans can do in terms of driving up the turnout and the margins in rural areas where they think that the President Trump's approval rating and President Trump's plans are more popular among voters.
10:55.86
Sam Shirazi
Now, the other possibility that I think I've mentioned is that DOGE, which kind of wraps up his work, the cuts of the federal government are finalized and everyone kind of moves on. And yeah, some people lost their jobs, but for the most part, the economy in Virginia stabilizes because they're able to find other jobs and everything kind of returns back to normal.
11:15.56
Sam Shirazi
I think that's, that's certainly going to happen probably to a certain extent. I think the challenge with that position or that view is that the reality is that, you know Even the federal workers that stay, I mean, they've gone through a lot in terms of having to deal with Doge and questions about whether they were going to get fired. And and so that that stays with you. And I just don't know if by November there's enough time where they'll just kind of say, yeah, I'm okay. I kept my job, so I'm not going to worry about this anymore.
11:44.32
Sam Shirazi
And anyways, so long story short, I think it's interesting to look at the federal fallout. I don't always talk about it on every podcast because I think there are a lot of other things going on.
11:54.24
Sam Shirazi
But I do think kind of lurking in the background is the issues with the federal government. It hasn't gone away. I think it's still a big issue in Virginia, even if you don't always hear about it in the news. It's something that's constantly impacting the economy one way or another. And so I think we're going We're going to see how much of an impact it eventually has in November.
12:15.69
Sam Shirazi
And I do hope eventually we get a good Virginia poll to kind of give a pulse on where things are right now in Virginia. But I just kind of wanted to do this quick recap and...
12:26.79
Sam Shirazi
touch base on where things are with the federal fallout. And I'm sure there'll be a lot more to discuss in future podcasts, but until then I will leave it to see what happens. And this has been federal fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. I'll see you next week.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.47
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia elections. There is now an American Pope and I'm interviewing the Pope of Virginia politics. That's Michael Lee Pope. He is a reporter and host of another great Virginia politics podcast, the Virginia Press Room.
00:19.25
Sam Shirazi
Definitely check that one out too. That's usually comes out Monday mornings. I am listening to it on my Monday morning commute into work. So definitely check out that podcast along with Federal Fallout.
00:31.33
Sam Shirazi
And prior to hosting the Virginia Press Room, he was the host of Pod Virginia, where he was gracious gracious enough to have me as a guest several times. And now I get to be on the other side of the mic. So thank you for joining me today.
00:47.92
Michael Pope
Sam Shirazi, longtime listener, first time guest. I love your podcast. You're really knocking it out of the park here, so keep it up. i so I noticed that when you have guests on, it's more of a forensic audit of their background, so I'm a little bit nervous to be on your podcast, so don't stump me with difficult questions. But yeah,
01:09.74
Michael Pope
You know, I was actually looking at some stats. I think you've done more episodes than the press room so far. So congratulations for knocking it out of the park here and launching Federal Fallout.
01:21.40
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, thanks so much. I'm very appreciative. I mean, I was inspired to do the podcasting thing, partly, you know, my experience on PodVirginia, and I thought it'd be interesting to do one about the 2025 Virginia election. So that's why I started mine. And i I will talk a little bit about podcasting. I do think there's one thing you could probably teach me about podcasting, though.
01:40.60
Sam Shirazi
Can you guess who it is?
01:40.75
Michael Pope
Yeah, yeah, totally. There is, Sam Shirazi. You know this because I've already given you a hard time about it before we hit the record button, and I'm going to continue giving you a hard time about it. What's with the music? There's no music.
01:52.47
Michael Pope
The show just begins with you talking. You need – put some music there, a bumper. Something's got to go there. In fact, I'll tell you what. Your Zencaster account came with some funny stuff like – I think there's a comic rimshot in there.
02:08.49
Michael Pope
there's also a music bed. ah Go ahead and crank up that music bed there on Zencaster.
02:13.03
Sam Shirazi
about this one?
02:15.36
Michael Pope
That's a good one. That's a good one. You could hit that and then talk about how you're going to knock it out of the park, hit a home run in terms of every podcast is a home run when you listen to Federal Fallout. No, I was talking about the music, the button that has the really depressing music.
02:32.52
Sam Shirazi
Oh, yeah, that that could be intro.
02:35.31
Michael Pope
There we go. This is perfect. All right. Welcome, federal follow-up.
02:40.31
Sam Shirazi
All right. i I know. I know. I got to get intro music. I kind of like just starting off getting cutting the chase, but I know everyone wants the podcast intro music. But...
02:49.01
Michael Pope
or Or alternatively, you could have something really newsy. Something like that.
02:57.68
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, I like that. That's that's definitely catchy. Well, I mean, I appreciate you teaching me the finer points of podcasting. so I did want to, i guess, my first question start with kind of podcasting in general, both in terms of people getting political news through podcasts, which obviously we've seen an uptick in, and you've been doing this for several years, going back to PodVirginia.
03:21.09
Sam Shirazi
mean, what made you interested in podcasts and how do you think that these these podcasts are starting to influence politics?
03:29.41
Michael Pope
It's essentially radio that's been kind of repackaged and rebranded. You know, I am a big fan of radio. I work in radio as my day job. I'm also kind of interested in the history of radio, the history of broadcasting. So it does kind of feel like we're at a moment right now where we're reinventing radio and it's in the form of a podcast and people love podcasts.
03:52.54
Michael Pope
Sam Shirazi, what podcast do you listen to?
03:54.94
Sam Shirazi
Well, obviously, I listen to the Virginia Press Room. That is my go-to.
03:58.19
Michael Pope
Okay. All right. Of course. All right. Thank you.
04:00.56
Sam Shirazi
I mean, honestly, I like to listen to news podcasts.
04:00.84
Michael Pope
Thank you for listening.
04:04.63
Sam Shirazi
I listen to different ones. I don't want to endorse any specific ones. But, I mean, I do think... I'm more of audio learner. And I do think for people who are more audio oriented, I do think it's a really good way to absorb news. And you mentioned radio. And I think that's a good point, because it used to be that there was talk radio and that was really big. And that kind of led a lot of the political discourse. Do you think podcasts are kind of now doing what talk radio did maybe in the ninety s
04:35.91
Michael Pope
That's a good question. i mean, talk radio was very influential in the 1990s. That's when we saw the rise of Rush Limbaugh as a political force. And it does kind of feel like podcasting is is a modern incarnation of that sort of talk radio thing that happened in the nineteen ninety s Yeah, i could I could buy that.
04:54.13
Michael Pope
I actually, i mean, because of it feels so new as a medium, I feel like the the better analog, the better thing to compare it to would be the original creation of radio in the sort of the early days of of broadcasting in the 1920s when they were trying to figure out how much of this is showbiz and how much of this is news.
05:14.32
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, I definitely think there's an entertainment component to to podcasts, which is more hearkening back to the beginning of the radio. So yeah, a lot of interesting things with podcasts. And I think hopefully people have enjoyed my podcast. I know that they enjoy your podcast. And anyways, so I encourage everyone to keep listening.
05:32.30
Sam Shirazi
I did want to kind of ask about being a journalist. You know, you're you're on on the radio, but i i one thing that I appreciate about you is you try to be kind of an old school straight news reporter and and try to be as objective as possible. And I won't name any names, but I do think there are journalists out there today or people claiming to be journalists who definitely have a political agenda.
05:54.23
Sam Shirazi
mean, what is it like being a journalist in the current environment and trying to kind of keep the old school way of doing journalism alive in a world where, you know, a lot of the the current journalists are not necessarily trying to report things accurately?
06:07.97
Michael Pope
In a world where standards are falling apart. Yeah, you actually set it up like it's a horror movie there. Thanks for knocking my industry. I mean, it's difficult. It's difficult being in the journalism industry. I will say that in recent years, we have seen an expansion of the Virginia Price Corps. So, you know, when I first started doing political reporting, the big...
06:28.71
Michael Pope
worry at that time was the shrinking press corps. And there were fewer people covering the statehouse at that time than there had been in previous cycles. You know, like the Richmond Times dispatch used to have five people and, you know, the local television stations would have a team of people. And there were, then there were the wire services and the the big papers of course would send correspondence. And there,
06:53.52
Michael Pope
you know, there was a time when it contracted much smaller than that. But in recent years, we have seen new new positions show up. You know, like I will say for a good example of this is the Virginia Mercury.
07:07.29
Michael Pope
And they have a lot of top-notch reporters there at the Virginia Mercury cranking out great journalism all the time. And for each one of those individual journalists, that's like a new position in the press corps.
07:19.75
Michael Pope
So we have seen in recent years, in addition to the press corps, based based on new media. You know, I mean, this is, i'm I'm a legacy newspaper person, legacy media in terms of NPR being, you know, legacy terrestrial radio.
07:39.24
Michael Pope
But I'm a big fan of this, ah all this new media stuff, like like the podcast that you're doing, Sam Shirazi.
07:44.91
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, no, I mean, that that's good to hear. I mean, I do think there's definitely a lot of pessimism about the journalism industry, but I do think you make a good point that there there were new outlets and also people, I mean, I don't consider myself a journalist. I consider myself more of a political analyst, which is a little bit different.
08:01.43
Sam Shirazi
But I mean, I try to share news. i definitely use the reporters from the different sources in Virginia to kind of base my analysis on. And so I do appreciate that there's still people out there putting out news into the world, whether they're doing it through official journalism organization or just on their own.
08:20.44
Sam Shirazi
mean, what do you think about the the really legacy media outlets? So I will say in Virginia, typically the the ones that had gotten a lot of attention in the past are the Washington Post and Richmond Times-Dispatch. Those have both fallen on hard times, I would say. And do you think you know that has...
08:36.32
Sam Shirazi
led to a change in how politics is covered in Virginia? Or do you just think that's kind of a newer people are coming and and the coverage is still there?
08:45.44
Michael Pope
Well, you mentioned legacy newspapers, ah newspapers, ah two in particular there, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Washington Post. I will point out there is a paper in Virginia that's even older than the Washington Post, even older than the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and that's the Alexandria Gazette packet right here in old town, Alexandria founded in 1784, one of the oldest newspapers in America. And so, you know, because Virginia is as old as it is, legacy media is really legacy.
09:16.97
Michael Pope
and those papers, Still have people. the The Washington Post has a team of great reporters in the statehouse doing statehouse reporting. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a team of reporters in the statehouse and elsewhere doing lots of great reporting. Even now, people talk about, oh, the RTD is falling apart. What's the premise of your question? i dispute the premise of the question because I think they're still cranking out really good journalism right now at this moment.
09:44.88
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I often look at those articles and from The Washington Post, so I'm not trying to to downplay the role. I just think it's it's interesting because, you know, the the profitability of newspapers and and old school journalism has definitely gone gone down. And I think the model is shifting a little bit.
10:02.43
Sam Shirazi
But overall, I mean, i think you make a good point that we should try to still appreciate what's being put out there. There is people working hard, putting out good journalism. And I don't mean to say that things are doom and gloom, but that's often the narrative you hear. So I appreciate you kind of, you know, giving a different perspective, especially as as a current journalist.
10:22.17
Michael Pope
dirt doom Doom and gloom is kind of what it feels like. That is the zeitgeist. However, we are in a golden age of media right now. There is more good reporting going on right now than at any time in human history, right?
10:39.57
Michael Pope
There's also... a record amount of really bad journalism. I mean, horrible, terrible journalism. So, I mean, there's it's just a scale thing. There's a lot of really great reporting that's going on right now. There's also a lot of really terrible, terrible, terrible reporting that's going on right now. that So that's why I say it's the golden age of media. there's There's way more really good reporting going on right now than at any time that than there's ever been since the inventing of the printing press.
11:07.38
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely all very valid points and it's it's good to keep in mind. Well, I did want to ask you about what it's like reporting this year in Virginia and what's specifically on the elections. I mean, what are you seeing and what are you hearing on the ground as a reporter?
11:23.51
Michael Pope
Well, I personally think it's kind of a bummer not having primary elections. You know, I mean, we've got the Democrats and the Republican at the top of the ticket who are running for governor have zero primary opponents. And they're both just, um you know,
11:40.99
Michael Pope
sliding into the general election season without really getting the kind of cross-examination that you typically get in a primary election. i think that's historically been a detriment to candidates. I mean, if you think about the failure of the Kamala Harris campaign, she did not have a primary and she would have been a much stronger candidate in the fall had she gone through but kind of forensic audit that you get on the campaign trail when you are elected in a primary and then go on to a general.
12:10.11
Michael Pope
So think that's, i you know, i I wish there were more of a sense of competition at the top of the ticket instead of just having these two people show up and be their party standard bearers.
12:23.67
Michael Pope
So that's the top of the ticket. And then, gosh, it's all kind of boring after that, right? I mean, the lieutenant governor race, no one ever pays attention to the lieutenant governor. Oh, wait a second. Actually, it sounds like we've been paying a lot of attention to one them.
12:36.62
Michael Pope
What the Lieutenant at Governor raises. In fact, you did like a special emergency extra podcast or two about this topic, right?
12:43.86
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, i I mean, I did want to ask you about the Republican lieutenant governor primary that never happened. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously with John Reed, he became the Republican nominee. I did an emergency podcast when he became the nominee. And then there was an emergency podcast when Governor Youngkin asked him to drop out. And I did have a specific question about that. i mean, what it's like being a journalist when a story like that comes out, because I am trying to cover it as well. And I'm trying to be fair in the sense of, you know, John Reed denied it. and you know, Governor, but at the same time, I mean, you would think there's a ah reason Governor Youngkin would call him. and And so what was it like being a journalist trying to figure out the facts when something like that is breaking really quickly?
13:25.78
Michael Pope
Well, I actually am going to give a shout out to my colleague and friend, be Brad Kuttner at Radio IQ, because he was the one that was actually following the day-to-day events. and In fact, I would even say hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute events of that fast-developing story. So Brad Kuttner of Radio IQ is Was definitely following that in a very detailed way. I will say, you know, standing back and looking at the bigger picture, it's so rare that you see parties turn the gun, or you know, turn the firing squad around and start firing on on their own headquarters.
14:03.71
Michael Pope
being like, don't they want to win in the fall? But instead of coming together to support the this candidate for a lieutenant governor, there was this effort to unseat him and there would then there would be a vacancy and then you could install somebody else as the candidate. And i mean, it just seemed like there was a lot of smoke and daggers, you know what I'm saying?
14:27.24
Michael Pope
it um um a lot of the dark art of politics, that sort of thing. And so at the end of the day, they've got a candidate that is now, you know, facing opposition from their own party. um And I'm kind of curious what the visuals are going to be when you've got...
14:46.55
Michael Pope
the Republican candidate for governor went to Earl Sears on the stage with John Reed and on the stage with Jason Miarez.
14:57.71
Michael Pope
What that's going to look like, what the body language is going to be like, what the sort of interpersonal dialogue between them is going to be. i don't know. It just kind of seems like they short circuited their candidacy even before they got to the summer.
15:12.99
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a crazy week and I'm sure that, you know, the Virginia GOP has kind of accepted the John Ridley nominee and want to move on. But it's going to be kind of awkward as the campaign goes on. And and are they even going to have these?
15:27.16
Sam Shirazi
Typically, you see the the ticket once it's finalized, have these, you know, joint appearances. And it's really unclear if that's going to happen this year in Virginia. So anyways, I'm sure I'm sure you will cover it along with your colleagues. And I think it's going to be an interesting campaign this year.
15:42.59
Sam Shirazi
I did want to ask you a little bit on a different topic because I think one thing I've always appreciated about your work is you bring kind of a historical perspective to things.
15:54.13
Sam Shirazi
And before I ask you a specific question about that, I just kind of wanted you to talk about you know your interest in history and also how you think History intersects with journalism in the sense of, you know, often you don't see a lot of history in journalism, but I do think when journalists include historical analogies or kind of historical background to a story, it it often makes the story much more meaningful.
16:17.96
Michael Pope
Sure, yeah, I definitely tried to do that with a lot of my reporting. i mean, I know that you've one of the things that you are hoping to talk about in this podcast is the right-to-work law in Virginia. So the historical roots of that are, you know, the bird machine, which I've spent a lot of time researching and writing and speaking about.
16:37.45
Michael Pope
And so, I mean, one I guess in response to your question, I would say when I first started doing political journalism, when I first moved to Virginia, I would hear people talk about the bird machine as an explanation for things. Right. So like this is the reason why we do things this way is because of the bird machine. And the reason why we do things that way is because of the bird machine.
16:57.86
Michael Pope
And then after the 11th, 12th, 13th time somebody said that, I said to myself, I probably should know something about the bird machine. And so I kind of wanted to work on that project for a long time before I ended up getting the contract to write the book. And so that's,
17:12.77
Michael Pope
that's A roundabout way of answering your question is that history is always lurking in the background of everything, including news. So this ah ah month, we have seen the right to work law and the news and the candidates either taking a position or not taking a position on it. But the background of how... How it happened and why it's it part of Virginia law is so fascinating. And i love doing stuff like that. Recently, actually, I used some audio of governor bill tech bill ah ah use some audio of Governor Bill Tuck talking about the right to work law in the General Assembly.
17:51.91
Michael Pope
I use that audio um public radio. And I love doing stuff like that when you talk about the history of current events and ah ah really bring some context to it.
18:01.60
Sam Shirazi
you've made me think a lot about the the past in Virginia, and especially the Byrd machine, which, you know, i i wasn't I didn't grow up here. And i like you, I came here and you you would hear things about Byrd and his machine. But, you you know, it's it seems like so long ago, but through your reporting and through your work, I've kind of realized that a lot of that stuff still hangs over Virginia. So, you know, you you mentioned right to work and something that I'm interested in in this campaign because it's it's a big issue.
18:29.67
Sam Shirazi
Could you just kind of explain what it is and the history of it in Virginia and why it's such a big issue on the campaign trail?
18:36.12
Michael Pope
Sure, yeah, well, the big picture is that it harms unions by preventing them from organizing in the way that they do in many other states. And so it allows people to have representation by the union, but not paid dues for the representation that often happens in legal cases and contract negotiations. And you know right now, the federal workers that have unions are faring better than the federal workers that don't have unions. so the history of union politics in the United States,
19:10.34
Michael Pope
the history of union organizing in the United States kind of exploded in the 1940s. And there was a lot of violence associated with union activities and a lot of desire to shut them down and stop them as political forces. And so this actually came to a head in Richmond the nineteen forty s when the major utility, which today we would call Dominion Energy, this was a time when it was called Vepco, the Virginia Electric Power Company. And so the Vepco employees wanted to strike.
19:45.56
Michael Pope
And so the governor at the time, the bird machine governor, Bill um decided that he was going to do like Kobayashi Maru. Sam Shirazi, are you familiar with Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan?
19:59.26
Sam Shirazi
You know, to be honest, I'm more of a political nerd, not a Star Trek nerd. Yeah.
20:03.54
Michael Pope
All right, some of your listeners have probably heard of the Kobayashi Maru, which was in Star Trek. and The Kobayashi Maru, which was in Star Trek II, but then I think it also made one of the reboots as a concept. And the idea is you win the game by changing the rules of the game, right? So like Captain Kirk famously hacked into the computer and changed how the game worked, how the...
20:28.13
Michael Pope
how the the disaster scenario that they were gaming out, he changed how it worked so that he could beat the game, right? So he hacked the game in order to beat it. That's how you beat the Kobayashi Maru was the name of the the the game that they were playing or you know the disaster scenario they were trying to game out. And so the reason I bring all this up with Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan and the Kobayashi Maru is that Here we've got Governor Bill Tuck doing the Kobayashi Maru in Virginia politics to undermine the power of unions because he changed the rules of the game by saying, all you people that work for the utility, I'm going to conscript you into the Virginia militia. And unless you show up for work, you will be court-martialed because you're no longer just an employee of VEPCO. You're no longer just a utility employee now. Yeah.
21:17.69
Michael Pope
you're in the Virginia militia. And if you fail to show up for work ah as part of this union strike, we will court martial you and you will have to deal with that. And so Governor Tuck actually did something really bold, changed the rules of the game, won the day, won the day. So there was no strike. He actually headed off the strike and then followed it up the very next year with the right to work law, which has forever undermined unions in Virginia ever since.
21:43.77
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, i think that's all really helpful background on on this debate. And just to give listeners context about what happened in the last week. So progressives have for a long time been trying to push Virginia to repeal the right to work law and the Democratic nominee, Abigail Spamberger, she said that she would not fully repeal it, which, you know, in theory might leave some wiggle room. And she even she mentioned she, you know, that there could be some reform to it. But she said she would not fully repeal the right to work law.
22:13.82
Sam Shirazi
I mean, i I don't want you to speculate too much. But, you know, why do you think that Certain Democrats in Virginia have this fear of repealing right to work when the unions want it to happen, the progressives want it to happen.
22:25.96
Sam Shirazi
And it just seems like historically just a hesitancy among some Democrats in Virginia to to touch the law or at least to fully repeal the law, as Congress, as Abigail Spamberger said, she said she's not going to do.
22:38.86
Michael Pope
The Democrats are in a tough spot here, no doubt about it. I mean, one thing is you have to remember Governor Bill Tuck was a Democrat, right? And so the creation of the right to work law is the history of the Democratic Party in Virginia. And so this is a bill that was created by a machine that was run by Democrats. So that's the origin of it. And then these days, you got all the business people who say, hey, don't get rid of the right-to-work law or you'll lose that best-in-business status. Hey, you want to be named CNBC's number one state of business, right? Don't you?
23:12.42
Michael Pope
yeah that would be it would That's a really nice ranking you got. It would be a shame to lose it. And so that's... like That's the threat. The business people like the fact that there's ah ah this right to work law and do not want to see the those liberals, so those progressive Democrats get rid of the right to work law. And and, you know, this is.
23:34.05
Michael Pope
created attention in the Democratic Party for some time. If you think about ah Governor Terry McAuliffe's campaign for governor in 2021, he was flummoxed on this issue. He told a a labor group on a Zoom meeting that he was in favor of overturning the right to work law. But then when I asked him the question in the parking lot of Port City Brewing here in Alexandria, he would not commit to overturning the right to work. So he had a shifting position on which indicates this tension inside of the Democratic Party, the sort of pro-labor rah-rah-rah for, you know, the union label. And then on the other side of the issue, the big business folks who want the CNBC ranking um best in business.
24:17.75
Michael Pope
So um saw McAuliffe sort of shifting his positions. And then this year has also been really interesting to watch the politics because we saw all six Democrats running for lieutenant governor.
24:29.26
Michael Pope
to come out in favor of repealing the right to work law in a televised debate that happened in Roanoke a couple weeks ago. I was a little surprised by that, Sam Shirazi. I was not expecting all six of the Democrats running for lieutenant governor to come out in favor of repealing the right to work. And then – Abigail Spanberger didn't really have a position. yeah Actually, after that debate with the lieutenant governor candidate, Saul coming out in favor of repealing the right to work, i tried to get a statement from the Spanberger campaign. And they sent me a written statement, but it didn't really say much. right I mean, it wasn't like she's in favor of repeal or she's in favor of keeping it.
25:06.44
Michael Pope
And that was the position that she eventually took. And so, you know, I think her position currently is a little cloudy. And i i mean, is she so she's not in favor of repeal. i mean, that's clear.
25:20.71
Michael Pope
And i guess she's in favor of keeping it, although modifying it some way that's a little bit unclear at this point. I feel like we need to hear more from Abigail Spamberger. i feel like she needs to talk to me because I've got lots of questions to ask her.
25:32.89
Michael Pope
And you know Her media people don't like – I guess don't like me asking the questions because after they sent me this two-sentence written statement that really did not answer the question, i tried to get an interview with the candidate to talk about her position on the right to work. And you know their campaign just stopped responding to my – to just stopped responding to my emails and text messages. So clearly this is a topic that they're not really comfortable talking about.
26:00.38
Michael Pope
And that fits into a long pattern here that dates back to the McAuliffe having troubles with this in 2021. And it actually being the origin story of it here being that it was created by the Democratic Party.
26:14.39
Sam Shirazi
Well, before I let you go, I did want to ask you one other question about an issue that's coming up on the campaign trail that has a long historical legacy here in Virginia, and that is the issue of felon disenfranchisement. So Virginia is one of a few one of the few states left where if you are convicted convicted of a felony,
26:33.03
Sam Shirazi
you lose your right to vote for the rest of your life unless the governor reinstates that right. Democrats have proposed a constitutional constitutional amendment that would automatically restore the right to vote for people when they are released from prison after serving their felony sentence.
26:50.77
Sam Shirazi
The first round of voting on that law took place this year, and most Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly voted against it. If the Democrats win the House of Delegates this November, they will vote on it again next year, and it will go to the voters in 2026 for a referendum.
27:09.49
Sam Shirazi
And so I wanted to ask you specifically about this issue because, you know, there's been a little bit of polling on it, and generally it polls pretty well. I think if it goes on the ballot, almost certainly it will pass, and it might even pass with about two-thirds of the vote.
27:23.88
Sam Shirazi
So this seems like a pretty popular thing. And, it and you know, the right to vote is obviously important. And in Virginia has had a messy history where African-Americans were denied the right to vote for a long time and and a lot of the legacy of the Jim Crow era.
27:39.35
Sam Shirazi
mean, why do you think the Republicans aren't fully behind this proposed constitutional amendment that would allow people convicted of felonies to regain their right to vote?
27:50.12
Michael Pope
Well, Republicans actually kind of like talking about voter fraud on the campaign trail and it actually gets their base kind of riled up. So, I mean, I'm not really sure.
28:01.22
Michael Pope
i mean, this issue cuts both ways too. I mean, you can talk about the racist history of felon felon disenfranchisement, which, you know, obviously we're about to do on this podcast, but it's important to also remember while we're having this discussion about the that, you that this is an issue that resonates with people today in 2025 on the campaign trail who think that the votes are all rigged and you have all these people who are undocumented people voting and and rigging the elections. And so this is an issue that actually does play on the campaign trail. But the history of voter felon disenfranchisement is really interesting. It's one of those things
28:40.76
Michael Pope
that you would frequently hear people say, well, that's the bird machine. That's the legacy of the bird machine. And I'm here to fact check that. Not true. Felon disenfranchisement dates way earlier than the bird machine.
28:53.51
Michael Pope
and actually is the early 1800s when Virginia constitutions started ah ah disenfranchising felons. And so the bird machine inherited...
29:04.68
Michael Pope
fell in disenfranchisement and ran with it to make sure that they had very small numbers of people voting. This is one of the ways that they maintained power for a long time, but don't let anybody tell you felon disenfranchisement is a legacy of the bird machine because it is not, it is actually much older than that. And it's something that the bird machine inherited. and as a matter of fact,
29:27.66
Michael Pope
Really interesting history here because you mentioned that Black people were denied the right to vote in Jim Crow. But let's remember there was an era before Jim Crow when Black people not just voted, but there were lots of Black elected officials in the General Assembly. And so the history is more complicated than Black people never voting because it was, there was a war, there was Reconstruction, and then after Reconstruction. There was this really interesting period after Reconstruction that it is the era of black power.
30:02.28
Michael Pope
And there was a political machine, the readjuster machine that was created by Senator William Mahone at that time period that actually had black elected officials as part of it. A little bit ironic because Mahone was a former Confederate general, former Confederate general running a political machine that largely depended on political power from black people.
30:25.39
Michael Pope
And then that whole thing fell apart. The machine fell apart. The conservative Democrats reasserted their power and created the era of Jim Crow. So sort of the history of felon disenfranchisement in Virginia is not a straight line. It's ah ah it's a really dramatic story that has ups and downs and ins and outs. And So, you know, I'm positive the Democrats love talking about this on the campaign trail. It is actually a little surprising. And when you talk to people who are not familiar with the history and the the way all of this works, most people would be surprised. Most people are surprised.
31:01.99
Michael Pope
to learn that Virginia is the only state of the country that has the system where the governor has to give people the right to vote back. The only state in the country where the governor has to give people their right to vote back to them.
31:15.70
Michael Pope
And so this is the kind of thing Democrats certainly like talking about on the campaign trail, but I will say, Republicans also like talking about this on the campaign trail and talking about voter fraud and stirring up these fears and concerns that it's all rigged and people who shouldn't be casting ballots are casting ballots. And the election people are hiding votes in suitcases under their desks and shuttling them around in the middle of the night.
31:43.85
Michael Pope
And there's satellites from Italy that are changing the numbers and you know there is definitely a market out there for that kind of stuff and so the i would say you know of that being a campaign issue certainly something that people are going to talk about but the politics cut both ways
32:00.84
Sam Shirazi
Well, I mean, I really appreciate you laying out that history. And, you know, I will also mention your book again. It's called The Bird Machine in Virginia, The Rise and Fall of a Conservative Political Organization.
32:11.86
Sam Shirazi
I did read it. I found it really interesting. I think there's a lot of lessons can be applied today. and And there's a lot of things you hear in Virginia that you you may not think about. And I think your your book does a good job laying out some of the legacy of the bird machine. So Anyways, I thought it was really interesting talking to you. i always appreciate your kind of historical perspective. I appreciate your pulse on Virginia elections and politics. So thank you so much for coming on today.
32:38.64
Michael Pope
Hey, congratulations again on the federal fallout. I look forward to listening to episodes in the future.
32:46.87
Sam Shirazi
thanks so much. And yes, also go listen to the Virginia Press Room and i will join you next week on Federal Fallout.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.72
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over the primaries in the House of Delegates. So to start off, I should note that there are not actually a lot of primaries this year in Virginia.
00:16.98
Sam Shirazi
There are and only nine on the Democratic side and eight on the GOP side. So remember, there are 100 seats in the House of Delegates. So that means theoretically there could have been 200 primaries if you add the Republicans and Democrats.
00:29.48
Sam Shirazi
The reality is most incumbents will not face a primary. And even in ah ah other districts, it's often hard if it's a safe blue or safe red district to find more than one person willing to run.
00:42.28
Sam Shirazi
And you know I mentioned that there aren't many challenges to incumbents this year. There's just two on the Democratic side and one on the GOP side. And that's a little surprising given the talk that we hear, particularly on the Democratic side about potential primaries in the 2026 midterms.
00:57.52
Sam Shirazi
midterm But the reality is it's hard to challenge an incumbent. And also one thing to keep in mind is Democrats have a 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates.
01:08.31
Sam Shirazi
That means they're not going to bring bills unless they know it can pass and they know that everyone's on board. So I think that limits the opportunities for incumbents to vote against bills and maybe have a primary challenger attack their record. So that's just something to keep in mind, part of the reason why there aren't primaries that many primaries on the Democratic side.
01:28.13
Sam Shirazi
Okay, so first I'll go through the Democratic primaries and then I'll do the GOP primaries. I'll try to first go through the incumbents facing a primary. Then I'll talk about some of the targeted districts, the battleground districts.
01:39.80
Sam Shirazi
And then I'll finally end with the less competitive seats that still have primaries. And I should note that I won't be making any formal predictions about who's going to win. I may kind of tip the hand in terms of who I think is maybe more competitive or if one of the candidates has an advantage, but it's a little bit too early given that the primary is still still ah a few weeks off to give a formal prediction.
02:04.58
Sam Shirazi
Okay, so I will go ahead and get started on the Democratic side with the first district. And and I mean that literally, there the incumbent in the first district in the House of Delegates, Patrick Hope, faces a primary from not one, but two different challengers.
02:21.14
Sam Shirazi
And another fun fact for all the listeners, this is actually my district. So I live in North Arlington. I also am just familiar with what's going on, given that this is my district and I can kind of get a sense of how things are on the ground.
02:34.00
Sam Shirazi
And I should note, this is a very blue district, one of the bluest districts in Virginia. So whoever wins the primary almost certainly is going to win the general elections. So ah Patrick Hope, he's the incumbent. He's been in office since 2010.
02:47.86
Sam Shirazi
And obviously when you have an incumbent in office for a while, in theory, it could draw primary challengers after they've been in office. I should say that Delegate Hope is still relatively young, at least as politicians go. He's 53. So this isn't in a situation where someone is getting into their 80s and they're they're facing a primary challenge.
03:09.07
Sam Shirazi
And in terms of the candidates who are are challenging Delegate Hope, so first there is Arjun Sirkot. He is running, i would say, kind of as a traditional younger candidate running against an incumbent, maybe trying to bring a different energy and or try to run on a more progressive platform in some places.
03:31.78
Sam Shirazi
And then the second candidate is Sean Philip Epstein. And I'd say he's running from a little bit of a different angle. He's almost running from the center. And so you have this dynamic where Patrick Hope is kind of in the middle and then he's got someone running maybe from a younger or more progressive lane. And then he has someone challenging challenging him essentially from the middle, which is kind of rare because you don't see a lot of primary challengers from people coming from the center and challenging incumbent Democrat.
04:01.59
Sam Shirazi
So some interesting dynamics in this district. I would say, you know, the one of the advantages that Patrick Hope has is the reality is he has two challengers. And in Virginia, whoever gets the most votes wins the primary.
04:13.78
Sam Shirazi
So typically in that situation, if you are an incumbent, you prefer to have more challengers because that splits the vote. So I think the fact that he has two challengers will make it difficult for either one of them to get enough votes.
04:25.66
Sam Shirazi
Now, in theory, maybe if Arjun is able to bring in younger voters, for example, that live in the Ballston area of Arlington, he might have a chance. Or if Sean Philip Epstein might be able to get people who are maybe more independents who typically don't vote in a Democratic primary, if he's able to bring those people out, maybe he'll have a chance.
04:47.02
Sam Shirazi
But, you know, just the reality is it's very difficult to defeat an incumbent and it's even more difficult to defeat an incumbent if there are two challengers. So that's just something and keep in mind. I'm not saying that it's impossible for this primary to lead to a different delegate at the end of the day. But I do think the reality is it's very difficult to defeat an incumbent when there are two challengers.
05:10.06
Sam Shirazi
Okay, now let's move on to the second Democratic incumbent with a primary, and that's in House District 81 in Eastern Henrico. The incumbent is Dolores McQuinn, who has been in office since 2009. And this is another very blue district. It's majority African American.
05:28.44
Sam Shirazi
Whoever wins the primary almost certainly will be elected in the general election. I should note that ah Dolores McQuinn also faced a primary in 2023, which she easily fended off with 82% of the vote.
05:42.100
Sam Shirazi
So it kind of shows you that she has seen primaries before and she's been able to beat that back. But this year she is facing a primary challenge from Henrico School Board member Alicia Atkins.
05:56.02
Sam Shirazi
Given that she's already an elected official, I don't think you can dismiss this primary challenge out of hand. But at the same time, you have to keep in mind that Delegate McQuinn faced a credible challenger who spent a lot of money in 2023, and she won with over of the vote.
06:13.16
Sam Shirazi
So again, i just think you have to keep that in mind. It's hard to defeat an incumbent, and especially an incumbent that has not really shown a whole lot of vulnerability in a primary two years ago.
06:25.31
Sam Shirazi
So again, you want to keep an eye on it. You want to keep an open mind, given that her opponent is a school board member, has been elected in her own right. But Again, it's difficult to beat incumbents, and that's part of the reason you don't see a lot of challenge to incumbents this year, because people realistically know that it's going to be an uphill climb.
06:44.50
Sam Shirazi
So I think both incumbents on the Democratic side, while you know they have challengers who they have to take seriously, i just don't know if this is the the year where there there's going to be a lot of challenges.
06:58.18
Sam Shirazi
incumbents going down to defeat, at least in the primaries, we can talk about the general election in another podcast. Okay, now let's turn to primaries and districts that Democrats are targeting and that will be battleground districts.
07:11.54
Sam Shirazi
First up is House District 57. It's in the Richmond suburbs. The current incumbent is GOP Delegate David Owen. and As I mentioned, this is one of the most likely seats to flip in November. So definitely a lot riding on the primary because the winner of the primary very well could be the next delegate in this district.
07:31.10
Sam Shirazi
So the first candidate to announce was May Navarre. She's a former chair of the Virginia Asia Advisory Board, and she has gotten the most establishment support, including an endorsement from Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan.
07:45.27
Sam Shirazi
The second ah person to announce is small business owner Andrew Scheer. And i would say that given the the endorsements that Mae Navarra has gone gotten, I would say that she's a front runner.
07:59.80
Sam Shirazi
i don't want to say it's impossible for Scheer to win the primary. I think he would have to bring in maybe independent voters or younger voters or maybe progressive voters if he's trying to run a more progressive campaign to to win the primary. Because the reality is if it's just kind of the Democratic local people who show up, Mae Navarra is probably going to have the inside track given all the endorsements she has.
08:22.06
Sam Shirazi
But in theory, if he's able to bring out a different type of voter and expand the pool of voters, then he might have a chance in this primary. And again, keep in mind, anyone can vote in the Virginia primaries.
08:32.74
Sam Shirazi
There is no party registration. So while typically, obviously, it's going to be people who self-identify as Democrats who vote in these primaries, it doesn't have to be people who are Democrats. And it's possible that people who consider themselves independents vote in these primaries.
08:47.58
Sam Shirazi
And I think sometimes and with challengers in the primaries, part of the strategy might be to bring in independence because maybe the people who are local Democrats who go to all the events, they're typically going to vote for one candidate. But if you're going to be able to expand the pool of voters, might lead to a different outcome.
09:04.84
Sam Shirazi
So just something to keep in mind as we're going through these primaries. Okay. The next district is House District 73. This is in Chesterfield. The incumbent is GOP. Delegate Mark Early, and he is facing a potential challenge from two different Democrats, depending on who wins the primary.
09:23.08
Sam Shirazi
And this is, i would say, a little bit more of a reach district for Democrats, but Vice President Harris did carry it by one point. So definitely a seat that could flip if the Democrats have a good night in November.
09:35.17
Sam Shirazi
And there are two Democrats running in the primary. One of them is Leslie Mehta and the other person running is Justin Woodford. And I would say just for people's awareness, Leslie Mehta was the 2024 nominee in the first congressional district.
09:51.52
Sam Shirazi
So obviously she's got a lot of name ID. A lot of people in this district may have voted for Leslie Mehta in the past, just given that she was the nominee last year. in the congressional district that includes this House of Delegates seat.
10:05.22
Sam Shirazi
And so think the conventional wisdom is Leslie Mehta has an advantage in this primary, just given that she's ran before, she has more of a network from her previous run. So not saying she's definitely going win, but I think if you were going to try to figure out who has more of an advantage right now, I would give that to Leslie Mehta.
10:23.60
Sam Shirazi
All right, let's keep moving to House District 75. The current incumbent is Republican Delegate Kerry Conyer. And again, this is going to be a competitive seat in November.
10:37.12
Sam Shirazi
This ah ah district, Vice President Harris, carried by around six points. So definitely going to be a top target for Democrats. in the November general election. But first they have to decide who their nominee is going to be. And there are three people running on the Democratic side.
10:52.10
Sam Shirazi
There's Lindsey Daughtry. Stephen Miller-Pitts, and Dustin Wade. So Stephen Miller-Pitts was actually the 2023 nominee in this district for the Democrats.
11:03.24
Sam Shirazi
And Lindsey Daughtry, she was a previous nominee, not in this district, but in a similar district before redistricting. So she has also run in this area. So you would think both of them, just given that they ran before, might have some familiarity in the in the area.
11:17.32
Sam Shirazi
And I think sometimes in these districts, you just got to look at the demographic breakdown. So the district is about... third African-American, and you're guessing that that's going to lead to a decent amount of Democratic voters being African-American in the primary.
11:31.07
Sam Shirazi
And I should note that Stephen Miller Pitts is African-American, so I think he would have, obviously, some support from that community, and that's kind of what he's looking to those Get those voters out for the primary.
11:41.54
Sam Shirazi
Lindsey Daughtry, you would think maybe among women voters, she might have more of a natural support base. Dustin Wade, I think he may be trying to engage younger voters. And honestly, of the primaries, this is the one I'm having a hard time trying to figure out who has the advantage, just given the demographics of the district, given the two of the Candidates have already ran before. And so I don't really know who has an advantage right now. And I think it's just going to be one of those things.
12:08.100
Sam Shirazi
We'll find out who the Democratic nominee is in this battleground district once the primary votes are in. All right, I'm gonna talk and about another battleground district that has a Democratic primary. This is House District 89 in the Suffolk area.
12:23.90
Sam Shirazi
And this is a district that Vice President Harris carried by around three points. And there are two Democrats running. One of them, and I will say, I think, We can all agree he has a pretty cool name. It's Blazin Buckshot Bloom.
12:38.53
Sam Shirazi
And then there is Karen Roberts Carnegie, who is running in this district. And again, it just kind of depends on who's coming out in these primaries. I think one of the advantage Karen Carnegie might have is that Primaries, typically the majority of the people voting are women. And so usually you think women have an advantage in primaries. You know, Blazin Buckshot Bloom, if he's able to maybe organize young people and get them to come out to vote in the primary, that might give him a chance. But if I had to guess, I'm guessing Carnegie right now has a little bit of an advantage in this primary.
13:12.79
Sam Shirazi
Okay, let's keep chugging along. So I'm going to go to the next round of of House districts on the Democratic side. There are a couple in what I would call reach districts that were I talked about in my sleeper races podcast.
13:26.03
Sam Shirazi
So these are not necessarily the seats that are the top tier battlegrounds. But in theory, if there's a really good night on the Democratic side, these seats could be competitive. So I will start with House District 49. This is in the Danville area.
13:39.78
Sam Shirazi
And Trump won this district by about eight points. There are two Democrats running, Jasmine Lipscomb and then Gary Miller. i believe Gary Miller is on the Danville City Council. So you might think he might have an advantage being an elected official in the district.
13:57.50
Sam Shirazi
I should note, however, the district has a sizable African-American population. And Jasmine Lipscomb comes from that community and she's also a woman. So you would think maybe she has that advantage in the primary.
14:09.94
Sam Shirazi
So again, it's kind of hard for me to make a prediction about who's ahead right now, but another district where we'll just have to wait and see what happens when the votes come in. Okay, the next district with a Democratic primary is House District 40, and this is in the Roanoke-Salem area. The current incumbent is Joe McNamara, and the district is about a nine-point Trump district, so pretty tough for the Democrats, but in theory on a competitive night could get interesting if the Democrats have a blowout at the top of the ticket.
14:41.57
Sam Shirazi
The two Democratic candidates are Donna Littlepage and Keisha Preston. And, you you know, honestly, it's kind of hard for me to know who would have the advantage sometimes in these seats that aren't necessarily top tier battlegrounds. It's a little bit hard to distinguish the candidates. So we'll just have to wait and see how things shake out during the primary.
15:03.65
Sam Shirazi
And it's somewhat similar in the next district. And this is the final ah House of Delegates District with a Democratic primary. This is House District 72. This is kind of in the outer exurbs of Richmond in parts of Chesterfield and Powhat Town County.
15:23.13
Sam Shirazi
The current incumbent is Republican Lee Ware. This is a district that Trump won by more than 20 points. And there are two Democrats running. There is Randolph Kritzer and
15:35.77
Sam Shirazi
Bilal Reuchuny, And I should note that Ray Chuni was the 2023 nominee in this district, so he's running again. you you might think, okay, because he was previously the nominee, he might have a little bit of an advantage. But again, it's a little bit hard for me to make a prediction right now about some of these seats.
15:53.91
Sam Shirazi
And I should say on the Democratic side, as I noted in my podcast on the sleeper seats, uh democrats got candidates to run in all 100 seats and a lot of those seats the democrats just didn't have a primary because only one person filed and so if obviously there's only one person filed then there won't be a primary uh but in these other seats you will see these primaries and obviously Some of the seats that we discussed are some of the top tier battlegrounds this year in Virginia.
16:23.30
Sam Shirazi
So we will have to wait and see what happens in the Democratic primary for the House of Delegates. And as i I mentioned before, there were obviously statewide primaries for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General on the Democratic side. And so that's really going to be driving turnout. And then people show up and vote and then there might they might realize, oh, there's some House of Delegates seats as well.
16:44.65
Sam Shirazi
So just something keep in mind, not everyone voting is going to be super tuned in to the House of Delegates races, and they might make their mind up at the last minute.
16:54.02
Sam Shirazi
Okay, so let's move over to the Republican House of Delegates primaries. And keep in mind, there is no statewide office on the ballot for Republicans in the primary.
17:05.46
Sam Shirazi
That means the highest office on the ballot in the Republican primary are these House of Delegates races. And to be honest, you have to be a pretty hardcore Republican to realize there's a House of Delegates primary in your district and then to go out and vote.
17:18.83
Sam Shirazi
So it's a little bit of a different dynamic than the Democratic primary. And I do think the the Republican primaries are going to have generally less turnout and it's going to be generally more partisan people who vote in the Republican primaries in these House of Delegates races as compared to the Democratic House of Delegates races.
17:35.43
Sam Shirazi
And the first district we're going to be talking about is House District 37. This is based in western and rural parts of Virginia outside of Roanoke.
17:46.20
Sam Shirazi
The current incumbent is Republican Terry Austin. And he has been in office since 2014.
17:53.94
Sam Shirazi
And one thing to keep in mind with this district, it is a very red district. So whoever wins this primary is is almost 100% guaranteed to win the general election in November.
18:05.99
Sam Shirazi
And so he, the current delegate, Delegate Austin, is facing a primary from Austin Schwendt. I think that's how you pronounce it. um And I will say this. I mean, it's, you know, you never want to say never, but I think it's pretty unlikely that, you the incumbent would lose this primary, just given the amount of money that he has. And also just, he's been in office for a while. And so I don't necessarily think this is the type of seat where the incumbent will lose. However, having said that, particularly on the Republican side, I do think it's really unpredictable because again, as I mentioned, it's going to be pretty hardcore partisan people who going to come out.
18:47.64
Sam Shirazi
And if the challenger is able to kind of portray this as he's running as anti-establishment. I mean, nowadays that appeal on the Republican side is kind of strong. So I could see, in theory, a scenario where he could try to pull up the pull off the upset. And the reason I say that, and not to change topics too much, but I think we all, if you know Virginia elections in 2014,
19:13.28
Sam Shirazi
The House Majority Leader, leader Eric Cantor, lost his U.S. House primary in a stunning upset, which almost no one saw coming, to the eventual Congressman Dave Brat.
19:26.77
Sam Shirazi
And so i I just say that in Republican primaries, crazy things have happened in the past. It doesn't mean that every single Republican primary, the incumbent is going to lose. But I just say that you never know what's going to happen in Republican primaries.
19:40.50
Sam Shirazi
So just something to keep in mind, even though I do think the current delegate in this district is pretty safe. Okay, now let's move on to some battleground districts.
19:51.82
Sam Shirazi
So I will start off with the 21st House of Delegates district. This is in western Prince William County. The current incumbent is Democrat Josh Thomas.
20:02.54
Sam Shirazi
This was roughly a six-point Harris seat in November, and so it would take a pretty good night for the Republicans to be able to flip it. But in theory, if there's the Republicans do better than expected, this is the kind type of seat that could be competitive.
20:17.23
Sam Shirazi
And there are actually three Republicans running. And I will say that for a long time, no one was running in this district. And so I had been kind of pointing that out. It's a little bit odd, given that in theory, this should be a battleground district.
20:30.09
Sam Shirazi
that no one was running. And I don't know if that caused everyone to start to decide that they wanted to run, but eventually the Republicans got three candidates in this district. And so there will be this primary to pick the nominee to go up against Josh Thomas.
20:45.13
Sam Shirazi
And the three people running are Greg Gorham, Sarah Smith,
20:52.44
Sam Shirazi
and Zante Larson. And again, I should say this is the type of primary where it's really kind of hard for me to pick who has an advantage.
21:02.16
Sam Shirazi
You know, Republican primaries, are a little bit more unpredictable, I would say, than the Democratic primaries most of the time. And know none of these candidates seem to have gotten any sort of establishment backing.
21:13.18
Sam Shirazi
I think they were all running their own races without any sort of major outside interference. And so when there's a primary like that, it's just really hard to know who is has the advantage.
21:23.89
Sam Shirazi
So another district where we'll just have to see what happens on the primary day to figure out who the opponent for Josh Thomas will be in the 21st House of Delegates District.
21:34.92
Sam Shirazi
Okay, I'll talk about a couple other potential battleground districts. I will talk about House District 89. And remember that we talked about this district In the Democratic primary, there's also a Republican primary because this is an open seat. So the incumbent Republican decided to retire.
21:51.84
Sam Shirazi
So House District 89, remember, it's in the Suffolk area and roughly a Harris plus three district. So again, Democrats are targeting it. It's going to be a top battleground.
22:02.87
Sam Shirazi
There are two Republicans running, Kirsten Shannon and Mike Lamine.
22:10.91
Sam Shirazi
And I would say Lamine has an advantage in this primary because the incumbent who has decided to retire, his name's Baxter Ennis, he has endorsed him. So I think on the whole, that should give him an advantage. And so we'll see if he ends up being able to win the primary.
22:32.71
Sam Shirazi
but Okay, one more potential battleground district. This is House District 97 in the Virginia Beach area. The current incumbent is Democrat Michael Fegans. This is roughly an eight-point-plus Harris seat. So again, Republicans would need ah ah need a good night to win this seat.
22:50.40
Sam Shirazi
But someone who won an unexpected House of Delegates seat in ah ah Virginia Beach area in 2021 is Tim Anderson. So Tim Anderson was the delegate from a nearby delegate seat in Virginia Beach between 2022 and 2023.
23:08.02
Sam Shirazi
He decided to run for the Virginia State Senate in 2023, and he lost that primary. And now he's attempting to make a comeback by taking on the incumbent Democrat Michael Fegans. However, he first has to get through the primary and there's another Republican running. Her name is Christina Miriam Felder.
23:28.28
Sam Shirazi
I mean, realistically, I think given that he was a previous delegate and he has support among a lot of the establishment in the Republican Party in Virginia Beach, and in Virginia generally, I would say Tim Anderson's a pretty hate a heavy favorite to win this primary. I'd be kind of shocked if he didn't end up being the nominee in this district.
23:47.28
Sam Shirazi
So I think we're going to see an interesting matchup in the general election in this district between Michael Fegans and Tim Anderson. Okay, let's talk about some seats that will have incumbents retiring in very deep red seats. So that means whoever wins the primary ah will almost certainly be the winner of the general election. And I will start with House District 46. This is in Southwest Virginia.
24:13.04
Sam Shirazi
The current incumbent is Republican Jed Arnold, and he has decided to retire. And there are two people running on the Republican side. One of them is Adam Tolbert, and the other one is Mitchell Cornett.
24:26.98
Sam Shirazi
And I would say that Tolbert definitely has a leg up in this primary because Governor Glenn Youngkin has endorsed him, the Virginia GOP House Republican. Delegate leader Todd Gilbert has endorsed him. So definitely seeing the the big guns in the Virginia GOP backing Tolbert in this race. So, you know, you never know. But I think it's pretty likely that Tolbert has a ah pretty big advantage in this race right now. And so I can't imagine that and he wouldn't win. But as I said, crazier things have happened in the Republican primaries. But I would say that definitely Tolbert right now has the leg up.
25:02.81
Sam Shirazi
Okay, let's move over to House of Delegates District 62. This is in the culpert Culpeper area of Central Virginia. The current incumbent Republican is Nick Freitas, and he has decided to retire.
25:18.06
Sam Shirazi
And there are two Republicans running to replace him, Karen Hamilton and Clay Jackson. And I would definitely say that Karen Hamilton has an advantage because Nick Freitas has endorsed her.
25:32.75
Sam Shirazi
Another fun fact is that Karen Hamilton is actually the wife of Cameron Hamilton. And if that name sounds familiar, there's probably two reasons. one He, Cameron Hamilton, ran in the 7th District house U.S. House race in 2024. He came up second in the primary.
25:53.00
Sam Shirazi
And after that, he was appointed to become the acting head of FEMA. But that ended recently because he was dismissed after saying that he did not believe FEMA should be eliminated.
26:05.33
Sam Shirazi
Anyways, going way off track, but just to give you a sense of why ah ah this race for the... primary will not probably be super competitive and why Karen Hamilton has the advantage given that she has these connections and she has the endorsement of the current delegate.
26:22.53
Sam Shirazi
And this is a very red seat, so almost certainly the winner of the primary will win the general election. Okay, one more seat where the current incumbent is retiring, and this one is one we talked to about on the Democratic primary. This is House District 49 in the Danville area.
26:41.28
Sam Shirazi
And so remember, this is on one of the sleeper seats that may be competitive on a good night for Democrats. It was a Trump plus eight district, but you know more likely than not, the Republicans have an advantage in this seat.
26:53.20
Sam Shirazi
And there are two people running. And that the two mim people running are Madison Whittle, who is a member of the Danville City Council.
27:02.36
Sam Shirazi
There's also Vanessa Reynolds-Skierce. And I would say that Whittle definitely has an advantage in this race, just given that he's raised a lot more money. He's an elected official on the Danville City Council.
27:13.90
Sam Shirazi
So again, you know never say never, but if I had to guess, I would say that Whittle has the advantage in this race. And again, whoever goes on to the general election for both the Democrats and Republicans, in theory, this could be a competitive seat in November.
27:28.11
Sam Shirazi
Okay, one more question. House of Delegates primary on the Republican side, and this is the only one that would say that it's in a safe Democratic seat. So this is in the 70th House of Delegates district, which is based in Newport News.
27:44.43
Sam Shirazi
The current incumbent Democrat Democratic delegate is Shelley Simons and this is roughly a 20 plus Harris seat so obviously Democrats are almost certainly going to win it in the general election but there are two Republicans running in this seat two, three. There is Cynthia Saktariko and there is Haley Louise Shoup-Dollar. And i will, again, hard to predict usually when it's a safe seat and the other side has a primary. It's usually hard to predict who's going to win win a winner, pick a winner.
28:18.52
Sam Shirazi
I will say, I don't want to get too much into the weeds of this primary, but Shoop Dollar, there were some stories about her doing modeling and some you know pictures that she had, which I don't think were too scandalous, but that was an issue that was being raised. And again, i don't want to go into the whole ins and outs of that story because I don't think it's that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but just something to keep in mind that could come up in this primary.
28:42.85
Sam Shirazi
Either way, you know i I don't know who's going to win the primary and you know realistically, regardless of the Republican candidate, it's pretty unlikely that they are going to win this seat in the general election.
28:55.02
Sam Shirazi
Okay, so stepping back. I think definitely I would say this year in the House of Delegates, the primaries have gotten a lot less attention that they have in previous years and they that compared to the Democratic primaries for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.
29:09.78
Sam Shirazi
In 2023, there weren't a whole lot of House of Delegates primaries. There were definitely more than this year, but there were a lot of state senate primaries, and there were a lot of state senate primaries on the Democratic side where Democratic incumbents lost in the primary. and you know In theory, we could have had some sort of dynamic like this that this year on the Democratic side, particularly with all the talk about primary incumbents in 2026.
29:33.95
Sam Shirazi
I think for whatever reason, that did not materialize this year in Virginia. So that's just something to keep in mind. And, know, I mentioned some of these battleground districts, the and nominees for the parties will be picked in these primaries. So I think they're important in that sense that some of these races will have to wait and see who the.
29:54.03
Sam Shirazi
incumbent will face in some of these battleground districts where the Democrats are targeting. I will say a lot of the districts already have their nominees in terms of the Democratic challengers.
30:05.66
Sam Shirazi
That's either because no one else filed or because there's a decent amount of repeat candidates from 2023 this time. So all that's to say is, you know, I think this is super interesting. I enjoy looking into these primaries and trying to figure out who has an advantage.
30:21.05
Sam Shirazi
And I've tried to share my wisdom with you. But realistically, I would say for the June 17th primary, the big show will be the lieutenant governor in primaries for the Democrats and the attorney general primary for the Democrats. And that's driving a lot of the turnout.
30:34.84
Sam Shirazi
While all these House Delegates seats are interesting, I just don't know who's actually showing up just for House of Delegates primary. I'm sure there are people who really love their candidates. But again, the majority of people on June 17th will be focusing on the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor and General.
30:51.32
Sam Shirazi
And I will do a subsequent podcast just talking a little bit more about those two primaries because I think they're really interesting. But I do think it's important to talk about the House of Delegates primaries because they don't get a lot of attention. And I just think, you know, these are all important races in their own way. I think obviously who the nominees are going to be important and particularly in the battleground districts and or the ah ah safe districts where whoever wins the primary is almost certainly going to be the next delegate.
31:16.48
Sam Shirazi
I mean, some of these districts we talked about that are very blue or very red. i mean, the primary is essentially the main election because whoever wins the primary is going to be the next delegate. I mean, obviously there still has to be the general election, but it's almost a formality because the primary is the main election. so I hope everyone found this interesting. I know I got into some of the weeds and I jumped around. There were a lot of districts to cover, but honestly, this is a lot less than some years, so it wasn't too challenging. And I hope everyone found it interesting.
31:45.10
Sam Shirazi
I do think as we get closer to the primary day, I will focus more on the attorney general and lieutenant governor's races, but I did want to talk about all the House of Delegates primaries in this podcast, and I hope everyone found it interesting.
31:57.57
Sam Shirazi
And I will join you next time on Federal Fallout.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.47
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode I will be interviewing Kevin Holst. He is the Executive Director of the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association. So Kevin, thank you for joining me.
00:16.24
Kevin Holst
Thanks for having me on.
00:18.16
Sam Shirazi
So just to begin, could you please talk about your background and what your organization does?
00:24.68
Kevin Holst
Yeah. So the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association is the official Democratic Party organization which supports and uplifts our Democratic Lieutenant Governors.
00:35.36
Kevin Holst
For your listeners who may not have heard of us before compared to DGA, the DSEC, DTRIP, I won't be offended. We were just reestablished in 2018 and have have had a great amount of growth. We have a record 24 Democratic lieutenant governors right now. And something that people often aren't aware of um is that Democratic lieutenant governors are the most diverse group of elected officials in the country. 85% are women or people of color.
01:06.49
Kevin Holst
And we've seen that our lieutenant governors go on to become Governors, senators, I think Virginia is the obviously best example of this where you have Don Beyer now serving in the House, Doug Wilder, who's the lieutenant governor, then the first elected black governor in the country.
01:23.34
Kevin Holst
Tim Kaine served as lieutenant governor, the governor and senator. So we really like to think of Democratic lieutenant governors as the Democratic Party's bench.
01:31.32
Sam Shirazi
You mentioned some of the other organizations within the Democratic Party. you know How do you coordinate with, let's say, the national Dems at the Democratic National Committee and then the state Democratic parties and then the local Democratic parties?
01:44.08
Kevin Holst
Yeah, by virtue of the position, we have a close working relationship with the Democratic Governors Association. The position of lieutenant governor is elected differently depending on the state. There are a lot like Virginia where it's completely separate elected position and we are responsible for supporting the nominee on our own. But then in the Midwest, there tends to be the selection process where the governor handpicks the lieutenant governor. So we will often work in support of the gubernatorial ticket with the Democratic Governors Association.
02:18.26
Kevin Holst
thing that we've been really excited about with Ken Martin's new chairship is that he intends to help bridge you know lines of communication between the federal and state committees, which hasn't always been the case. you know Federal and state often speaks languages that aren't mutually intelligible. And so it's looking great as we look ahead to 2025, 2026 and beyond to make sure that we are all fully aligned to help Democrats up and down the ballot.
02:49.05
Sam Shirazi
And you you mentioned a little earlier that, you know, the lieutenant governors play an important role and and that often the people who are lieutenant governors make it to a higher office. And one thing that I think in Virginia I've noticed is people, for the most part, if they know there's an election this year, they know there's a governor's race, but they often don't know about anything down ballot.
03:11.42
Sam Shirazi
The lieutenant governor's doesn't get as much attention, obviously, as the governor's race, at least for the general election. How do you get people to care about the down ballot races and in your case, specifically the lieutenant governor's race?
03:23.46
Kevin Holst
I think there's a lot of education with voters, activists, donors on the importance of down ballot. This is something that Republicans have done really well. They focused in the 90s and the 2000s, early 2010s on down ballot because they recognize that down ballot races help build power.
03:44.08
Kevin Holst
And it was really to our detriment in 2010, 2014, where Democrats were wiped out in many states because we had not focused on down ballot enough and really building the party's bench. And so I think since...
04:00.06
Kevin Holst
2016 in the trump era many people have started to wake up to how important down ballot and specifically state races down ballot and the importance of that you know federal elections are always something that are seen as pretty sexy by national observers and there's always going to be people who are wondering about the jockeying for control of the House or Senate. But if we look to things that tangibly change people's lives very quickly, the most personally felt and quick acting change is felt at the state and local level for a transformative piece of legislation to pass Congress.
04:37.11
Kevin Holst
If it can even pass these days, you often see very long implementation times. People don't feel the effects of things that happen on the fur level very quickly.
04:47.59
Kevin Holst
And state government that can change within a matter of weeks. If some states are required to balance their budgets every year, and if you are in a short session like Virginia, where you have 30 to 45 days, depending on the year, to enact new laws, those are felt pretty immediately because that's in statute.
05:06.55
Kevin Holst
The Lt governor in Virginia is a particularly important um elected official in 2025 because, as we know the Virginia Senate is not up for reelection this year. that we It won't be until 2027 for us to expand our majority in the state Senate. And while having one-seat majority, the lieutenant governor is both the presiding officer and tie-breaking vote in the Senate.
05:30.30
Kevin Holst
And we saw how transformative that was with Medicaid expansion in Virginia that was done by the Lt governor's tie-breaking vote. And as we've seen recently with health challenges with different members, you know we are all human. We don't know when there's going to be a sickness, an absence or something unexpected happening.
05:48.84
Kevin Holst
So in order to ensure that future Governor Spanberger is going to be able to help pass her priorities, it's going to be on the Lt governor to make sure that these are sharpened through the legislature and that if there's any contentious votes which end up in a tie because as we know republicans have no incentive to work with the democrat governor in 2025 or 2026 it will be on the 10 governor to be that really key tie-breaking vote and as we think through you know passing the codification of abortion protections as we think through any piece of progressive legislation. It's going to be on the Lt governor to ensure that that gets across the finish line. And that's something that really resonates with people.
06:34.09
Sam Shirazi
And in terms of Virginia this year, you you laid out some of the issues that might come up in the lieutenant governor's race. What is your organization doing in the race itself? I know we have to wait for the nominees on the Democratic side, but what is your plan for this year in Virginia?
06:51.11
Kevin Holst
We are going to make a record-breaking investment in Virginia. The DLGA was actually... Part of the impetus for its beginning was due to the 2017 Lt governor's race in Virginia. We saw the Republican state leadership committee spend a million dollars to try to win the Lt governor's seat. And so in 2018, group of Lt governors seeing that got together and said, we need to ensure that Democrats have that same level of support.
07:20.94
Kevin Holst
We invested so about a million dollars in 2021, but we intend to spend up to $2 million dollars in 2025 to flip the Lt governor's office from red to blue because we know how important it will be to actually pass legislation to affect change in Virginians' lives. and This is an important office that, as we've seen, people go on to higher office. Winsome Sears has been Lt governor for the past four years, and she's now the Republican gubernatorial nominee. And so if we want to ensure that in 2029 Democrats are in the strongest position possible, we need to ensure that Democrats sweep all three statewide offices. And Lt governor is a key office in that.
08:05.08
Sam Shirazi
And right now there's a Democratic primary for lieutenant governor and there are six candidates running on the Democratic side. And I wonder what is your organization's role in the primary?
08:15.74
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, there's there's sometimes talk about, you know, the National Party coming in, picking a favorite. I don't think that's happening this year in Virginia. I think most people both at the state and federal level are letting the lieutenant governor primary play out. What what are you looking for or or are you just kind of waiting to see how the primary shakes out?
08:34.85
Kevin Holst
We are watching the primary closely and we have spoken with and are in regular communication with all the candidates, but it's up to the voters of Virginia to decide who their nominee will be. We know that any of the nominees will be infinitely better than John Reed as lieutenant governor and whomever Virginian voters decide, we are going to be their strongest partner, ally and advocate from day one.
09:01.29
Kevin Holst
So we are in close communication with all the campaigns, but we do not put our finger on the scales at all. We have a strict neutrality policy in this primary.
09:11.47
Sam Shirazi
I'll get to John Reed in a little bit, but I did want to ask about the current lieutenant governor in Virginia, who is Winsome Sears. And I think a lot of people, you know, didn't necessarily pay attention to that race in 2021. And she was swept in when Glenn Youngkin was able to win at the top of the ticket. um How do you think her role specifically as lieutenant governor, the current lieutenant governor in Virginia will play in the governor's race this year?
09:34.03
Kevin Holst
Well, she has certainly taken some ah ah positions which are just completely out of step with Virginians. I mean, we saw in this past week where she's constitutionally required to sign laws that passed the Virginia state legislature. She said that she was morally opposed to marriage equality. She voted against protecting contraception that was tied vote in the state Senate. um She's against abortion protections. She is against worker protections. And so the track record that she's assembled by both being publicly against certain policies and then when she's empowered to vote on the policies, voting the wrong way is going to hurt her in this gubernatorial election. We feel great about
10:19.90
Kevin Holst
Abigail Spanberger and her ability to articulate to Virginians that Winsome Sears is just out of step and too extreme for the state. And I think Winsome Sears' record, once voters learn more about it, is going to be very troubling to them.
10:33.33
Sam Shirazi
And this is kind of a random question before I get to the Republican nominee. But do you know, is there you mentioned that in the past, Republicans have spent for the lieutenant governor's race. Is there a Republican equivalent to your organization or is it just the RNC might be spending money in the race?
10:49.74
Kevin Holst
There is a consolidated down-ballot organization called the RSLC, which has the AG state legislative and lieutenant governors under their umbrella. So they spent heavily in 2017.
11:03.93
Kevin Holst
They spent for Winsome Sears in 2021. We will see what they in 2025.
11:10.61
Sam Shirazi
And well, speaking about 2025 in Virginia, the lieutenant governor's race. So the Republicans already have their nominee. I wanted to just ask a few questions about that. And obviously there's been a lot of things going on on the Republican side.
11:21.97
Sam Shirazi
I guess first, you know, most people, and I don't want to assume for you, but I think most Democrats were thinking, you know, Pat Harity would be the Republican nominee. Obviously he had to drop out due to health reasons. What's it like being on the other side where,
11:37.59
Sam Shirazi
you know you're You're thinking, all right, we're going to be facing this guy in all likelihood, and all of a sudden it shifts to someone else.
11:43.81
Kevin Holst
Yeah, I wasn't convinced that Pat Haredy would necessarily win the nomination. I knew obviously he's a strong contender. He had outraised John Reed. But, you know, Republicans, primary voters in different states have chosen nontraditional candidates. We've seen the rise of media personalities win Republican primaries, especially in very low turnout primaries. Obviously, we don't have a primary for governor on either side. So if you are turning out in a down ballot primary, you're probably a highly informed and a highly motivated voter. And if you had been listening to John Reed on conservative talk radio for years and years, you've
12:23.06
Kevin Holst
as a Republican voter, might be more inclined to vote for him. So we were watching the primary closely. i will never know how it would have turned out. I wasn't convinced that Hardy would have been the nominee. um Obviously, when he dropped out, we were surprised. had heard some rumblings about his health issues. And obviously he made the right decision for himself and his family to focus on that.
12:46.63
Kevin Holst
But it gives us more time to be able to focus on whom we're going to face in November and everything that we have learned about John Reed. We know it's completely out of step with Virginians. He's compared abortion to slavery. He has said that it's time to throw out public education and replace it with a voucher system. So it's It's one where while we do not have a nominee yet, and we are able to focus our attention on educating voters as to why John Reed would be too extreme for Virginia.
13:21.35
Sam Shirazi
And I did want to ask about the the incident that happened or or the the drama. and And I wanted to get to his record and some of the more substantive issues in a second, but kind of similar, what was it like being on the other side? So obviously, just to give the listeners a quick context, after John Reed became the Republican nominee, Governor Glenn Youngkin gave him a phone call saying, could you please drop out because of some you know alleged online pictures he had posted or, you know, on an account that may have been associated with him.
13:54.05
Sam Shirazi
John Reed denied that was him. it was his account. He stayed in the race. It sounds like that incident has kind of ended and and the Republicans have accepted that John Reed will be the lieutenant governor nominee.
14:06.03
Sam Shirazi
What was it like being on the other side where, you know, you're probably hearing the news about Governor Youngkin calling at the same time the rest of us heard about it?
14:13.84
Kevin Holst
It was we had John Reed had been posting about Republicans claiming they had incriminating things on him for about a week and a half prior to Glenn Youngkin's phone call. So we had been poking around and we hadn't found anything.
14:32.06
Kevin Holst
Super problematic. When the Tumblr page was brought to our attention, it had been pulled down, but we were able to go on the Internet archive to see some past pages over the years. And it seems to be just a blatant homophobic attack on him by Governor Yunkin. And he sort of got over his sails here. i think what's interesting is how quickly the MAGA and Republican grassroots rallied around John Reed and Glenn Yunkin basically had to admit defeat and his quest to get John Reed to drop out. And
15:11.56
Kevin Holst
So I think that was more telling than anything. It's always nice as a Democrat to see Glenn Youngkin's 2028 dreams fade even further than the hundreds of miles away that they were from reality. um But it From an operating standpoint, you know, we we have been focused that despite all this, we were going to continue to try to educate people on John Reed's positions, because as it seemed that he would stay in the race. is something where Republicans were united against him and it's our job to.
15:46.58
Kevin Holst
remind Virginia voters that he was cheering the federal layoffs which is affecting northern Virginia and 40 of Virginia's economy that he said abortions like slavery that he wanted to shut down public schools is against any limit on guns and so for us you know it was was a interesting couple of days but we were always very laser focused on how we're going to educate voters on the issues
16:11.30
Sam Shirazi
Well, it it sounds like you have some good message discipline on your side. i mean, the reason I say that is I think oftentimes when something like this happens and you see John Reed doing this because I think he's he's he knows how to worked the media because he's been on radio.
16:26.60
Sam Shirazi
I think he's kind of making this about how he was being targeted and he kind of overcome the establishment Republicans. And and he kind of wants to run on that. and And, you know, maybe he'll he'll change his tune. But how do you get people to focus on the stakes and the substance? Because I think some of the comments that I've heard from a lot of Democrats after 2024 is the media and social media and everything.
16:51.74
Sam Shirazi
They want to focus on you know all this campaign stuff, the drama, that this, that, and and there isn't a lot of focus on the stakes. And it sounds like you're trying to do that. How do you try to break through and and talk about what these elections actually matter for
17:06.53
Kevin Holst
Well, I think it's important for those of us who work in politics and elections to remove ourselves from our own bubbles. I know that for some of us who live and breathe elections and politics, that we are just so vastly different than the average voter who's more concerned with politics.
17:26.11
Kevin Holst
Am I going to get my kids to school on time? What is traffic like? What are the price of groceries? Are we going to be able to take a vacation this year? So while it was a pretty dramatic couple of days and week, it took really a week for it to break through and regional and national media. It tended to be more political blogs, which were focusing on this. And I would be shocked if we were to poll the state right now, if 15% of the state knew that there was all this drama between the governor and the lieutenant governor nominee.
17:59.45
Kevin Holst
So I think the first that people are going to hear about John Reed, unless you are living and breathing politics, is really going to be through paid political communication or when a canvasser knocks on your door, whether that be pro-Reed or a Democratic person communicating to you.
18:19.15
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good point that, you know, we're very aware of these issues. But often when I talk to voters about the Virginia elections, they don't quite know that there is even an election going on or what's on the
18:33.20
Kevin Holst
if you look at early vote right now, it is very low. People in places like Richmond and Hampton Roads, where you have some delegate seats that have contested primaries or where you have down ballot candidates that come from those areas is a bit higher. But we look to Northern Virginia and turnout right now is extremely low because people don't know there's an election right now because candidates haven't been communicating yet.
18:58.14
Sam Shirazi
terms of the thinking about the election, trying to get people engaged, you know what are some of the issues that you want to be talking to voters about and or that you you think voters care about this year in Virginia?
19:11.56
Kevin Holst
Well, the havoc that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are... are causing to Virginia's economy is going to be paramount. I mean, one third of Northern Virginia is a federal government employee or contractor. 40% of the state's GDP comes from the federal government. And when you are a Republican in 2025, running on the same, you know, running as part of Donald Trump's party, when he is trying to, you just inflict chaotic mass layoffs without any strategic goals rather than to inflict pain on people who are a part of the federal government. That is very hard run on. And we have nominees like Winsome Sears who says, oh you lost your job? but Boo Find a new one. You have people like John Reed saying, does it hurt? Yeah, but we got to do it. Trump is the way.
20:09.08
Kevin Holst
And so Democrats even... Outside of the election, you know we have delegates, our congresspeople, who have been holding job fairs and trying to create resources for federal government employees who have been affected by these mass layoffs. and so Democrats are focused on ensuring that Virginians have good paying jobs and are trying to help Virginians navigate the chaos of Donald Trump and Elon Musk's economy. and
20:39.79
Kevin Holst
Winsome Sears and John Reed are going to side with Trump over Virginians, like in every single situation. John Reed being a radio host and a prolific poster on Facebook says he never says these things. Just read his own words, listen to his own words where he's cheering on these layoffs.
20:57.37
Kevin Holst
Winsome Sears cheering on the layoffs saying you should stop complaining if Donald Trump fired you from a job that you've held for 25 years and had provided a great middle class income for you.
21:08.56
Kevin Holst
And so we're going to focus on the economy. We're going to focus on the cost of living. And we're also going to focus on protecting the rights of Virginians in the face of when some serious Donald Trump, John Reed and Elon Musk trying to strip away reproductive freedom, trying to strip away worker protections, trying to make it so that the ultra rich are able to do whatever they want at the expense of the economic livelihoods of the average Virginians. And it's a message that is going to resonate because people are feeling it. You know, when Donald Trump says that you should tell your kids that they're not going to get great Christmas presents and you don't really need a vacation and you have Republicans running on that same message, it's a terrible message for them to run on.
21:54.31
Sam Shirazi
Well, I appreciate you taking the time to kind of explain what what your organization is going to be doing this year in Virginia. I did want to ask, um um if you have a chance to just give a little bit about your background, you know, what made you interested in politics and why you took on this role.
22:09.71
Kevin Holst
i I've been interested in politics and government since I can remember. I've always been a big believer in the ability of government to do good in people's lives. I was raised by a single mom who was able to help provide for us due to her union job. also struggled with and ultimately passed away from addiction. And so knowing that I was always teetering on the brink of just you know collapse and seeing the ability for our country to help provide for people who just need a bit of a boost seeing that government is the most efficient and best way to help make that a reality. i
22:59.45
Kevin Holst
wanted to be a part of the solution to help make people's lives better. I had prior to taking this job at the DLGA, I'd been in the service to politics world where in 2018, I had worked with Congressman Seth Moulton and my old boss, Emily Cherniak.
23:15.21
Kevin Holst
Who was the founder of New Politics, to help create an initiative that we called Serve America, where we helped recruit, advise, and fundraise for some of the rock stars of 2018. Abigail Spanberger, Elaine Loria were some of our 2018 candidates, where we're able to raise about $10 million dollars collectively for 20 veteran candidates running for Congress, and we helped set the narrative of national security Democrats stepping up to fight Trump, which was a big theme in 2018.
23:42.77
Kevin Holst
And these were people that had a demonstrated history of country before party, service before self, and that really resonated with not just voters, but also the caucus. When we think about Trump's first impeachment, it was because of the op-ed that our candidates wrote saying we have dedicated our lives to the security of this country. And this is why we have to now initiate the impeachment of the president.
24:10.69
Kevin Holst
2018 was a very unique cycle. And I knew that you weren't always going to have people like Abigail Spanberger, who were rock stars that could step up and run for Congress without a long political network. And so we focused a lot on down ballot after that. We did state Senate, state rep, city councils, some other ah lower down-ballot statewide elections, and we're pretty successful. We worked throughout the country to help elect a new generation of leadership. And when I saw this opportunity with the DLGA pop up, I saw this as really a natural extension of the work that I had been doing to help build the Democratic Party's bench. Because like I said, you have 85% women or people of color in statewide positions. a lot of them were just entering their second term and needed some
25:00.68
Kevin Holst
Need some help develop their political networks to help them on the comms front, sharpen ah ah some policies for them. So I was excited to take the challenge and we've had a tremendous amount of growth and we're seeing now the success in 2024.
25:17.52
Kevin Holst
We're able to invest $2 million dollars to help flip the North Carolina lieutenant governor's election from red to blue is the first time Democrats had won that seat since 2008. And on the bench argument, if your listeners remember, the past two Republican nominees for governor in North Carolina had been the Republican lieutenant governor. So we are now...
25:37.69
Kevin Holst
Going to have a great time for Josh Stein's reelection in 2028 because Republicans will not have a statewide official with the gravitas that the previous lieutenant governors have had to be able to run against him.
25:49.15
Kevin Holst
Of course, he's still going to run very hard, but it's nice to know that you are going to have someone with lower name ID um against you. And like I said, we're looking at 2025 to make a substantial impact in Virginia to help flip this lieutenant governor seat from red to blue. And then as we look to 26, we have some of our rock star lieutenant governors who are running for governor, running for Senate, and we're going to have their back and you know help in our mission to build the Democratic Party's bench and support them along the way.
26:19.28
Sam Shirazi
Well, thank you for taking the time to come come on and talk to us. I think it's really interesting hearing what it's like to to be in that role and and ah ah try to influence the elections this year in Virginia. If there are Republicans who are in a similar role or want to come on the podcast, feel free to reach out. But I did appreciate getting a Democratic perspective on that. So last question, how can people find out more about your organization?
26:43.73
Kevin Holst
They can go to our website, demlgs.org. We are also on bluesky at demlgs.org. We are on Twitter at Democratic LGs. We are on Instagram at demlgs. And we are prolific in our...
27:03.40
Kevin Holst
promotion of our Lt governors. So check it out. We have some of the most exciting Democrats in the party today. And for all of your listeners who might be thinking, you know, when will the Democratic Party move on from octogenarians in our leadership, you'll be seeing a lot more of our LGs over the next two, four, six, eight years.
27:21.78
Sam Shirazi
Well, that is all very interesting and i appreciate you coming on again. So thanks again. And this is Federal Fallout. I'll see you next time.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.51
Sam Shirazi
I'm Sam Shirazi and this is federal fallout the 2025 Virginia elections this episode, we will go over some of the sleeper races in the House of delegates more so on the democratic side. In terms of seats that they are trying to flip and the reason I'm doing this episode is because they have found candidates in all 100 races in the Virginia House of Delegates.
00:20.43
Sam Shirazi
So that means they're contesting every seat. Obviously, they're not going to win every seat, but I do think it shows that there are people willing to run this year in Virginia, even in seats that are very red.
00:35.28
Sam Shirazi
And you know conventional wisdom is that shows enthusiasm that the Democrats are able to find candidates. Now, does it guarantee that they're going to win? No, but I do think it's one thing to look at among many other factors.
00:48.21
Sam Shirazi
And another reason I wanted to do this is earlier I had done a podcast on the top battlegrounds in the Virginia House of Delegates, and I missed a few races I wanted to cover, and I just couldn't because I was covering so many other races.
01:03.86
Sam Shirazi
And one of them, the seat on the list of sleeper races that are most likely to flip, and again, i don't even think this is a sleeper race because the Democrats have said that they are targeting this seat, and I just failed to mention it on the last podcast, is is the 69th House District.
01:19.75
Sam Shirazi
But I think it's really interesting to talk about it on this podcast because in 2023, Democrats didn't even contest this seat. So it shows you that what happens when you don't contest seats is you you potentially miss out on flipping seats. Now, realistically, in 2023, I don't think the Democrats were going to win this seat.
01:37.00
Sam Shirazi
But in 2025, in a different political environment with a candidate, I do think there's a chance this seat flips. So this seat is in the Yorktown area ah ah in Hampton Roads, and it's right next to another district that's competitive that we talked about in the past, which is the 71st district.
01:56.42
Sam Shirazi
And the 69th district voted for Trump by less than one point. And the current incumbent is Chad Green. And as I said, in 2023, won... unopposed.
02:07.38
Sam Shirazi
The Democrats are running a candidate this time, and that is a local pediatrician. His name is Mark Downey. And I should have mentioned this district before because it's a less than one point Trump district. Democrats are targeting it. So I do think this is more of a true battleground district this year as opposed to a sleeper race. But I will talk about it this time just to show you kind of the importance of contesting races and not contesting them.
02:32.78
Sam Shirazi
So the district, I think it's competitive this year for a couple of reasons. One, just the fact that, you know, this year in Virginia is probably going to lean towards the Democrats. At least that's what it's looking like right now. Obviously, nothing's guaranteed, but but that's what it's looking like.
02:47.52
Sam Shirazi
And also the district has big military bases on it. And so if you're seeing some impacts of the federal government changes, this is the type of district lot of military people in the district could be feeling that hit from Washington, DC.
03:01.04
Sam Shirazi
But I should note one thing. And I visited this district recently because I wanted to go to Yorktown Beach and see it for myself. No, I'm kind of kidding. But I did go to Yorktown Beach, which is a beautiful beach. If you're ever in Yorktown or in that area, go see the beach. I think they've done a really good job with that beach.
03:23.84
Sam Shirazi
But if you look across the river, There's the York River. There's a bridge that goes over from Yorktown to Gloucester. And Gloucester is a much redder part of Virginia than across the river in York, and the York County. And York County is roughly kind of a leans a little bit towards the Republicans, but roughly a 50-50 county, as is much of that area. And that's why it's a competitive seat, obviously.
03:48.78
Sam Shirazi
But about 10% of the district are is is across the river in Gloucester, and Gloucester is much redder than the rest of the district. So long story short, I often spend a lot of time thinking about these little nuances in the districts. It's similar to the House District 57 in the Henrico area where Henrico super blue, but it has this red part of Goochland. This is similar where you know most of the district is about 50-50, and then there's this little red part of the district. So It really comes down to, you know, can the Democrats overcome the redness in Gloucester either because of the federal fallout or because it's just such a landslide at the top of the ticket.
04:24.27
Sam Shirazi
Now that's assuming a lot of things. And I should say for this district and the other districts I'm going to be talking about, you know, if it's a close race, I mean, they're not going to flip because these are the types of districts that it really requires a blue wave for there to be a flip in November. And so it's possible that none of these seats flip.
04:41.44
Sam Shirazi
It's possible maybe one flip. It's also possible on a good night that many of them start flipping, especially if we're starting to see a double digit Democratic win at the top of the ticket, which again, I think is you know not out of the realm of possibility. I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just saying theoretically it could happen in November, given historical patterns of how these elections turn turn out and that there's a big swing against the party in the White House.
05:08.07
Sam Shirazi
so I spent a little bit more time on the 69th district because I think it's obviously the one that's most likely the flip of the ones I'm going to be talking about today. I will talk about some other districts. I'll go through them a little bit more quickly because I think, you know, these are pretty reached districts for Democrats. But I wanted to mention them because obviously they are contesting all 100 seats.
05:28.00
Sam Shirazi
And what are the sleeper races that could be flipping this year in Virginia? And I'm going to basically focus on the districts that Trump won by less than 10 percent, because realistically, I think the maximum that Democrats are going to get are the single digit Trump seats.
05:43.57
Sam Shirazi
OK, so I will talk about a pair of districts in the Virginia Beach beach area. The first one is House District 99. The current incumbent is Republican Anne Farrell Tata.
05:56.43
Sam Shirazi
And the Democratic nominee is Kat Porterfield. And this is a district that Trump won by about five points in November. However, in 2023, Tata defeated Porterfield by about 15 points. So we're going to see a rematch. And you saw, obviously, in 2023 that this was not a close race at all, even though in 2024 it was single-digit Trump seat.
06:22.20
Sam Shirazi
And I want to talk about this district and its neighboring district, House District 100 in tandem. So let me just talk about House District 100 right now that the current incumbent Republican is Rob Bloxham.
06:34.42
Sam Shirazi
And the Democrats are still trying to finalize their nominee. There is someone who has filed on the Democratic side. Rocco Debilis, I'm not sure if he'll end up being the nominee because i I've heard maybe someone else will try to also be the nominee. But long story short, I think the Democrats are going to be able to find a nominee in that district.
06:52.41
Sam Shirazi
I would say that the district is, again, one of these ones that would be potentially competitive. it was less than five points Trump win in 2024 in this district.
07:03.43
Sam Shirazi
But in 2023, the incumbent Bloxham won by almost 20 points. And so you're seeing these districts where there's a huge difference between the 2023 number and the 2024 number. Why? Because I think there was a lot of voters in these districts that feel comfortable voting for the Republican Party at the state level, but for whatever reason, they're not comfortable voting for Donald Trump in 2024.
07:27.44
Sam Shirazi
And the reason for that, They have a decent amount of college-educated voters who are traditionally Republicans. We've seen across the country college-educated voters becoming more Democratic.
07:37.93
Sam Shirazi
So you're seeing in these districts, they're starting to trend towards the Democrats because these college-educated voters are moving towards the Democrats and away from the Republicans. And I think, again, if there's a huge backlash either in the suburbs or there's a backlash to all the federal cuts and that's hitting Hampton Roads particularly hard, these are the types of districts on a good night. If there's a huge wave, Democrats might be able to flip because, again, it's single-digit Trump seat.
08:04.19
Sam Shirazi
I think the one challenge Democrats are going to have if they're trying to flip these seats is that there's a this is the type of area where you can see ticket splitting, where maybe someone votes for Spanberger at the top of the ticket, but they like their local delegate. And so the Republican delegates will overperform the top of the ticket.
08:20.57
Sam Shirazi
And so while Democrats might have a shot here, particularly if there's a big swing in Hampton Roads, I wouldn't necessarily count on these seats flipping. Now we will go over towards Southside, Virginia, in a seat that will have an open race because the incumbent has retired. So incumbent Republican Danny Marshall, he has decided to retire.
08:43.80
Sam Shirazi
And this district voted for Trump by about eight points. And again, this was a district that the Democrats didn't oppose in 2023. So we don't really have a sense of how we would have voted in 2023. I think it's pretty likely that yeah even if a Democrat ran in 2023, the incumbent Republican still would have won this district
09:01.17
Sam Shirazi
But this time there will be a Democratic nominee because there are two people filing for this seat on the Democratic side. So there will be a primary and there are two Republicans as well running. So I will talk more about the primary in my episode about the primary, which I promise one day i will get to.
09:18.82
Sam Shirazi
But this is an interesting district. So it is based in Danville. which itself, Danville City, is is somewhat Democratic, but the surrounding rural areas are pretty Republican.
09:31.25
Sam Shirazi
The district is about 40% African American. And so that's a pretty high number for the Democrats to start with. you know They're going to get a pretty high number And so going to talk about the majority district.
09:44.53
Sam Shirazi
the problem for them is that it's a majority white district this part of virginia has a lot of racialized votinging. It's similar to other parts of the South where most African-American voters are Democrats, most white voters are Republicans.
09:58.70
Sam Shirazi
And so you're going need some crossover from the white community for the Democrats to able to flip the seat. Again, perhaps if the environment's right and the Democrats are doing better with white working class voters, this is the type of seat that could flip.
10:11.50
Sam Shirazi
But again, it's it's a pretty tall order. But keep in mind, though, that Democrats didn't compete in it 2023, and this year they will be competing in it.
10:21.14
Sam Shirazi
I did want to talk about another Southside district. This is House District 83. The current incumbent is Republican Otto Wachsman. This is roughly a Trump plus eight district in 2024.
10:34.90
Sam Shirazi
But in 2023, the incumbent Republican, he won by almost 17 points. And so you see, again, a type of district where there was a lot of difference between 2023 and 2024.
10:49.53
Sam Shirazi
I would say the reason for the difference in this district is a little bit different. So again, this is a district with a lot of African-American voters, about 41% African-American. I think in 2024, the Democrats did a better job turning out those voters Obviously, on the Democratic side, at the top top of the ticket, you had an African-American woman on the ticket. And so I think that helped Democrats get more of the African-American vote out in 2024.
11:14.54
Sam Shirazi
I think in 2023, that was something the Democrats could have done better in this seat and across Virginia. And I think it's a little bit of an open question this year in 2025. What does the African-American turnout look like?
11:26.70
Sam Shirazi
You know, there's a possibility that either one or two slots on the Democratic ticket with the lieutenant governor and the attorney general spot, um could be African American nominees for the Democrats.
11:38.62
Sam Shirazi
Obviously, the Republicans have an African American woman at the top of the ticket. And so there's a lot of interesting questions about what the turnout will look like specifically in that community. And a lot of these seats that have and not a majority African American, but a decent amount of African American voters.
11:57.41
Sam Shirazi
I think the question will become can the Democrats turn them out? And in theory, if there's higher turnout than expected among the African-American community, and maybe the working class white vote falls because Trump's not on the ticket, which we've seen in other places where these low propensity Trump voters don't come out in non-presidential elections, the Danville district and then this other Southside district, both of those potentially could flip just depending on the dynamics of turnout And, you know, I think it's still realistically pretty hard for the Democrats to win this seat. But I just wanted to mention some of the dynamic dynamics. And I should say this, you know often in this podcast, I will be focusing on Northern Virginia, Richmond area, Hampton Roads.
12:38.05
Sam Shirazi
You know, you talk about the suburbs and college educated voters and and all this. I think it's important to keep in mind, Virginia has a lot of different parts to it and there are different dynamics. So Southside Virginia,
12:49.20
Sam Shirazi
These two districts, their voting patterns are much more similar to other parts of the South. I think, you know, it's just a different type of district and you have to keep that in mind. And so while I think potentially the numbers are there for the Democrats, I just think, and as you've seen in other parts of the South, it's hard for the Democrats to win seats if it's majority white and most of the white voters there are working class voters who were Trump voters. and And typically it's hard for the Democrats, especially these days, where they're not doing well with white working class voters to flip those types of seats.
13:24.05
Sam Shirazi
All right. So I will talk about a couple other districts that are kind of interesting in that they're all similar. So they're all college towns in their own way. And so I will start off with the 52nd House District.
13:35.94
Sam Shirazi
This is in the Lynchburg area. The current incumbent is Wendell Walker.
13:40.75
Sam Shirazi
This is a district that Trump won roughly by nine points. and However, keep in mind the current incumbent, Walker, only won this district by about nine points in 2023.
13:51.95
Sam Shirazi
And so that's kind of interesting because it tells you that this type of district... you know, so as we saw in some of the other districts, there were huge swings between 2023 and 2024, but this district didn't see much of a swing and it was basically the same.
14:07.07
Sam Shirazi
And I just think there's some interesting dynamics going on. So Lynchburg is kind of a a medium-sized city. So you have more of a professional class in that in that city.
14:17.66
Sam Shirazi
It's also home to Liberty University. I think a lot of the Republican voters, at least among young people in that city, are students at Liberty. It's kind of an open question mark. Do those students show up in a governor's race this year? And I think the incumbent, Walker, needs some of those students to turn out for him.
14:37.84
Sam Shirazi
And so I i just think and it it just has a lot of interesting dynamics for a district like this. And i think, again, On a good night, the Democrats have a chance to to flip this seat, particularly if we're seeing a decent amount of Democratic turnout and then the Republican turnout isn't there.
14:56.21
Sam Shirazi
Okay, let's go to another college district. This is House District 40, and this is in the Salem-Roanoke area. The current incumbent is Republican Joe McNamara.
15:07.74
Sam Shirazi
The district voted again for Trump by about nine points and 2023,
15:14.96
Sam Shirazi
The Republican incumbent won by about 19 points. And the reason I say it's a college town. So Roanoke College technically is not in the city of Roanoke. It is based in the city of Salem, which is right next to Roanoke.
15:30.34
Sam Shirazi
So even though Salem does have this college in it, Salem is generally known to be a little bit more of a red-leaning town as compared to Roanoke. So Roanoke City is a blue city. Salem's known for being more of a red city.
15:43.57
Sam Shirazi
But obviously you have a college town vibe to Salem to a certain extent. And so I think that's keeping this district competitive. And we'll see again, are are the Democrats able to to flip a seat like this in November?
15:58.45
Sam Shirazi
I will go out to one more college town for our tour of the college towns of Virginia, or at least the red-leaning college town districts in Virginia. So this is House District 34 in the Harrisonburg area, which is home to James Madison University.
16:14.37
Sam Shirazi
The current incumbent is Republican Tony Wilt. The district was about a seven-point Trump district in 2024. 2023, in twenty twenty three The current incumbent Republican won by about 13 points.
16:28.45
Sam Shirazi
In this district, it's just straight you know college town versus rural. So if you think about Harrisonburg, where James Madison University is located, ah ah blue college town, lot of students.
16:40.15
Sam Shirazi
The area around it in the Shenandoah Valley is beautiful. It's a red area. And so it's just a matter of which side is able to turn out more of their base. And I think the interesting thing about this district is the Democrats' chances really come down to if they're able to either register students or get students to show up on Election Day and same day register and get the students to vote. Because James Madison University, it's a pretty big university, basically.
17:06.30
Sam Shirazi
You would think that the students there tend to lean towards the Democrats. And so I think if the Democrats are able to mobilize students, this is the seat type of seat that could flip.
17:16.81
Sam Shirazi
And I should note make a note of this So we talked about three of these college towns that could flip in the reach districts for the Democrats and two of the top battleground districts in the 41st district and then the 71st district district ah where Virginia Tech and William & Mary are located. Those are really going to be top top targets for Democrats.
17:38.10
Sam Shirazi
And again, students are going to be really important if they're going to flip those two seats. And I think, you know, in 2024, part of the story was President Trump was able to do better with college students and students and younger people in general than I think most people were expected because generally people think, okay, young people, they tend to be Democrats, but President Trump was able to do better.
18:00.43
Sam Shirazi
And I think a lot of those voters were maybe not super engaged and may not have been paying super close attention and maybe voted on the economy or issues like that. And I think to the extent we're seeing voters move away from Trump,
18:14.10
Sam Shirazi
I think those are the type of voters that are going to move away or voters who are really sensitive on the economy. They might have said, well, let's see what President Trump can do. And now obviously they're seeing maybe some of the effects of the federal cuts and the effects of the tariffs. And so those voters might turn away from the Republicans.
18:32.77
Sam Shirazi
And so if we take a step back and look at all these districts, which I would say are red leaning districts that the Democrats would really need a good night to be able to flip. you you know How would they be able to do that? Who are they going to be able to to either s flip or or how how is it going to be that they're going to be able to flip these red districts? I think there's two possibilities, as I mentioned earlier.
18:53.59
Sam Shirazi
One possibility is that their turnout is really just way through the roof and they get closer to 2024 turnout. And then the Republican turnout is way down for whatever reason. And so You basically just have a bunch of Democrats showing up and the Republicans don't show up. And then so a seat that you don't think was going to flip starts to flip. And I think the other possibility or the thing that could happen in combination with that is that the Democrats are able to.
19:19.63
Sam Shirazi
The Democrats are able to convince some of these Trump voters to switch and vote for the Democrats in this election, not just at the governor's level, but all the way down the ticket. I think relatively that's going to be pretty rare, particularly among, you know, voters that would turn out in a governor but governor's election, because most of the time people these days, it's just hard to get people to switch their votes.
19:43.30
Sam Shirazi
But in some of these districts, if you have a decent Democratic turnout and you flip some of the people who voted for Trump last November, it doesn't take a whole lot to flip the the district. And, you know, again, i think President Trump, among some of his core base, he still has that support.
19:59.36
Sam Shirazi
Where you're seeing his approval rating go down is typically with voters who were sensitive on the economy or maybe relatively less engaged. He President Trump did well with those voters.
20:10.87
Sam Shirazi
And you're seeing those voters turn away from President Trump now that you know some of the economic hits that have been happening recently, and obviously President Trump is taking the blame for that.
20:22.32
Sam Shirazi
So I don't want to belabor the point. I do think there's a ah scenario where the Democrats are able to flip at least one of these sleeper seats. But Now, you may be saying, OK, you're kind of getting everyone's hopes up on the Democratic side. You're saying, oh, the Democrats can flip all these seats. I'm not saying that. I just think that you have to think about the possibility.
20:42.35
Sam Shirazi
And the reason I say that is both 2017 and 2021. So 2017, 2017, the first Trump administration, Democrats were hoping to flip, you know, maybe a few seats here and there. They were already in a deep hole in the House of Delegates.
20:57.05
Sam Shirazi
The formal Democratic Party only focused on a few seats and we were hoping to maybe on a good night flip maybe 10 seats. But the Democrats got a real big blue wave in 2017 and they were able to flip 15 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates. And I think that was a huge surprise to everyone. And I think that was also ah big wake up call for the Republicans that they were struggling in the suburbs. Most of these districts were in the suburbs where the Democrats were able to flip it.
21:23.80
Sam Shirazi
And so I just think you You know, you never know what's going to happen in the House of Delegates, particularly if there are big swings between elections. And the other election I should talk about on the other side is 2021 when the Republicans got a victory. And I think for most of that election, Democrats didn't think that the House of Delegates, which they were in the majority in, was at much risk.
21:44.100
Sam Shirazi
But then all of a sudden at the end, a few seats flipped that the Democrats weren't expecting to flip. And the Republicans were able to get the majority in the Virginia House of Delegates in 2021. So I do think in these potentially wave elections, there are circumstances where the a lot of seats flip.
22:02.01
Sam Shirazi
There are unexpected gains on one side. And i think we have to be open to the possibility of that. Realistically, I don't think that's going to happen on the Republican side. Just the reality is, know, I'm not saying it's impossible for the Republicans to win the governor's race, but Even if the Republicans win the governor's race, I mean, we kind of know which seats are going to flip on the Republican side. I think it's going to really be unlikely that they're going to be able to flip more than maybe on a good night, three seats.
22:30.67
Sam Shirazi
Whereas on the republican on the Democratic side, I mean, the the range is so big. You could see Democrats flipping one or two seats if it's a close election. to potentially flipping up to 10 seats or more if it's a really landslide type election.
22:46.77
Sam Shirazi
And at this stage, we really don't know. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten many Virginia polls. We don't get ah have have as a good sense of where things are going. The Trump approval looks like it's gone negative and it's especially going to be negative in Virginia. So you would think that leads towards Democrats having a good night.
23:04.39
Sam Shirazi
And again, what does a good night mean the Democrats? Does that mean they win by two points? I mean, but they'll take it. A win's a win.
23:11.58
Sam Shirazi
Do they win by five points, which I think is a solid win? Or the Democrats at the top of ticket with Abigail Spamberger get closer to a 10 point win and a 10 point win. I mean, that's the type of territory where these and unexpected seats could flip.
23:25.25
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, it's just so hard to tell right now. And I wanted to use the example of this year. We don't have many examples, you use the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
23:35.42
Sam Shirazi
Wisconsin obviously was very close in 2024. The Republicans with Donald Trump were able to win it at the presidential level by a about one point. But that then again, on the Senate side, the Democrats were able to win it in with Tammy Baldwin. So Wisconsin was very close in 2024, kind of on knife's edge.
23:54.89
Sam Shirazi
But then the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, we all thought, okay, it's going to be close. It seems like the Republicans are spending a lot of money here. and it's getting a lot of attention. And then the Democrats win that Supreme court race by about 10 points.
24:07.33
Sam Shirazi
And so I do think both the Democrats and Republicans have to think about the possibility that this won't necessarily be a super close election. And how do they deal with that? What seats are they going to compete in?
24:18.62
Sam Shirazi
Obviously, if you're a Democrat, you don't want to get your hopes up. You don't want to assume you're to You're going to want to play it like it's going to be close. Cause I think that's the safe way to run a campaign. If you're a Republican, you know you never want to say, oh, we're going to lose. We're to throw in the towel. Now you you still have to kind of have hope that you're going to be able to win and that perhaps you're going to be able to save all these seats that you have in the House of Delegates. But you also have to be realistic and say, look, it's getting kind of dicey. yeah These incumbents, we can't really save them. Let's focus on these other incumbents that have a more realistic shot.
24:52.61
Sam Shirazi
And the favorite word that you know you hear in midterms, more so for the US House of Representatives is triaging, you know, this race is is a lost cause. Let's just kind stop competing there.
25:05.93
Sam Shirazi
I don't know if the Republicans are going to do that. I think it's very hard to tell. I think theyre they have a lot of incumbents. They want to protect them. the The danger is if you start focusing on the incumbents that seem unlikely to win, you're going to potentially leave these other incumbents out in a in in more Republican districts, but the ones that could be competitive, you could leave them out to dry. so It's hard to tell. i think it's way too early. i didn't want to speculate too much. I just wanted to flag some of these other seats that could be competitive on an interesting night for the Democrats.
25:36.72
Sam Shirazi
Again, way too early to tell. I wanted to do this podcast because I probably won't be spending too much time on these districts in the future. So I did want to just mention them right now. And I also but just wanted to talk about how you know the Democrats have fielded 100 candidates in all the seats.
25:52.82
Sam Shirazi
And if you think about 2023, two of the districts I talked about, the Democrats didn't feel the candidate. So it just gives you a sense of, you know, what it can look like in a different cycle. Seats that you didn't think were going to go be competitive can all of a sudden be on the board, particularly if you have a candidate running. So anyways, I think there'll be a lot of interesting things to talk about this year in Virginia. These House of Delegates districts don't always get as much attention as the other ones, but I did want to mention them.
26:18.72
Sam Shirazi
So I hope everyone found that interesting. I will, I promise, do a podcast at some point on the House of Delegate primary. So I did want to wait a little bit closer to the primary date to do that. But that's also in the works. So anyways, I appreciate everyone listening. And this has been Federal Fallout.
26:36.02
Sam Shirazi
And I will join you next time.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.95
Sam Shirazi
Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. Today, our guest is David Ramadan, a former Republican delegate.
00:12.13
Sam Shirazi
Thank you for joining me.
00:13.80
DR DR
Good to be with you, Sam. Thanks for having me.
00:16.32
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, so I wanted to have you on because you've had the experience of actually being a member of the House of Delegates. And I just wanted to, I guess, first question, ask you why you wanted to run for the House of Delegates and what it was like.
00:32.26
DR DR
It was the highest honor of my life. And it was my way of of public service for the Commonwealth and the country. I am an immigrant, Sam, who came here at the age of 19 with $2,000 in my pocket and a dream.
00:47.68
DR DR
I made it all in, in, in this Commonwealth and in this, in this great country. I did my undergraduate at George Mason, did my master's degree in Mason. I've been teaching in Mason for 20 some years.
01:00.53
DR DR
I was governor of McDonald's first appointee to the board and served two years on the board of the university. And, uh, I went through a presidential, uh, hire and hired a president for the university, did my doctorate Vanderbilt, but that came later after serving in office. So in 2011, after the redistricting of that year, a new seat opened up in the General Assembly.
01:29.08
DR DR
And I honestly had no plans for running. For 20 years prior to that, I was somebody who started with heavy accent, who went and volunteered on the Bush quail campaign and was told, just lick envelopes, don't answer the phone because the accent was heavy. And I said, okay, and did that and grew up to answering the phones, then to going out, putting out small signs and then the four by eight signs, and then started writing checks as I grew up in life and $5 checks and $50 checks, and then starting adding zeros to during the McDonald campaign, going all out and campaigning for
02:05.28
DR DR
You know, A.G. MacDonald at the time and became a policy advisor to him and held lot of events and and went out on the stump. And so grew up in life, 20 years of supporting the Republicans at the time from George Allen's 1993 gubernatorial campaign to the numerous Frank Wolf congressional campaigns, somebody who supported them and from donations to running ground activities to the entire Ramadan family manning it.
02:45.09
DR DR
numerous precincts on election day, and none of it was with the plan of running for office until 2011 when a new seat opened up in my area in eastern Loudoun, and the phone started ringing, and everybody that I had helped over the years said, it's time to run. And I was challenged really into it, because even then, it was a 60-plus percent democratic district.
03:12.26
DR DR
And I think it was Governor McDonald at the time who says, David, it's a 60 plus percent Democratic district. Can you think of anybody else who have the profile of being a successful immigrant who has been lecturing us for years on inclusion and and engagement of of the minority communities who can be competitive in this district who's a Republican besides you? And like, you know, so.
03:39.64
DR DR
It was okay, time to serve. Took five years out of my life, basically a year for the campaign and then two terms where I truly dedicated full-time time, effort and energy to public service.
03:54.54
DR DR
And it was my way of paying back the success that I had. I had brought in four brothers, mom and dad, grandma, uncles, uncles. Everybody living their American dream. Everybody went to to universities. Everybody, most of them to Mason. Everybody got degrees. Everybody got jobs. Everybody got homes.
04:10.25
DR DR
So the entire Ramadan family is indebted to this great system that we have. And it was way of serving. Enjoyed it. Highest honor of my life, as I said. I became the first adult immigrant in history to make Jefferson's house.
04:26.56
DR DR
Jefferson, Madison, Patrick, Henry, and good old me. And I was pretty good at it. I did quite well in and the House, ah passed lot of laws, worked very closely in bipartisan manner.
04:39.88
DR DR
My district re-elected me, even though it was a heavily Democratic district. and I was a very well-known Republican at the time. But after two terms, it became very clear that One, on the personal side, it was not sustainable. I didn't i couldn't work. couldn't I'm a consultant. I do a international.
05:00.56
DR DR
At the time, was doing mostly international consulting work. And if I'm not on a plane with my clients, I'm not billing. And I wasn't billing for an entire five-year period. We spent all the savings.
05:12.78
DR DR
And it was also time of change in in the party. That was when Back then, Donald J. Trump became the nominee of the Republican Party in 2015, and that's when I made the decision not to run for a third term.
05:30.09
Sam Shirazi
Well, that's a lot of interesting details and I want to unpack that a little bit before I turn to Virginia in 2025.
05:33.48
DR DR
Sure. I just want a question.
05:37.72
Sam Shirazi
I guess one question I work, because I think a lot of people, they're worried about running for office, especially in Virginia, because the house a delegate in Virginia only makes
05:38.60
DR DR
I
05:48.70
Sam Shirazi
the the base salary is $17,640 with some expenses. and And obviously most people, they can't make a living off just that. And we have this part-time legislature thing that doesn't seem to work that well.
06:00.98
Sam Shirazi
How do you make it work? and And do you think Virginia should go to a full-time legislature that actually pays the legislature's ah ah living salaries so they can actually have a that as their full-time job?
06:13.98
DR DR
Yeah, I was fortunate enough that I had, you I'd done really well in the years prior to running for office in life. And i had I had enough savings to live off of the savings basically for the four or five years.
06:32.34
DR DR
And I was doing just a little bit of business that had recurring income that came to me that didn't require my time or attention. So it was there was small income coming in from from that those that business that didn't require my time. But my main business of consulting, i wasn't I wasn't doing it and I wasn't billing and to put put all my time and effort and energy into into the the the service.
07:00.96
DR DR
It's not sustainable. yeah So if I hadn't had the the savings that I had, I would not have been able to do it. It is there.
07:10.91
DR DR
The system is broken. It had good intentions that would have worked back during our founding fathers. If it is only the six weeks or eight weeks during session, sure, everybody or not everybody, well most people can manage taking six weeks or eight weeks off, even if it's without pay and doing it.
07:29.29
DR DR
But as You know, today it's no longer just six or eight weeks. One, you get a campaign year round. Two, in Northern Virginia, where I was, i was a Republican in 60 plus Democratic district.
07:41.45
DR DR
That requires a lot of effort and time outside of session. So it was ah ah double full time job, really, not a part time job. that's how it worked out for me. But it's hard. it's it's very That's why you end up with a lot of retirees.
07:56.95
DR DR
That's why you end up with and individually wealthy people or business owners and professionals that their business allows them to take the time off.
08:08.12
DR DR
Lawyers, for example, that that end up serving. um Now, how do you fix that is is a very controversial and long subject to talk about.
08:20.10
DR DR
But I am not in favor of, even though i had to leave because of that, I'm not in favor of full-time legislature. I think it's good to have citizen legislature. I think having the wealth of knowledge from my colleagues in the House and Senate when we were there, people that are farmers and teachers and in business owners and professionals and was very important for for the Commonwealth and for how to legislate versus you know professional politicians that what you end up with.
08:54.78
DR DR
But it certainly needs fixing. And you can fix it in multiple ways. some of the Some of what took a lot of time was Constituent services, obviously, and being able to stay and and connect with your constituents all the time, in addition to fundraising, not just for your campaigns, but you had to fundraise to operate.
09:18.96
DR DR
So let me give you an example. I ask people all the time, said, how many times do you expect to hear from your elected official per year? I'll ask you, Sam, your your your delegate or your senator.
09:32.16
DR DR
How many times a year would you as a citizen would like to receive a mailer from them that explains what they're doing for you or on your behalf?
09:42.16
Sam Shirazi
I would say, you know, I'd like to hear from my state legislature. So maybe once every other month.
09:49.21
DR DR
Very good. So six times a year. Six times a year, on average, let's use even numbers, 40,000 households, Or even households in the average delegate district So 30,000 households, if you were to mail them each a letter, let's say average number as well, though not accurate and I'm underestimating, a dollar per mailing.
10:16.70
DR DR
That's the price of printing it and and putting a postage and mailing it. So that's $30,000 per mailing. um Six times a year is $180,000.
10:28.66
DR DR
What is the budget for mail that each delegate gets? Do you know?
10:35.46
Sam Shirazi
I'm guessing it's not that much.
10:37.84
DR DR
It's $1,300 a year. So $1,300 is not even enough to respond to the letters that are written to you, not even to the students that write ask for stuff from our high schools.
10:51.41
DR DR
So if you wanted to do two or three mailings a year, You got to do $60,000 $90,000 a year, which you had to go out and raise just so that you can operate.
11:02.56
DR DR
At the time when I was there, we had a budget of $40,000 for staff. That's it. Okay, so tell me, please, what who, not just what caliber, who can I hire $40,000 in Northern Virginia?
11:20.90
DR DR
not he You can't get a college graduate. can't even get a high school graduate that will work for you for $40,000 in Northern Virginia because they can't live for $40,000. So you had to add to that from not the government money, not the state money, but you had to raise money or out of pocket put in money so you can hire somebody at about $60,000 or $70,000 year. That's one aid. One. That's it.
11:47.19
DR DR
one that's it During session, you get little more for a couple, a few hundred bucks for, for I think, for, i no, I don't think we even got paid for that. it was it was just you could either put in the money or yourself or get interns for free yeah to do that.
12:02.08
DR DR
But so some of the reforms that we can do for that system is at least put in a decent budget to run a delegate's office and have enough staff that can do some of the work so that the elected official doesn't have to spend all that time away from their full-time jobs.
12:22.54
DR DR
Now, still $17,600 is not enough. Don't make it full-time in my opinion, but make it enough that it could you know substitute the time that they're taking off from their full-time jobs or their businesses and be able to their mortgage.
12:40.36
DR DR
But i'm i'm I'm still in favor of a part-time legislature Maybe longer than six weeks or maybe break it up over yeah multiple weeks, even if it's eight to ten weeks, but break it up versus January through March.
12:54.79
DR DR
You know, the I think the January through March comes from the good old times where they celebrated their they celebrated Christmas with their families and there was nothing to be done at the farm.
13:06.68
DR DR
planting doesn't start till ti March or April. So they got horse and buggy and went to Richmond. Before that, they went to Williamsburg, met, legislated, and then went home to the farms before planting season.
13:18.95
DR DR
You don't need to do that anymore. You can divide the eight to 10 weeks over a period of or over the year and so on. But citizen legislature still makes sense. And it's actually much more effective. I teach as at Mason, as you know, just finished a graduate course ah ah yesterday on federal American government to concentration on on Congress.
13:41.64
DR DR
And I did the comparison that this year, between January and March, the General Assembly had, what was it, I think it was 1,700 or 1,800 bills or so in Virginia, and 700 to 900 of them probably became law. I don't have the exact number. But in comparison, in this last three months, same period of time, even longer, Congress passed five and only five bills.
14:06.89
DR DR
So it's efficient. It is controlled chaos to a certain extent. But it does need some some reform.
14:16.94
DR DR
And the reform needs to come more in little more money for the electives, but more so for their offices to operate versus this stupidity of $40,000 for budget and $17,000 for for budget and and seventeen thousand dollars for a for salary and $1,300 or for mail for the entire year
14:42.99
Sam Shirazi
I did want to ask you about the extra challenge you had as a battleground district delegate. And you you both of your races were really close and you ended up winning.
14:55.36
Sam Shirazi
you know What was it like running in a race that you know is going to be really close and that both parties are really going to be focusing on?
15:02.13
DR DR
Expensive. Back then, I think we broke the records. Now, those numbers have been broken since then and and and du and and multiplied by a number of factors. But at the time, my campaign was $750,000 or so. In the first campaign, I think my opponent overspent me by little bit.
15:22.78
DR DR
In my re-election campaign, i think my campaign was also another $750,000. And then John Bell, who ran against me, spent over a million.
15:33.83
DR DR
John became a friend later. He ran for my seat after I had left and and won it. And we've we've had a great working relationship and friendship. But it was expensive and it was polarized, I think, too.
15:47.25
DR DR
was It was very polarized in the primary to start when I ran the first race. the After 20 years of of service to the party and supporting everybody and their mother and hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and numerous time on on the field and advice and policy work and party work, within a week or 10 days of me announcing, I had a challenger in my party that called out my last name and my heritage, and I became, quote-unquote, a terrorist undercover cell, and it was a nasty, nasty campaign against me in the primary.
16:23.68
DR DR
Accusations of not living in my district, they tried everything, sued me for that. Of course, know I won all that, and I survived it and won it to by about 10%.
16:34.98
DR DR
And then it was the general election, which was also nasty. The the Democrats played at the time – Similar tactics. ae ah ah Didn't call it heritage, but started playing the international role in my international work and attacked me for for doing business in China, which was total lie because I've never done business in China. I've done a lot of business in the Middle East and India, but that had nothing to do with China. never been to China, and never done business in China.
17:03.78
DR DR
So there was a lot of misrepresentation. Then they figured out that that didn't work. So they attacked me for doing business in India. And they miscalculated because that made me near and dear to the Indian American community in my district, which had a majority minority there.
17:20.61
DR DR
So I ended up helping me for for them attacking me for doing business in India. But the point was that it was very expensive. It was very polarized. It was very political.
17:32.63
DR DR
And it included a lot, a lot of attacks, personal and lot of lies from my own party and from the opponent party at the time.
17:41.51
Sam Shirazi
So I would describe you maybe something like a Barbara Comstock Republican. And you mentioned you're an immigrant to this country. You know, why did you become a Republican? And um you know, I'm going to ask you the classic question. Did the Republican Party leave you or did you leave the Republican Party?
18:01.10
DR DR
Oh no, the Republican Party left me, my friend, a long time ago. Republican Party left all of us. So, Barbara is a dear friend, remains to be dear friend. we just left him an event together. we We do business together and and we are like-minded nowadays.
18:15.78
DR DR
a matter of fact, we were not like-minded while we were both still in office in the party. I am more of a libertarian-ish conservative. Barbara is a traditional conservative.
18:27.05
DR DR
but we both are common sense conservatives, if if you want to put it that way. So that's why we that. And when Barbara, we were together in the house and then Frank Wolf decided to announce that he is no longer running for office for another term, surprised us all. The first call I got immediately i was from Barbara and says, well, what do you think? And I said, what do you mean? She's like, are you interested? i don't really want to.
18:56.93
DR DR
fight you in in a primary. said, to you I was considered much more conservative than Barbara at the time. and, I said, oh, hell no. and I have no interest in Congress. I call it a cesspool.
19:09.33
DR DR
So you jump in and I'm all in to help you. And I did, quite a bit and, you know, was, was all in for Barbara. I helped her run to the point that her husband still calls me chip called me then her campaign boyfriend and still is.
19:24.75
DR DR
Uh, so we, we did a lot, lot of campaigning together. It was great, great fun. Uh, but, I became a Republican. There was a personal connection and then there was the traditional immigration story. So back in Lebanon in 1983, after the Marine bombing and the American embassy bombing, which i literally witnessed both of those, I was 13 years old, George Herbert Bush, vice president at the time, flew to Beirut.
19:53.98
DR DR
And I was asking a lot of questions, trying to figure out why they bombed the Marines. I went to an American prep school in Beirut, started asking question. They handed me the constitution at the time, read it, fell in love, didn't understand it all, but read it, fell in love with this idea called America.
20:08.68
DR DR
Then George Herbert Bush flies to Beirut and I lined up the street, carried a little American flag and and and waved for him. So fast forward six years after that, I'm a 19 year old who just landed and now George Herbert Bush is President George Herbert Bush getting ready for his re-election, 1990 re-election Bush-Quel campaign.
20:29.50
DR DR
So there was that connection. And then there was the philosophical connections. Most immigrants are conservatives, people that flee, as I did, you oppressive regimes want freedom, want ah ah less government, want less taxes, want or whether they are Catholic, Jews, Muslims, or or Hindus, they they they are people of faith, family and family values are important to them.
21:02.12
DR DR
And that's what the grand old party used to be. Not this party today, not this party in the last 10 years. my My Republican Party at the time would have never, ever, ever considered, mind you, applied tariffs that are taxes on Americans.
21:19.82
DR DR
So no, yeah, the party left, the party changed. The party became Trump's party, not Reagan's conservative party, the shining city on a hill. And that's why I yeah decided not to run for a third term and not to identify as a Republican after that, but a former and continue to be a conservative.
21:45.28
DR DR
Ramadan, I have a pinned tweet there, and it is Reagan's last speech, which was a love letter to immigrants. That's the Republican Party that would want to, not the party that vilifies immigrants, not the president that calls them criminals and they come from shithole countries. And so, yeah, then our party left us.
22:08.05
Sam Shirazi
And you used to represent Loudoun, which had a lot of immigrants and does have a lot of immigrants. And I think Loudoun often gets a lot of attention.
22:15.24
DR DR
if I ask
22:16.75
Sam Shirazi
It's in the press. It's kind of a it's more democratic now, but used to be more of a swing county. And in 2024, it's It became less democratic. I think President Trump did better than people expected Loudoun.
22:30.23
Sam Shirazi
So why do you think Loudoun is so important? And do you think this year Loudoun will kind of go back and become more democratic as it had been under the the first Trump administration?
22:40.55
DR DR
Yeah, I represented Loudoun and end parts of of Prince William, but I am a Loudoun resident, so I was the delegate from Loudoun. Loudoun was the bellwether for Virginia, just like Virginia was the bellwether for the country.
22:56.95
DR DR
Loudoun is still important because of of the numbers that are here and in the importance of it and and being a majority-minority or minority-majority county pretty much, especially in eastern Loudoun.
23:11.71
DR DR
Trump did better, but he did not win Loudoun. It's still, it had moved to be, it used to be eastern Loudoun where I represented was Democratic, even though I was a Republican and won as a Republican.
23:24.32
DR DR
But the county overall was a swing county. and the The county has changed. The county has become a Democratic county. as evidence on our board of supervisors, which used to be majority Republicans.
23:39.10
DR DR
Now it's a seven to democratic ah board supervisors, all wonderful people, and all are good friends. But yeah so Loudoun is democratic today.
23:50.99
DR DR
The question is to what level is it? A five point or is it a 15 point county? This year, The entire Commonwealth, specifically Northern Virginia and the and and the Eastern Shore and and the Norfolk and Virginia Beach area and so on, are more democratic. But the Commonwealth is is going to go back to voting democratic in my expectation.
24:15.66
DR DR
for multiple reasons. One, where the craziness that's happening across the river in Washington, D.C., the the direct effect on Northern Virginia and the Commonwealth overall, the the cuts in the federal government in money and the firing, and God help us, if they really move departments altogether and relocate federal agencies to the Midwest, that's going to hit the Commonwealth and hit it hard.
24:41.59
DR DR
something that our current administration, current governor is is trying to shield from reality because of, you know, the fealty to the dear leader.
24:54.05
DR DR
And because of, let's face it, everybody knows it now, Glenn Youngkin wants to run for president in four years. So, you know, regardless of what's happening in Washington, he's going to keep singing the Trump song and he's going to get up and claim 250,000 jobs and Virginia is doing great. No, it's not.
25:12.87
DR DR
They're not 250,000 jobs. Just creating one one website is all what he did basically to date is is not solving the problem.
25:25.15
DR DR
And they are simply just trying to to to put lipstick on the pig. And that pig is an ugly pig out of out of Washington today. So Loudoun will go Democratic handedly.
25:37.79
DR DR
And the likelihood of Virginia going Democratic handedly is also. It leans Democratic now. That's what it's looking like for the gubernatorial campaign. But if if this craziness in Washington continues, it's it's not a matter of just Democrats winning. It's a matter of Democrats winning big.
25:55.66
DR DR
And that'll set the tone for the midterm elections in 2026 for the rest of the country.
26:01.25
Sam Shirazi
And what do you think the Republican plan is at this point? Because, you know, I'm trying to figure out as political observer, it seems like, you know, you're just kind of going to do the plan regardless of what the political environment is like.
26:07.60
DR DR
yeah
26:10.17
DR DR
but
26:12.83
DR DR
but yeah
26:15.25
Sam Shirazi
And you're laughing, so I'm sure you have some opinions.
26:18.41
DR DR
Sam, come on. Republican in plan? It's a dumpster fire today, especially what we've seen in the last two or three days in Virginia on the lieutenant governor stuff. There is no plan. There is, there is you know, we claim we claim the win, even though there's no win. i mean,
26:35.83
DR DR
in a hundred days, I'll give him one thing. President Trump was able to secure the border and that's very important. That was one of his promises. now to what level? 90%, 95%, 99% doesn't matter. It's significant.
26:48.52
DR DR
and that is the one thing that he did in the last hundred days. But besides that, he did nothing except claim that he does stuff, wrote a bunch of executive orders and,
27:00.72
DR DR
I'll give him one more thing. He is probably one of the most consequential presidents that we've seen in recent history, except it's consequential to the negative here, consequential for destroying what we knew as a system.
27:15.67
DR DR
for for for destroying the federal services that we have, for for destroying the economy with tariffs, oh my God, God help us. and and And for the costs that's gonna apply to to every citizen. On average, every one of us is gonna spend four or $5,000 more because of the tariff deal.
27:36.10
DR DR
Our standing in the world, the long-term effects that that's gonna take, the rebuilding of what he's destroying, It's not like the federal government wasn't bloated. It was.
27:46.14
DR DR
It was not like there wasn't waste. Of course there is waste. And of course we can cut some money. And of course we can make it better. But not this way. They're not doing that. They are just positioning and and and and you know playing favoritism and cutting where they don't need to cut and doging. And it becomes now a pay-for-play for millionaires and billionaires.
28:13.82
DR DR
I mean, look, nowadays i am i am agreeing with Rand Paul more than anybody else. Just follow what Rand is saying. Tariffs are taxes. And no, we do not live in an emergency. We had an emergency on the border, period.
28:27.100
DR DR
We don't have a trade emergency. for a president to take trade emergency powers and do what he's doing. we We can't and shouldn't live under an emergency.
28:38.95
DR DR
Shame on Congress and shame on all these members of of of of of the House and the Senate that abdicated their role. People elected them to be legislators.
28:51.08
DR DR
did not elect them to be, yes, dear leader and give their power to the executive. and And then he serves or he rules or be a wannabe dictator and rules as a dictator through executive powers.
29:07.54
DR DR
The rule of law is an important basic of our system. That's what makes us different, not only democracy and and our system and our republic, but but ingrained in that is is the due process of law that doesn't exist in most of of of the world that envy us for our due process.
29:28.63
DR DR
Now we're picking people off the streets that have that have legal status and and throwing them out without due process. Now, look, if if if you if if if these individuals are MS-13, throw their asses in jail and do deport them. But after you put them through the system, that's why we have a system. That's why we have courts. That's why we have due process.
29:52.44
DR DR
You don't just pick people off the streets and deport them willy-nilly without the courts. That is just un-American, and that is not conservative, not Republican.
30:02.64
DR DR
That is just Trumpism. That's a different world than the world that the grand old party – I mean, i keep saying, as as you've you've seen on my Twitter all the time, grand old party no more.
30:12.55
DR DR
Yeah.
30:15.12
Sam Shirazi
Well, I did want to ask you one other question before I let you go on the grand old party, at least in Virginia. And that is what has happened the last week with the lieutenant governor spot on the ticket and John Reed. And obviously, you still have a pulse on the Virginia Republican Party. know, what's going on in terms of the dynamics between Governor Youngkin, Lieutenant Governor Sears, and then John Reed? know, the whole thing seems a little bit chaotic. and And what do you make of what's going on?
30:44.77
DR DR
Yeah, it's a dumpster fire. First of all, there's no party in Virginia. John Frederick, who is a friend of mine, even though he's he's now a Trump MAGA world guy, remains to be a friend.
30:57.89
DR DR
John had an old saying many years ago, way before that. He says the party is nothing more than a a ah a mailing address and an answering machine.
31:08.10
DR DR
And that is true. i mean, the party in Virginia, because of the way that that political donations are are unlimited and directly to individuals. The party is simply an address and a mail permit and an answering machine that candidates use because they get cheaper mail rate mailing through the party versus something else. So the party is is not in control of anything.
31:32.04
DR DR
And the chairman of the party is always ah ah figure. and And I love, ah ah Anderson, Rich, is is a colleague, and we served together in the Virginia House and remains to be a personal friend despite all of our political disagreements recently.
31:48.38
DR DR
But the party has no role, really. So it falls on the caucuses in the House and the Senate, and it falls on the administration. When you have a Republican governor, that Republican governor is de facto the leader of Republicans in Virginia.
32:03.38
DR DR
Well, in this administration, you had a Republican governor who has a much higher aspiration, well-known fact that he never wanted to be governor and oops, he became governor. He was always running for something else. It was initially in in the U.S. Senate, which now is no longer a game or on on the, as I understand, on his horizon. He's now just concentrating on 2028 presidential run.
32:29.36
DR DR
and We all know that him and Sears were not close to start. and And if you remember in the last gubernatorial race, he just, she barely was with him anywhere on, i mean, they ran two separate campaigns, but she rode that coattails and got in.
32:45.05
DR DR
And so he didn't have a choice but to endorse her this time. And then the the the dynamic of, of, uh, uh, somebody dropping out of the race in Fairfax and John Reed becoming the only candidate.
33:00.49
DR DR
And then, oops, that's a controversial figure. Now, I don't know Mr. Reed. I never listened to his radio. I'm sure we probably were at the same events, same place. So we may have said hello at a couple places, but I really don't know him. I don't think he knows me.
33:14.25
DR DR
don't know. He can pick me up from Adams. I don't recall ever having an interaction with him, but who knows? so spent 20 years in the party. i understand. He's is ah far-right MAGA conservative.
33:26.82
DR DR
Two things come to mind here, and I'm just reading this from the news. I don't know more than what I'm reading in the news. This Tumblr, and you i somebody had to explain Tumblr to me a couple days ago on Twitter because I didn't know what this is, but this Tumblr account is not a new account.
33:44.60
DR DR
It existed for years before he became a public figure became a or before he was known in politics. So having, it's weird, right?
33:55.88
DR DR
Like my Twitter and my LinkedIn and my Facebook, they're all the same. I don't have more than that. It's weird to have somebody who would have the exact same name for years and never come to the radar or or come on your radar without you knowing, especially when it's it's a an account that on on a gay side and you are gay and he's entitled to his preferences in life.
34:22.66
DR DR
But it's weird and, in you know, it's it's hard and it's indefensible to say that you don't know anything about that. In addition to that, I do know Matt Moran.
34:34.25
DR DR
And even though, you know, Matt, and and you just heard me criticize his boss and the governor, and I have been for years, Matt is a gentleman who I believe, and he is and he is true to his word. Matt served the speaker and and the majority leader when I was in the House. I got to know him well.
34:51.90
DR DR
I believe Matt Moran for everything that he is saying in this debacle. That said, it's still a dumpster fire. That said, that shows you how divided that group is And it shows the inability of them to launch a unified campaign or any kind of a challenge or real challenge when we are in today's atmosphere, when the Democrats are ahead, when historically Virginia voted with the exception of one time for Terry McAuliffe in 2013.
35:26.40
DR DR
Virginia has always voted against whoever is in the White House. And that's without the person in the White House being as crazy and as as detrimental to Virginia as this one is.
35:37.83
DR DR
So when you have all of that together and then add to it an amazing candidate on the Democratic side, I mean, you have a capable kind former congresswoman who served Virginia, who was, who was you know, voted as as the most bipartisan, who had passed legislation under Republican and Democratic presidents, who has a background in law enforcement, who was CIA officer.
36:02.31
DR DR
the the their Their dumpster fire is not going to help. They're at disadvantage anyways against Abigail Spanberger. They will continue to be at a disadvantage anyway.
36:13.94
DR DR
And it's not going to look good for Republicans anytime soon in my in my estimate. a who knows?
36:23.20
DR DR
That's why it's called elections. And hey, Donald Trump became president. So what do I know?
36:28.31
Sam Shirazi
Well, I'm sure I will get to find out in November. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I think it's always interesting to get your perspective as a former delegate. And, you know, I i just appreciate ah ah your time and and thank you for joining me.
36:42.30
DR DR
My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Sam.
36:44.44
Sam Shirazi
Okay, and I will see you next time on Federal Fallout.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.78
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. Today is the start of early voting in Virginia for the primary and I wanted to do a special bonus episode to celebrate it.
00:14.36
Sam Shirazi
But before turning to that, I did just briefly want to mention a recent piece of Virginia political news that is not related to the 2025 election. And that is that the 11th District Congressman Gerry Connolly is retiring due to his ongoing struggle with cancer.
00:35.45
Sam Shirazi
And I just wanted to wish him the best and thank him for the many years of public service to Virginia.
00:42.94
Sam Shirazi
And so I just wanted to make a note of that before talking about early voting in Virginia this year. Okay, so early voting is happening today, and it will continue all the way on until June 17th, which will be the actual primary date.
01:00.34
Sam Shirazi
So I just wanted to kind of quickly go over what's going on with the primary and what's going on with the early voting. So as I mentioned last week, and there was a lot going on on the Republican side with the lieutenant governor's race, but long story short, there will not be a statewide primary for the Republicans.
01:16.35
Sam Shirazi
Specific House of Delegates districts will have primaries on the Republican side. But it's not like there's a statewide race. However, on the Democratic side, there will be a statewide primary, both for lieutenant governor and attorney general.
01:31.37
Sam Shirazi
Plus, in a handful of districts, there will also be House of Delegates primaries. And I know I've been saying that I'll do a House of Delegates primary preview. I anticipate doing that at some point before the primary, that one.
01:46.05
Sam Shirazi
I'm waiting for the primary to get a little bit closer just because some of those races, it's a little unpredictable right now. I don't know who's necessarily favored. And I prefer to spend a little bit more time waiting and seeing what's going on in the House of Delegates primaries before commenting too much on it.
02:00.90
Sam Shirazi
But I did want you to know that there are certain primaries in certain House of Delegates districts, not a whole lot this year, considering that there are 100 House of Delegates districts, I believe there's only a less than 25 primaries, both if you combine the Democrats and Republicans. So not a whole lot of primaries this year in the House of Delegates.
02:21.12
Sam Shirazi
I think most of the attention is going to be on the Democratic side to the lieutenant governor and attorney general races. And remember that any voter in Virginia can decide to cast the ballot either in the Democratic primary or the Republican primary. There is no party registration in Virginia, so any voter can go and pick which primary they want to vote for. Obviously, Republicans, there's only a handful of districts that there are primaries, so most Republicans aren't going to have a chance to vote in a Republican primary.
02:51.58
Sam Shirazi
Every Democrat has an opportunity to vote in the Democratic primary because there statewide primaries. Everyone can vote for lieutenant governor and attorney general. And was kind of interesting question to think about. Are Republicans going to vote in the Democratic primary? I think that's relatively unlikely just because most Republicans aren't going to take the effort to go vote in the Democratic primary.
03:11.29
Sam Shirazi
I do think independents, particularly those who are either maybe more moderate or conservative, they might just decide they want to vote in the Democratic primary either because there isn't a Republican primary or because The Democrats are seem like they have a better shot of winning this year. So obviously if you're trying to influence who's going to be the next lieutenant governor or attorney general, you're going to be able to do that in the Democratic primary.
03:36.44
Sam Shirazi
Again, I don't think that's going to be a huge number of voters. You have to be pretty politically engaged to know that there's a primary and that early voting is happening. and I should note this generally about the primary is the turnout is going to be much less than the general election. I'm guessing we'll probably get a quarter of the general election turnout, on a good night and it's, it might even be lower than that. So I think, it's just something to keep in mind that realistically, most of the people who end up voting in these primaries are going to be politically engaged. And then the people who are going to vote early in the primary,
04:10.36
Sam Shirazi
early during the early voting session are going to be the most politically engaged people typically the least politically engaged people vote later or during election day the most politically engaged people vote on the first day of early voting and there there's you know always people who want to be the first person or or among the first people to cast a ballot and this year the voting is already starting in Virginia and I think that's why it's an exciting day today because We're to important elections this year. And these are the first votes that are really going to happen this year in Virginia for this primary.
04:43.05
Sam Shirazi
And they're happening on May second And you might be asking yourself, well, May 2nd, that's kind of early. The the primary is not until June 17th. So Virginia has 45 days of early voting. you know The Republicans sometimes discuss how this is like too much early voting. that It's too long of a period. It's among the longest periods of early voting in the country.
05:04.21
Sam Shirazi
There have been some bills to reduce the number of days of early voting. Obviously, that was not going to go anywhere with the Democrats being in control of the General Assembly. So I don't anticipate that changing anytime soon.
05:16.53
Sam Shirazi
And part of the reason there's 45 days, so to give you a little brief history of early voting in Virginia, prior to Democrats controlling the General Assembly after the 2019 elections, early voting, you actually needed what's called an excuse to early vote. So this was typically...
05:32.72
Sam Shirazi
You're you work outside of your county or you're sick or you're ill or you have a disability. Those types of things were the excuses you needed to early vote. And so realistically, I mean, not a lot of people qualified for that.
05:47.33
Sam Shirazi
I think in 2008, the Obama campaign kind of started trying to encourage people to early vote within the law, within those excuses, if if someone qualified for the excuse. But it still was not a huge amount of early voting during most of the 2010s. And then once the Democrats changed the law, first there was 2020 with COVID, and then there was the permanent change to early voting.
06:08.87
Sam Shirazi
Anyone in Virginia can early vote for any reason. You don't need a reason. You just show up with your at your early voting location. And if you're on the rolls, you can go ahead and early vote.
06:19.66
Sam Shirazi
And I think it's kind of changed the way campaigns are done in Virginia because now there's a much more emphasis on early voting. The Democrats traditionally, and I think I would still say, have an advantage in early voting. But Glenn Youngkin in 2021,
06:34.16
Sam Shirazi
kind of started emphasizing early voting. The Trump campaign in 2024 pushed early voting, at least in person, more. And so we saw that early voting voting has been picking up in Virginia over the last five years, and it's just changing how the campaigns are trying to reach out to voters.
06:51.75
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, how what does the mechanics of early voting look like? So typically, there are Two basic ways to early vote. There is early voting in person and then there's early mail voting.
07:05.90
Sam Shirazi
And I would say Republicans certainly prefer to vote in person either early voting or on Election Day. Democrats are more open to voting either in person or by mail. And I will say still the vast majority of people who vote by mail either in a primary or a general election are going to be Democrats. So it's just the reality that Republicans are more comfortable voting generally in person.
07:30.96
Sam Shirazi
So the early voting locations, it really depends on your county or city. Most counties or cities have one location, and that's typically the office of elections, which is usually where most of the county offices are located.
07:45.23
Sam Shirazi
Some of the larger counties, like Fairfax is a good example, has a lot of satellite voting locations because obviously you have a big county in Fairfax County, over a million people. You can't just have one early voting location.
07:56.18
Sam Shirazi
So usually Fairfax County and other larger counties in Virginia have more than one early voting location. Sometimes those counties will have weekend voting for early voting, prior starting in in the beginning part of early voting.
08:12.45
Sam Shirazi
But under Virginia law, every single county, the two Saturdays before the election, will have in-person early voting at least one location. And so that's the law that counties don't have to offer early voting every weekend, but at least the two Saturdays before the election, there has to be in-person early voting.
08:33.26
Sam Shirazi
And then besides the in-person early voting, there is also absentee or mail voting. And that can either be specifically for one election where a voter requests a mail ballot for this specific election, or there's the permanent absentee list, and I'll talk about that in a second, where voters will sign up for this optional list and receive a absentee ballot every single election.
08:56.01
Sam Shirazi
And they have the option of choosing to get either the Democratic or Republican primary ballots, or they choose not to vote in the primaries. And that'll get mailed to their house.
09:08.13
Sam Shirazi
And in terms of the mail ballots, there's a few options in terms of returning them. Obviously, you can mail them back. There are also Dropbox locations that voters can return them to.
09:18.74
Sam Shirazi
And voters also have the option on Election Day of just going to their local polling location and turning those ballots in that they can also turn them in at the early voting locations. And, you know, that you hear sometimes concerns about the Postal Service and, you know,
09:34.08
Sam Shirazi
either mail ballots getting lost or delays in having them returned. And so I think, you know, it's always a good idea to make sure you have enough time if you're deciding to mail back your ballot.
09:45.60
Sam Shirazi
ballot and make sure you have enough time that it can get processed. Or you obviously you can either go to a Dropbox or turn it in in person if you really want to make sure that your ballot is received. And so typically what you see in early voting is you have a, don't call it a surge, but you you have a lot of people voting at the beginning, either in person or by mail because they they've gotten the mail ballot, they fill it out, they send it back. or the people who are really excited to early vote, probably the political nerds who are listening to this podcast, they like to go vote early.
10:17.62
Sam Shirazi
and And so you see kind of a large amount of people voting early at the beginning of early voting. Then there's this lull during the 45-day period where yeah there's a trickle of people early voting, but not to the same extent as you saw at the beginning.
10:31.72
Sam Shirazi
And then at the end, there's like a surge of early voting because everyone realizes there's an election. And so usually the last two weeks or so, there's an increase of early voting kind of exponentially.
10:43.68
Sam Shirazi
more people voting and then obviously election day you have the most people voting and and you know people there's a variety of reasons people like to vote on election day as opposed to early voting some people just like election day they don't like voting early some people they don't realize there's an election and then all of a sudden they realize oh it's election day so I should go vote and then I'd i'd say the most practical reason is some of these larger counties more so geographically large Even if they don't have a large population, there's only maybe one early voting location because the county just doesn't have that many voters, but it's big. It's a big geographically rural, diverse county. And so you don't necessarily have the necessity to have a lot of early voting locations.
11:31.35
Sam Shirazi
And so what happens is people prefer to just vote at their local polling place because that might be a one mile drive versus 10 mile drive to the early voting location. Okay, so what does this all mean for the actual primary? And I'm going to focus more on the primary dynamics in this podcast.
11:50.87
Sam Shirazi
Obviously, I'll probably do an early voting podcast for the general election when the time comes and what that will look like. But I think the primary is interesting because I mentioned the permanent yeah permanent absentee list at the beginning.
12:03.37
Sam Shirazi
And if you remember, I said that the vast majority of people who are on the permanent absentee list are Democrats. And the reason for that is just Democrats feel more comfortable voting by mail.
12:14.34
Sam Shirazi
And so you've had a bunch of people sign up for the permanent absentee list since it was introduced a few years ago. But the vast majority of them pick the Democratic primary in terms of which primary they would rather vote in.
12:29.38
Sam Shirazi
So I looked at the numbers for the March 2024 Democratic primary for president, so over a year ago, and just for that primary, there were
12:42.41
Sam Shirazi
217,000 Democrats signed up for the permanent absentee list. And so if you've if you think about the permanent absentee list is growing, it's been over a year since then.
12:52.80
Sam Shirazi
and I'm sure someone has the exact number. I don't have the statistics at hand, but I'm guessing you know we're 220,000 Democrats on the permanent absentee list And so all those people, whether they know there's a primary or not, will be getting an absentee ballot in the mail.
13:08.39
Sam Shirazi
And I think that's going to be a real interesting part of this election, both for lieutenant governor and attorney general, is how are the campaigns reaching those people? Because 200,000, 220,000 people, that's a lot of people getting mail applications. And, you know I don't know how many people are going to end up voting in the Democratic primary for absentee lieutenant governor and attorney general.
13:32.60
Sam Shirazi
If I had to guess, it's probably over 300,000. Just depends how much enthusiasm there is, how many people are engaged this year. we could see even more. We could see up to 400,000.
13:45.22
Sam Shirazi
And a good chunk of that is going to be from the permanent absentee list. Now, not everyone on the permanent absentee list is going to return their ballot. And I'm guessing for an election like this, it's actually going to be a little less than a general election because A lot of people, they get the ballot in the mail, you know, primary for Lieutenant Governor Attorney General. They might not be super engaged.
14:05.17
Sam Shirazi
They forget about it. They end up not sending their ballot in. But usually there's at least a 50% return rate. So going to have at least 110,000 voting. in all likelihood, just on the permanent absentee list on the Democratic side.
14:19.67
Sam Shirazi
And that's a lot. That could be up to a quarter or more of the entire pool of people who are voting in the Democratic primary. And obviously, people who get mail ballots, you know, it's kind of how do you reach those voters? I'm guessing the campaigns will try to reach them through mailers because they're already getting stuff in the mail, including their ballots. So it might be a good idea to send them a mailer.
14:42.58
Sam Shirazi
The other interesting thing is, These people are typically going to vote, at least a good chunk of them, early in the process because these ballots go out you know roughly today on May 2nd.
14:55.46
Sam Shirazi
And you know it takes a few days for them to go through the mail. But next week, people are going to be getting these mail ballots. So we're probably going to get over 200,000 ballots being delivered to mailboxes next week in Virginia.
15:07.17
Sam Shirazi
And A good chunk of those people are going to fill them out pretty quickly and send them back. It's similar to the early voting dynamics where there'll be a lull. Some people will just sit on it.
15:17.98
Sam Shirazi
And then at the end, you'll see this surge of people also returning their mail ballots. But I would say, you know, you're going to get tens of thousands of people filling out these mail ballots pretty early on in the process for the permanent absentee list.
15:30.70
Sam Shirazi
And so those are votes being cast. you know They're in the system. They're banked. People can't change their minds. And so I think it's important for the campaigns running in the primaries to think about that, to think about the fact that these people are casting their ballots and you can't change them once you send it in. So I think all that is is pretty interesting to look at the start of early voting, not just the fact that people are voting today, but how does how does that look mechanically, which ballots are being cast, which ones are being counted.
16:03.20
Sam Shirazi
You know, we obviously won't get the results until June 17th, but the votes are being sent in and counted, you know, starting today. So it's it's going to be interesting to see how that all shakes out.
16:17.03
Sam Shirazi
So if you're interested in early voting, I encourage everyone to you know look up the information for your county. I will say it's the hours and the locations. you know it It can be county specific and city specific. So just make sure you know where you're going to early vote.
16:31.92
Sam Shirazi
You don't want to show up on a Sunday and the early voting location isn't open. Just make sure you know there are some locations that are open on Sunday, but they tend to be pretty rare. And so you just want to look on your local election website.
16:44.58
Sam Shirazi
If you're not sure what that is, you could just Google the county you're in, you know election office, and and it should come up. And some of the offices have that information on their website. If it's not on the website, you can always call them during business hours. I'm sure they will be happy to talk to you about how to cast your ballot early.
16:59.75
Sam Shirazi
And again, my my only pitch is I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but I really hope that if you are interested in either the Democratic primary or if you're in a location that has a Republican primary, that you decide to go vote in these primaries because I think they really are important.
17:16.84
Sam Shirazi
You know, we tend to just focus on the general election, but, you know, the the people who are going to be elected to these offices, at least on the Democratic side for statewide offices, they need to be win these primaries. And even on the Republican side for these delegates districts, you know, some of the delegates are going to be picked in the June primary.
17:40.81
Sam Shirazi
And I guess I should just mention that both on the Democratic side and the Republican side, some of these House of Delegates seats are very red or very blue. And so almost certainly whoever wins the primary is going to be the next delegate in these districts.
17:53.15
Sam Shirazi
So I think it's important that you know you do your research, you know what's on your ballot. I will do a subsequent follow-up podcast, probably separate ones, both on the Lieutenant Governor Attorney General race on the democrat Democratic side. And then I will do one on the House of Delegates primaries for the seats that have them, because I really do think it's important to think about the primary and not just focus on the general election as much as we all you know care about who's going to be the next governor.
18:20.82
Sam Shirazi
That's obviously very important, but we also should probably care who's going to be the next Lieutenant Governor. the next attorney general, possibly on the Democratic side, we should care about some of these delegate races. And I just think generally as a good rule of democracy, you know you you could probably tell I'm the type of person that's going to be voting in every election.
18:39.70
Sam Shirazi
I encourage everyone, whenever you have the the chance to cast a ballot, to do it, because I think it's important to make your voice heard and to participate in a democracy. I'm going to preach to you and I'll get off my high horse, but I'm sure if you're listening to this podcast, in all likelihood, if you're going to vote, you're going to do that. So I appreciate that. But keep in mind, a lot of your less political friends, they might not know that there's a primary going on.
19:05.10
Sam Shirazi
Frankly, they might not know there's a state election this year. So I do encourage you to talk to people, let them know about what's going on in Virginia elections. That's part of the reason I do this podcast is to educate people, inform people.
19:16.08
Sam Shirazi
And I will say, you know, even among pretty well informed people, most of them are paying attention to what's going on in D.C. And obviously that's important. But they're not really closely following what's going on in state politics.
19:28.31
Sam Shirazi
And again, they might not know that there's a primary on June 17th and that early voting is starting on this Friday. And so the more you you can do as an individual to educate people, I think the more we have people engaged in the political process, it's good for democracy. It's good for people to make their voices heard.
19:45.17
Sam Shirazi
So yeah I'm happy that you all are listening to this podcast. And if you feel like it's an interesting podcast, feel free to share it with other people. Feel free to write reviews, which always helps the podcast. And I really thank everyone who's been listening and I've gotten good feedback.
20:01.46
Sam Shirazi
So anyways, go out there and early vote if that's what you want to do. And you know I will join you next time on Federal Fallout.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.70
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode we will have our first candidate interview with Democrat Jessica Anderson.
00:13.29
Sam Shirazi
She is running in Virginia's 71st House of Delegates district and that includes Williamsburg and some of the surrounding areas.
00:18.87
Jessica Anderson
So.
00:21.96
Sam Shirazi
In 2023, she ran for this seat and came up short by 667 votes, and which is roughly 1.87%. The current incumbent is Republican Amanda Batten, and this is a district that Vice President Harris carried in 2024, and it is expected to be one of the most competitive districts this year in Virginia.
00:46.83
Sam Shirazi
I'm happy to have any Republican candidates on in the future, including Republican Amanda Batten. But today, Jessica Anderson is joining me. Thank you, Jessica, for joining me.
00:57.58
Jessica Anderson
Yes, thank you for having me.
00:59.28
Sam Shirazi
So I'm just going to ask the question I like to ask all politicians. Why did you want to run for public office?
01:05.92
Jessica Anderson
I'm gonna try to tell it in not a super long-winded way. So, fun fact, I did not grow up political whatsoever. grew up very much in a household. We did not talk politics, religion, or money.
01:15.89
Jessica Anderson
And it wasn't really until I was in adulthood that I started participating in politics politics and elections, and I didn't really have any foundation for that. So, by and large, i I voted on both sides of the political fence most of my adult life up until about 11 years ago.
01:31.43
Jessica Anderson
and I had married very young age 20 actually was in college and dropped out initially, and got married at age 20. And a couple years later started my family and had my first of three girls, did end up getting a business degree a couple years later.
01:44.84
Jessica Anderson
But, Basically, i was in a very super conservative Christian household, married into it, really was kind of exposed to a very different ideology than I grew up in.
01:56.66
Jessica Anderson
And ironically, in the process of going through a pretty difficult divorce 2014 into 2015, really had some kind of really had some kind of you know, learning learning things the hard way kind of situation, come to Jesus moments, shall we say.
02:11.70
Jessica Anderson
And one of the first things was I no longer had a health insurance for myself or my daughters. I was returning to the workforce at the time because I'd been out of work for two weeks as a stay-at-home mom. So navigating social safety nets at the state level for the first time, going from living paycheck to paycheck to not knowing how to make ends meet.
02:29.54
Jessica Anderson
And got EBT and got Medicaid for my children and a limited plan for myself. Fast forward, after returning to the workforce, after a year of working you know full-time regularly, I got a pay raise of $5,000, which I thought was amazing. Like, yay, bettering my situation.
02:46.60
Jessica Anderson
And instantly lost my $7,000 roughly a year in ebt So really harsh introduction to the realities of social safety nets and how they are not built to actually benefit people or help them better their situations.
03:01.03
Jessica Anderson
So that was kind of my first eye-opening experience that started to kind of pivot me away from some of the ideologies that I'd been around for 13 years at the time. And then I met and married my now husband and was in a, for the first time really in my adult life in a very financially secure situation. And after a year of marriage, I kind of came forward and was like hey, I'd really love to take this job at the local public school that my younger daughters were attending at the time in elementary school and to be in the front office. It's part-time, it was huge pay cut. And he was like, let's do it. Like, I think it'll make you happier and give you more opportunity to be at home.
03:33.51
Jessica Anderson
so yet again, another opportunity to kind of but see behind the curtain and, in that instance, and really for where I was working in a school within the city of Williamsburg, which by every people's outside looking in thinks is very wealthy, well to do, was probably one of the most impoverished communities and school in the district. And I saw that firsthand and it was really eyeopening.
03:56.66
Jessica Anderson
disparities that existed in my backyard that I had no idea existed, The unhoused population, the fact that my school had over 50% poverty level, so every student got free lunch and breakfast. And then, of course, that transpired into test scores and you know outcomes for our kids.
04:13.59
Jessica Anderson
So again, just kind of another box that was getting checked in my you know eyes being opened and recognizing, wow, there's really some some issues here. Once COVID hit, I got very engaged online politically, as well as started doing some advocacy around getting people to our school board meetings and trying to be a more loud voice in a room of very loud minority people that were existing at the time.
04:36.86
Jessica Anderson
And, you know, this momentum and my kind of energy around being politically engaged and understanding more and learning about policy and learning about every level of government, how it directly impacts, you know, myself and and my community. 2022, led me to speak with the co-chair of the Historic Triangle Dems, which is our local committee, the second largest in the state, Christine Payne.
04:58.95
Jessica Anderson
And when I really kind of shared what I was most passionate about policy-wise, she was like, you belong in the state house. So i kind of made the decision then and there, like that's what I'm going to do And I registered online almost within the week. And the following year, of course, I ran the election, very grassroots.
05:15.58
Jessica Anderson
But yeah, I've lived in this community for 25 plus years, raised my family here, I have worked in this community since I was 14 years old. Cause I grew up in Newport news and my first real job was Busch gardens, like almost every other teenager in the nineties.
05:27.95
Jessica Anderson
so yeah, this has been a part of my life and history, for pretty much as long back as I can remember. So, and now I get the opportunity to, to run again and and hopefully have a different outcome and be in the room where all the decisions are made and and make a real difference for the community that I want to represent.
05:45.73
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, thanks for that background. You know, I always say, regardless of the party, I always respect people who are willing to run for public office because I know it's a huge sacrifice and it's not easy to do. And we need people to to run for our democracy. So so thanks for giving.
06:00.02
Sam Shirazi
a little bit of background on how you decided to run. I did want to ask you about one issue about the job losses and cuts the federal government, because I think they're often portrayed as a Northern Virginia issue.
06:11.83
Sam Shirazi
How is it affecting some of the things that you're seeing in your area in the greater Hampton Roads area?
06:18.76
Jessica Anderson
I absolutely think it's it's not localized to NOVA. I think across Virginia, we have people scattered because the reality is a lot of people were doing work from home and not just because of COVID. like Like some of our, obviously our federal workforce has been work from home long before COVID became an issue just because it fiscally made more sense and they saw that a higher level of productivity.
06:39.80
Jessica Anderson
So people have always been scattered. I know that there are people in my backyard and in my district that, for example, worked at the Board of Education, Department of Education. And now they no longer have a role. They've been laid off. One of my teachers in my school, actually, her daughter, who was working with NIH and had excellent reviews, was let go arbitrarily and told that it was because of her work your work performance.
07:03.44
Jessica Anderson
She actually was one of the few people that they brought back, but she had already found a private sector job and basically said, no, thanks. I'm not going to be you know back and forth because even when they brought them back, they were saying they were going to continue to be paid without or be paid without working.
07:16.83
Jessica Anderson
So on paid leave. And so, i mean, i'm I'm seeing it in my backyard, absolutely. And I don't think it's going to get any better. I think this is going to be a continued issue, particularly in Virginia. We have a huge level of federal workforce.
07:29.03
Jessica Anderson
And when you impact our federal workforce and cause them to possibly leave the state, that's going to affect our economy, which is going to affect the workforce on other sectors. Like, you know, for example,
07:39.11
Jessica Anderson
the service industry or the port. You know, my husband actually is a merchant marine and and works and has ships that are located over in Newport News and Norfolk area that he manages. So like jobs outside of the federal workforce are going to be impacted when we start talking about the economic hit from that elimination.
07:58.89
Jessica Anderson
I don't think anybody really in the state of Virginia is safe from kind of the retribution of those those moves and those decisions that are being made.
08:07.44
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, what are some of the other issues besides the the cuts of government that voters are talking to you about on the campaign trail?
08:15.92
Jessica Anderson
A few people have talked to me about this, but it's something that I've tried to make a really relevant part of the conversation, the Medicaid expansion. As we know, with the recent vote by the Senate and the House, It's no longer if, it's when we're going to lose Medicaid expansion in the state of Virginia.
08:30.50
Jessica Anderson
Obviously, there's a trigger law that states if 1% of Medicaid is cut at the federal level, it automatically terminates it, which is going to impact 630,000 Virginians.
08:40.79
Jessica Anderson
I've been trying to make that a really relevant part of the conversation for a couple reasons. One, obviously, access to affordable and accessible health care is huge. across the board, but two, that loss would be a huge hit to our healthcare care industry.
08:55.42
Jessica Anderson
We're talking about areas that already have
08:58.10
Sam Shirazi
I did want to shift to a little bit about the campaign itself. you As I mentioned, you first ran in 2023 and came up short, even though I would say it was a closer race than most people expected.
09:02.57
Jessica Anderson
Mm-hmm.
09:10.91
Sam Shirazi
it What did you learn from that race the first time you ran for office that you're going to be applying in this race?
09:17.84
Jessica Anderson
the voter contact is, is key. knocked over 6,300 doors, and it gave me access to a lot of conversations, nuanced conversations, that you can't get from a TV ad or a digital buy.
09:31.73
Jessica Anderson
it's an opportunity to like actually speak to someone one-on-one, even those that maybe don't share my political party per se, and find out what's really most relevant to them when it comes to their, you know, their representation and who's, who's standing up for them in the house.
09:46.24
Jessica Anderson
And a lot of times realizing that the things that I stood for and the policy that I was pushing for was actually something that they didn't realize they supported. i used to have a saying that I'm sure I'll continue saying this year, but I may not be your party, but I might be your person.
10:00.66
Jessica Anderson
I think that was something that was the most telling from my experience is that quite a few people that were like moderate fence setters or even leaning Republican voters in the district actually really liked what I had to say and also were surprised by my opponent's voting record when I started shining some light on some of her votes that she has taken over the last now six years in office.
10:22.98
Sam Shirazi
I did want to ask about the students in your district because your district includes William & Mary in Williamsburg.
10:26.83
Jessica Anderson
Mm hmm.
10:31.29
Jessica Anderson
Thank you.
10:31.34
Sam Shirazi
And as much as students care about politics, they're are not always super engaged and they don't always vote. Although in 2023, I think there was a decent amount of turnout in Williamsburg with the college students there.
10:46.18
Sam Shirazi
you know What's your strategy to reach them and get them engaged in this election?
10:51.34
Jessica Anderson
Absolutely. They were a huge factor last cycle, despite me, again, kind of being kind of an underdog in that realm and not, you know, priority. They are very interested in my race. I've already had a meeting and and introduced myself formally to the newest round of William & Mary Young Democrats. actually was just sitting with them, i think, three weeks ago now at their the weekly meeting.
11:12.32
Jessica Anderson
lot of excitement. Very, all of, everyone was coming up to me and be like, how can we help? We already see some volunteer engagement with the Spanburger Coordinated as well. So we're definitely looking to put out the feelers for interns and fellows to make them feel even more part of the campaign.
11:28.12
Jessica Anderson
But I also, you know, in addition to being present with the William & Mary Dems, we have a local food pantry organization, William & Mary Food for All. I just did a food drive for them, food and food and hygiene drive for them to kind of stock help stock their shelves for finals week.
11:42.65
Jessica Anderson
So I think for them, they want to be seen. i think it's like any constituent, any voter. They want to know that the person that's representing them sees them, sees their needs, wherever they may be, is going to vote in their best interest and just be super present and relevant.
11:57.10
Jessica Anderson
My social media presence actually added an element I noticed last cycle that I did do really well with that Gen Z voter. and And I found that there was a lot of conversations and people that I chatted with from William & Mary that were following my content. and you know And so that was really fun and a nice little kind of thing to to find out along the way.
12:17.15
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, i did want to ask you about your social media, because I think that you use social media in a really unique way, especially tech TikTok, which a lot of politicians are scared to get on them, get on there themselves.
12:28.54
Sam Shirazi
And obviously, social media is generally free to put stuff out there. And I think it's a great way for campaigns to engage with the voters. but What would your tips be for other politicians who are trying to figure out how to use social media to help in their campaigns?
12:44.66
Jessica Anderson
Absolutely. My number one recommendation always is be authentically yourself. I've had so many people both in the political world as well as just like everyday people come up to me and be like, oh, like, do you have a script? And, you know how do you do your talk to camera? And I'm like, I push record.
12:58.90
Jessica Anderson
And they're like, wait, and what? And I'm like, I push record. I'm like, if something's going on, whether it be like national, local, i have a thought about it. I push record. I make a video. I make some maybe edits. I add captions, you know, typically for my other platforms.
13:12.86
Jessica Anderson
But it is just me. It's just me talking to the camera, being authentically me and talking to the issue the way I i see it from my lens. And try to make it very digestible to everyday people. I think politics has become sometimes hard for people to absorb and really want to hear about. So I try to make it as, you know, short form video and and as easy to understand as possible. but I will say with...
13:36.92
Jessica Anderson
My campaign, something that I really saw at the door specifically was I would knock on a door and people be like, oh my gosh, someone sent me me your video. They were telling me you were running. i feel like already know you. So that was a really cool thing that I think adds to the element of running for office.
13:51.57
Jessica Anderson
The other thing that I did, and i and I tell candidates that are listening to do it too, I am very present and active on both Facebook, like Facebook local groups, as well as next door.
14:02.84
Jessica Anderson
And those are places where you can have conversations with people that absolutely do not disagree with or agree with you at all. Be super civil. Obviously everything you say is under a micro microscope as someone who's running for office. I'm all too familiar with that and had,
14:15.55
Jessica Anderson
things clipped in the past. but like just that those direct engagements, people that literally cannot stand you as a, as like your political party and what you probably stand for will, will still say, i got to give it to her. She's at least having the conversation. And I had people say that to me. So, I think kind of, you know, utilizing those, those free avenues to reach voters and, and, and that's an additional touch at the end of the day.
14:40.62
Jessica Anderson
I think social media has a real, relevance in campaigns that I think some people are tapping into and some people aren't.
14:48.18
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, I mean, I think after the last election, Democrats realized they need to have a little bit of a different social media strategy. And I think your campaigns or have been examples of maybe how to engage social media in a positive way to kind of get some engagement.
15:04.20
Sam Shirazi
I did want to talk about... the Williamsburg area. I recently visited and it's a beautiful part of Virginia. And I wanted to kind of get your sense of some of the issues there.
15:17.34
Sam Shirazi
You mentioned there's a sense of Williamsburg is pretty well off, but I think under the surface, there might be some more problems in terms of people trying to make ends meet. And then also the other thing I found interesting about the area is relatively like a fifty fifty political area. It's pretty...
15:33.38
Sam Shirazi
yeah Obviously, they' are blue pockets, red pockets, but overall, the area is 50-50, and obviously, your district is close to 50-50. So if you could just talk a little bit about your district, I'd like to get your perspective on it.
15:43.62
Jessica Anderson
Yeah, I mean, it's it's definitely diverse. And I think there's this quality. that Some people from the outside, especially in 2023, did not see it that way. so obviously, when you're in parts of New Kent, that is a little more on the red side. However, it's also the fastest growing county in the state.
15:57.63
Jessica Anderson
It has a lot of people that are kind of coming in that are younger families, that are people moving in from the north, people that are working in Richmond, but want to live a little bit more of a quiet suburban area. so this past election cycle, we watched 900 new democratic voters sprout up out there.
16:12.34
Jessica Anderson
and then, you know, James city County is definitely kind of almost like on a scale. So if you're closer to the city of Williamsburg, you see a bluer pocket. If you move a little further towards New Kent, you see a redder pocket, namely Stonehouse district. That is, you know, but what's interesting is this past election, as we saw every single,
16:29.98
Jessica Anderson
precinct within the district went to Harris. Now, there was individual like Stonehouse A, and like I think there was one or two individual precincts within those precincts that did not.
16:39.84
Jessica Anderson
but But overall, we saw a shift. And I think that that's something that's just been happening over the last few years. I think it's a combination of, again, people moving in from either Northern states or Nova and retiring or coming here to just, you know, be in a slightly warmer climate, but not heading all the way down South. Yeah.
17:00.08
Jessica Anderson
you know In Williamsburg, I did highlight this, in the actual city proper, so Colonial Williamsburg, kind of what you envision, it is a more wealthy, higher-end community where the houses are very expensive, but literally just outside on the outskirts, so literally across the train tracks or just on the outskirts of the city lines where there's really no crosswalks connecting you to the Colonial Williamsburg, we have apartment complexes, Merrimack Trail, we have Highland Park,
17:26.42
Jessica Anderson
We have Mimosa Lane, like all of these kind of neighborhoods that are kind of tucked away almost in the woods and out of view and out of sight of the city itself that are part of the city and many of which are considered low income subsidized federal housing where we get federal funding. So there is this element that people do not know what the district actually looks like.
17:48.63
Jessica Anderson
and that there's opportunity there. I think I did a really good job of getting some of those low propensity voters out in 2023. We had some high voter turnout in our area. And I think that the, the excitement and opportunity is even better this year, which is what I think is going to make the difference.
18:04.35
Jessica Anderson
I think the other two is, and this is something that i try to do really well, k through 12 affects everybody. And it's making it relevant to that person. So obviously, my low income families that are are families that do have students that are attending our public education system, that's our only outlet for education, making sure that I'm talking to them about keeping our schools fully funded, making sure the resources remain and become even more strengthened, you know advocating for free free meals across the table for all of our school division within our school divisions, things like that, that's really relative in.
18:33.55
Jessica Anderson
But when I go into Colonial Heritage, the retirement community in Stonehouse District of of, you know, upper James City County, it's relevant to them, too. And the reason being is if our schools are losing accreditation or not putting out a high quality of good test grades and and quality students with good outcomes, that's eventually going to impact their property value.
18:53.11
Jessica Anderson
That's eventually going to impact the economy as a whole. That's eventually going to impact people moving in here to start their businesses and continue to grow their families here. And so kind of making that correlation, i think, has been the most prominent thing for me when it comes to making...
19:08.02
Jessica Anderson
One issue relevant to two sides of the coin, shall we say. And it's right. And it's resonated. And I think that comes into play with any issue, health care, housing, affordability, you know, having that conversation and making it super relevant to everybody is going to be impacted, whether you realize it or not.
19:24.42
Sam Shirazi
it sounds like you are starting to have some of the issues that you're thinking about for next year. So I'm going to move on from the campaign to what might happen if you're elected.
19:34.50
Sam Shirazi
So let's assume there November comes around and you are elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.
19:37.11
Jessica Anderson
Sorry.
19:40.81
Sam Shirazi
You get sworn in in January. What would be some of your priorities as a new delegate?
19:46.13
Jessica Anderson
I mean, top tier priorities is obviously getting these three constitutional amendments to the finish line. I think it's critical to have those on the ballot in 2026 so that the people can actually speak and say what they want to have in the Virginia Constitution. So that's top front frontier.
20:00.01
Jessica Anderson
Obviously, getting some of these other bills that have historically been vetoed under this current administration, even though we've had a Democratic majority the last two years. So contraception protection, some of these safe, you know, safe storage gun bills and other gun advocacy bills that we've put forth. And honestly, I want to have a real conversation about the budget and specifically the tax code that exists.
20:23.56
Jessica Anderson
The reality is we do see the writing on the wall with Medicaid expansion being terminated. There are other federal programs that could be taking a hit that are going to harm our community and our state and Virginians.
20:34.58
Jessica Anderson
So having a legitimate conversation in this in the House of Delegates, as well as in the Senate, about the fact that we need to have reoccurring funding coming in in our budget to make sure that we do have the guardrails to protect Virginians and protect these programs that are detrimental.
20:52.10
Jessica Anderson
And so, you know, I look at states like Massachusetts that institute a millionaire's tax, and now they have a universal health care system that incorporates ACA, Medicaid, as well as their state funded, and they've brought their uninsured rate down to 2.3%.
21:05.38
Jessica Anderson
Like these are some real conversations that I think we need to be having. i would love to see, you know, obviously collective bargaining, you know, for public servants or public workers, you know, actually go across the finish line, take some of these stipulations out.
21:18.33
Jessica Anderson
And then of course, funding our our K through 12 fully and also expanding access to early childhood education. Because if we are not giving them a foundation, we are not creating a society where we're going to have flourishing individuals contributing back to Virginia and our economy.
21:33.20
Jessica Anderson
So I think those are some of a handful. i I have so many ideas that I'm very excited to get in there, but those are probably some of the things that kind of weigh on my mind and and what I'm having conversations about right now.
21:43.87
Sam Shirazi
And if you do get elected, you have a sense of how long you want to be doing this? Is this something where you want to, you know, contribute and make a difference for a few years? Or is this something that you see long term, you want to keep engaged in elected office and either at the House of Delegates or another level continue serving?
22:06.42
Jessica Anderson
um quite I do see myself pursuing in an elective position for probably a while, maybe not necessarily in the House of Delegates indefinitely, but, you know, I do have some aspirations to to do more.
22:20.26
Jessica Anderson
I think in this era and this timeframe, when I kind of look at what's happening at the national level, I think state is so critical. I think local and state is really discarded way too often.
22:32.18
Jessica Anderson
know look at what Spanberger did where she served in Congress and kind of taking that role and stepping back and and running for governor. I think it speaks to what's happening right now and the fact that there is this very high intense need to make sure that we're protecting our state's As much as possible, like having a sound AG at the level, for example, who's not writing letters to Costco, but is instead filing actual lawsuits against the currentl federal administration that is doing unlawful things that are going to affect Virginians. So, you know, I think that that right now protecting the state level is critical. but
23:05.42
Jessica Anderson
But I will not count out something beyond that in my future. i do have young kids at home still, so I would like to get them in and out of school, which means I have at least another six years before my youngest graduates high school. But yeah, I mean, i i see something beyond this that is also an elected position.
23:24.01
Sam Shirazi
Well, I'll ask you one last question, because I also have young kids.
23:27.42
Jessica Anderson
and
23:27.72
Sam Shirazi
How do you balance it all? Because I think that's one of the things that I hear a lot from people who are interested in getting in politics, either running for office or at least just helping out more, that it's just difficult with family and work and everything. you know How do you make it all work for you?
23:42.81
Jessica Anderson
Yeah, it I will not lie. you can The phrase you can have it all is a lie. Anybody that says it is not telling the truth. It's a balance and it's absolutely about having a support system. i have an incredibly supportive husband who has stepped up on so many fronts you know in the last cycle. And I'm sure this cycle, you know my daughters are older. They are very self-sufficient. My oldest is graduating in college May 10th. In fact, super exciting.
24:08.52
Jessica Anderson
And then my middle daughter is a junior, so she'll be a senior before I even can blink an eye. And my youngest is in seventh grade currently. So I do have a little more freedom, but, you know, it's it's finding those times throughout the week to block off, to make sure that I am making some quality family time. Yesterday, for example, was a full kind of family day and and just, you know,
24:29.80
Jessica Anderson
no campaigning. So just fitting that in, i am very present in my community and I'm grateful that a lot of the things that I try to prioritize at our community events are things that my kids and my husband can be a part of by and large. So yeah,
24:43.38
Jessica Anderson
even when I'm campaigning, they can still be a part of that process. And it's something that I probably would have gone to even if I wasn't campaigning. So it doesn't feel too, you know, out of the pocket to do.
24:55.02
Jessica Anderson
But yeah, it's really about finding balance. And I think a support system, like at the end of the day, if you don't have people in your corner that truly you can like try to scream to vent to and just lift you up when you really need it.
25:07.62
Jessica Anderson
I don't think you can do that without that, do this without that.
25:11.16
Sam Shirazi
Well, I appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk to us. I think it's always helpful for people to learn more about politicians on either side and to hear directly from them. So I appreciate your time. i will ask you one last question, which is where can people learn more about you if they're interested?
25:28.15
Jessica Anderson
Yeah, if you, super easy website. So it's jess4va.com. But all the things you need to know about me from issues and just kind of, you know, kind of my brief synopsis of how I got here is all there.
25:42.31
Sam Shirazi
All right. Well, thank you so much, Jessica Anderson. i'm sure we'll keep an eye on things in the 71st district on the campaign trail. And thank you again for coming on.
25:51.77
Jessica Anderson
Yes, thanks for having me.
25:53.38
Sam Shirazi
And this was Federal Fallout, and I hope you'll join me next week.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.78
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode we will go over the chaos at the Lieutenant Governor level for the Virginia GOP.
00:12.89
Sam Shirazi
so earlier this week, I did a bonus episode on the dropping out of Pat Herrity from the Virginia GOP primary. That meant that by default, John Reid would be the GOP nominee.
00:23.55
Sam Shirazi
And as I said, almost certainly there that wouldn't be the last surprise this year in Virginia. But I didn't think the next surprise would be the same week. So it was revealed on Friday that Governor Youngkin called John Reed and asked him to withdraw from the race.
00:39.67
Sam Shirazi
This was due to allegations. There was a Tumblr which posted explicit images. John Reed denied that it was his Tumblr and said he did nothing wrong. He said he would not be withdrawing.
00:50.90
Sam Shirazi
As of the recording of this podcast, he's the Republican nominee. So what does this all mean? Obviously, it is not great news for the Virginia GOP. They were already going to have a hard year, and this is just going to make things that much harder.
01:07.49
Sam Shirazi
And obviously, you know, there's been a lot going on this week with the lieutenant governor's spot on the ticket for the governor. The Republicans have nominated Winston Sears.
01:20.13
Sam Shirazi
for attorney general is the incumbent Jason Meares and the middle part of the ticket, the Lieutenant governor, they had been expecting a primary, but Pat Haraday had to drop out due to health reasons.
01:31.76
Sam Shirazi
And so John Reed became the nominee. It seemed like for most of the week, the Republican party in Virginia was getting behind him. And obviously he was the nominee. So they were going to support him. That included all the figures within the Republican party in Virginia.
01:46.57
Sam Shirazi
And then this kind of bombshell dropped on Friday with Governor Yunkin making the phone call to ask John Reed to withdraw. And then later Friday afternoon, John Reed put out a video that made clear that he was not going to withdraw. He said he didn't do anything wrong.
02:03.48
Sam Shirazi
And there's a lot of things going on behind the scenes, and we can talk a little bit about that. But it's just another thing that's making life difficult for the Virginia GOP right now.
02:15.19
Sam Shirazi
And obviously, they were already going to have a tough year, given that they weren't that that given that the party in the White House typically does poorly in Virginia elections. And then on top of that, we had the federal fallout from all the firing of federal employees.
02:29.99
Sam Shirazi
And so it was just going to be a really tough year for the Virginia GOP. and And this is not going to be doing them any favors, given that there's all this chaos with the lieutenant governor spot on the ticket.
02:41.40
Sam Shirazi
So, I mean, I wanted to give a little bit of background about what's going on behind the scenes. So one of the factors is that John Reed,
02:52.97
Sam Shirazi
is openly a gay man. And the Virginia GOP earlier in the week seemed to kind of celebrate that the fact that they had a very diverse ticket, obviously, at the top of the ticket, you had an African American woman for the attorney general, you had a Hispanic man, and then for the lieutenant governor candidate, you had a a gay man being the nominee.
03:13.72
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, it seemed like that was part of what they wanted to run on this year and maybe try to distinguish themselves and and maybe fight some of the headwinds highlighting the diversity of their ticket.
03:26.62
Sam Shirazi
I think there's been a lot of allegations behind the scenes that a lot of what is driving this is the fact that that John Reed is gay. Now, look, I don't know what's driving it. I don't know what's going on behind the scenes.
03:38.38
Sam Shirazi
But that's kind of been the perception, at least from John Reed's perspective. And, you know, i think the reality is that most Virginians probably don't care one way or another about candidates' sexuality. I think there are certain parts of the Virginia GOP, the more evangelical conservative Christian part of the coalition that might have been a little bit uncomfortable with some of those aspects of John Reed being on the ticket. And I don't know if that's what's driving it.
04:08.96
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, whatever drove Governor Youngkin to make the decision to make the phone call and and kind of ask that John Reed withdraw, like the phone call happened. And,
04:19.27
Sam Shirazi
I'm guessing that Governor Youngkin thought that maybe the fact that there was a risk that some of this stuff would come out and it would hurt the ticket. And again, John Reed has denied that it was him or his Tumblr or he's not. And I don't I don't know what's going on. I'm not pretending to know the the facts one way another. I'm just kind of explaining what's going on, why why there was this.
04:45.75
Sam Shirazi
upheaval within the Virginia GOP. And I think it's, it's shown a lot of divisions because, and they're not necessarily clean divisions because I would say that John Reed comes from where the MAGA part of the party But you have this other part of the party that's maybe not so much closer closer to the MAGA wing, but maybe a more evangelical, conservative, Christian part of the party that is having some issues with John Reed being on the ticket. And so there's kind of a lot of inter-party stuff on the Republican side. And, you know, I don't know how it's eventually all going to shake out. I mean,
05:21.30
Sam Shirazi
John Reed's going to be on the ticket if he stays in the race. He's the Republican nominee. No one else filed. The other person who filed withdrew. So by law, he's the nominee. He's the only person who didn't withdraw and who made the ballot. And so the question becomes, like, what does he do?
05:40.06
Sam Shirazi
going forward because there's been pressure for him to drop out. He doesn't seem like he's going to drop out. And I'm not sure what is going to happen if he stays on the ticket, does Winston Sears campaign with him?
05:52.62
Sam Shirazi
Is she asked about, you know, does she feel comfortable running with him? I mean, it's going to be a lot of awkward moments. And I thought what was interesting during the video that John Reed put out on Friday afternoon, kind of saying he's staying in the race and he didn't do anything wrong,
06:07.86
Sam Shirazi
I don't think it was an accident. There was a picture of Governor Youngkin and a picture of Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears in the background kind of looking down as he made those statements. And I think he wanted to make clear that he he wasn't going to back down despite of what Governor Youngkin asked him to do. so There's a lot going on, a lot going on for the Virginia GOP.
06:27.57
Sam Shirazi
Their race is kind of in flux on the lieutenant governor's side. And i don't I don't really know how it's going to play out. And it's it's certainly creating a headache for the Virginia GOP as they already are facing a lot of hand headwinds.
06:41.72
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, I talked about this in my podcast earlier in the week. There was a situation in 2013 where the were Republicans nominated E.W. Jackson, who had said some things that the Democrats were able to to find, and he was perceived as being much more extreme than the rest of the ticket.
06:59.20
Sam Shirazi
And he lost by double digits in a year where the governor's race was relatively close within a few points. And then the attorney general's race was only within a few hundred votes, very close race that went to a recount.
07:13.10
Sam Shirazi
And I think there's a chance that the problem that John Reed has is the more kind of conservative Christian evangelical voters, they might get turned off and they might not vote for him for Lieutenant Governor.
07:25.20
Sam Shirazi
And then, you know, realistically, he's closer to the bag of wing of the party and he's been a radio host for a while. he said some things that I'm sure the Democrats are going to try to find and put out there. And so more moderate voters might also be turned off by him.
07:39.42
Sam Shirazi
And so you could see a scenario where John Reed performs relatively poorly compared to the rest of the ticket, maybe not as bad as E.W. Jackson did, but, you know, maybe a few points worse than the rest of the ticket just by the fact that there's some discomfort with him from parts of the base and there may be discomfort by moderate voters based on his background being on radio and having said various things. So, you know, the conventional wisdom is this is not great news for the Virginia GOP right now because they probably just wanted someone in the lieutenant governor's spot who wouldn't make a lot of waves and wouldn't be that important one way or another.
08:17.50
Sam Shirazi
and I think that was the hope with Pat Harity. He was the establishment figure that the Republicans were hoping to put in LG. And, you know, he's had a long history in Fairfax County, I'm sure he was probably going to be pretty generic Republican for lieutenant governor. He may not have excited the base that much, but he probably wasn't going to rock the vote rock the boat, and he might have appealed to some more moderate voters. Now you don't have that. Unfortunately, he had those health issues. And again, I hope Pat Harrety makes a speedy recovery, but the reality is he did withdraw.
08:49.38
Sam Shirazi
And so you have John Reed now as a Republican nominee, and he's creating a lot of issues for the Virginia GOP right now. And I think the Virginia Republicans for the past four years or so had been in a relatively good spot, because if you think about 2021, Governor Youngkin came in He brought a lot of discipline, a lot of money, a lot of organization.
09:11.11
Sam Shirazi
He was able to win in 2021 and he was able to flip the House of Delegates and and kind of bring the Virginia GOP back.
09:19.78
Sam Shirazi
But And even though he wasn't able to win the House of Delegates or State Senate 2023, they were still relatively competitive. The Virginia GOP flipped a the second district in 2022. 2024, Virginia GOP did better than i think they they were hoping for in in terms of keeping the race within six points.
09:41.30
Sam Shirazi
And so... The last four years have been pretty good for the Virginia GOP in the grand scheme of things. And if you look at what happened when during the first Trump administration in 2017, it was a really rough time for the Virginia GOP. And they kind of imploded during the four years of Trump's first presidency. That started in 2017 when Ralph Northam had a big win in the governor's race.
10:05.35
Sam Shirazi
The GOP lost a bunch of House of Delegates seats. And then 2018, they They lost three House seats where that that the Democrats were able to flip in Virginia.
10:17.93
Sam Shirazi
And then 2019, they lost the state Senate and they lost more seats in the House of Delegates. And the Democrats got the first tried pe trifecta in Virginia in 30 years. And the the Republicans went from having like 67 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates or 66 seats down to 45 seats by the time Trump left office. So they lost like 20 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates.
10:43.18
Sam Shirazi
And there was a real implosion within the first Trump term. And as I mentioned, Governor Youngkin kind of brought them back from the brink. And obviously part of that was just the reality. There was a Democrat in the White House and and there tends to be swings in Virginia whenever there's a change in the White House.
10:58.69
Sam Shirazi
But the the first Trump years were pretty bad for the Virginia GOP. And I think the way things were going, even before what happened with John Reed, it was looking pretty dicey. And it looked like things might revert back to that time period for the Virginia GOP.
11:15.23
Sam Shirazi
And now with all these issues with John Reed, there's the possibility that like that gets turbocharged because, you know, their their ticket is not in a great place right now. And I also wanted to talk about a little bit of a different topic, although related, and that is President Trump reaching almost the 100 day mark of his presidency and typically around the 100 day mark.
11:37.24
Sam Shirazi
There is a lot of commentary. There are polls. People try to see where the president is. What's the pulse? Is he popular? Is he not popular? And so we've seen a lot of polls coming out about the Trump approval rating. Frankly, I wish we would get some more Virginia polls because i think in some ways those are more interesting.
11:54.86
Sam Shirazi
But we've been getting one after another. I would say this week there's been at least 10 Trump approval rating polls, and they all roughly show the same thing. So Trump approval is somewhere in the ballpark of between 40 and 45 percent, whereas his disapproval is roughly in the ballpark of 55 to 60 percent.
12:15.77
Sam Shirazi
And that's largely been driven by the fact that the economy's not doing great because of some of the issues with the tariffs. And one of President Trump's core competencies had been the economy.
12:29.04
Sam Shirazi
At least that was the perception among the public. And he's really lost that. And his economic handling has gone negative. And once your economic handling goes negative, that's not great news because it's hard to regain economic competency.
12:41.88
Sam Shirazi
And then even immigration, which has been one of his core strengths, that has his approval and that has gone down. And so that's overall dragging his approval rating down.
12:53.03
Sam Shirazi
And while presidential approval rating isn't everything, and it doesn't automatically mean the Democrats are going to gain all those voters who are starting to disapprove of President Trump, it certainly doesn't help when you're running in Virginia as a Republican and then President Trump is in negative approval.
13:08.27
Sam Shirazi
And again, I hope we get a Virginia poll because that would show, okay, well, Trump's approval rating is going down. Is that actually being translated into votes for Republicans? the Democratic candidates in Virginia?
13:19.44
Sam Shirazi
Does Abigail Spanberger get a bump compared to the previous polls because Trump has become more unpopular? I'm sure at some point we will get a Virginia poll, and I think it will be interesting to see does the overall national disapprovals of President Trump going up, is that reflected in the state-specific Spanberger versus Sears polls in Virginia?
13:41.13
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, I think the other thing the John Reed issues create right now in Virginia is a sense of chaos and also a sense of perhaps more demoralization among the Virginia GOP, because, you know, it's just not a good headline, not something you want to be dealing with as you're trying to head into the election cycle. And does it mean that some more donors sit on the sideline? Does it mean that the base isn't as fired up because for you know they're seeing that there's issues with the ticket and and the governor is asking the lieutenant governor candidate to drop out and Winston Sears is kind of quiet right now and it's unclear what's what's her position on this.
14:22.84
Sam Shirazi
And so the whole thing is creating more and more issues for the Virginia GOP at a time when they really need to be unified. They really need to get their act together because they're heading into a tough election this November, regardless of what was going to happen with their ticket.
14:37.59
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, I think one of the things I've been struggling with is to see, you know, what is building up into November. i mean, you want to keep an open mind as a political analyst. You don't want to assume, okay This is 100% going to be a massive blue wave because it could not be. I want to keep in mind in 2024, a lot of people thought the Democrats would do well after Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee. Obviously, she didn't win the election. And i want to keep an open mind. I don't want to assume that, you know, whatever's going on is automatically going to be translated into votes for Democrats.
15:13.46
Sam Shirazi
But, I mean, the reality is there's a lot going against the Republicans and there's a lot going for the Democrats. And I think one of the challenges is going to be looking at the House of Delegates races, you know which ones are starting to slip away from the Republicans, which ones are starting to come on the board. And you know as the build as a wave might be building on the Democratic side, are we talking about a different playing field than in the beginning? Because if you asked me in January, you know I could tell you here are probably the five districts that are going to be most competitive in the current environment.
15:48.71
Sam Shirazi
I think if you ask me in October, what are the five districts that are going to be competitive, it's almost certainly going to be different, possibly depending on what happens during the year. And at this point, we're seeing seats move around and it's not the same seats even in you know late in April than it was in January, because the reality is,
16:08.26
Sam Shirazi
The ground's moving. The Virginia GOP is having these problems. And we're also seeing the issues that President Trump's having with his approval rating. We're seeing Elon Musk has even lower approval rating than President Trump in terms of his work with Doge.
16:25.14
Sam Shirazi
And obviously, the federal government impact to Virginia has been pretty big, and the cuts that have been going on. So there's just like a lot of things going on that have generally not been great for the Virginia GOP.
16:37.61
Sam Shirazi
And I think the role of Governor Youngkin is interesting because he's obviously on his way out. He's got a few more months left as governor. And, you know, as any governor would would like, they they would want a candidate from their own party to win. he wants to leave Virginia.
16:55.11
Sam Shirazi
but on high note and and have his party win the governor's race and do well in the other races. But that's not really the way it's looking right now. And I did think it was interesting that he was the one who called John Reed. And i assume Winston Sears didn't want to get involved with it. And he wanted Governor, yeah she wanted Governor Youngkin to do it.
17:12.98
Sam Shirazi
But the reality is, you know, Governor Youngkin is not going to be on the ballot. And he's the most prominent Virginia Republican right now, but he's not the one that's going to be on the ticket running with John Reed.
17:24.13
Sam Shirazi
And so at some point, Winston Sears has got to say something. And I'm guessing she's probably hoping that John Reed will withdraw before she has to say something. But if John Reed is determined to stay on the ticket, there's not a lot that Winston Sears can do other than run with him. And, and you know, we've You know, it might be part of the strategy that this stuff comes out now in April. It kind of plays out. And frankly, you know, by the next month, given everything that's going on in D.C., like no one's really going to remember this. And he'll just kind of John Reed would be on the ticket and everything will move on. I mean that's one scenario.
18:01.28
Sam Shirazi
The other scenario is now reporters, they're going to be doing digging. They're going to look at it into John Reed's past. You know, if there's any sort of skeletons, I'm sure they'll find it. And so you might get this drip, drip, drip when things start coming out and it's just going to create more and more headaches for Virginia GOP.
18:17.20
Sam Shirazi
The other option is, and i again, I don't know what John Reed's going to do. In theory, he could withdraw. And then the process would be that the Virginia GOP under Virginia law, as long as he he withdraws early enough, they would get to pick a nominee through an internal party party process.
18:33.23
Sam Shirazi
The primary ship has already sailed the Virginia GOP. Department of Elections has announced there's not going to be a primary for the Virginia LG spot because Pat Harity was true. So there's no way the primary can happen because John Reed was the only candidate who qualified and no one else was able to make the ballot except Pat Herity and he's withdrawn. So any process would be a kind of internal Virginia GOP process.
18:58.84
Sam Shirazi
And that would obviously take time and it'll be messy. and And, you know, regardless of what John Reed decides to do, there's already been some hard feelings. And I think it's just the reality when there's any sort of upheaval like this in the party, there's going to be issues between the different factions within the party.
19:19.77
Sam Shirazi
Now, that's not to say the Democrats are you know completely drama free. Obviously, they have a race for both lieutenant governor and attorney general. There'll be primaries in both those races. I will say for the most part, both those races have been relatively clean, at least publicly. There hasn't been a whole lot of bad blood aired.
19:40.20
Sam Shirazi
I'm sure as voting gets closer and closer, we may see some more jabs between the candidates. But realistically, you you know, in this environment with these candidates, you know, my sense is whoever ends up being the nominee for LG and AG, the party will quickly unify behind them unless something crazy happens. And I think the the Democratic ticket is going to be relatively stable.
20:02.51
Sam Shirazi
and There isn't going to be a lot of bad feelings after the primary, at least publicly. And so i think... the Democratic ticket entering the summer and fall campaign will be in pretty good shape, particularly if the Republicans are in a little bit of chaos. And, you know, I'm just not sure what the Republican plan is for this November, because it seems like things are just getting worse and worse. And there isn't really any sort of master plan to get the ship back in shape and you know and i don't realistically I don't know what could be done at this stage.
20:39.52
Sam Shirazi
You know, if if I had to guess, there have been some rumblings this week that maybe President Trump will be pulling back from some of the tariffs on China, although obviously that changes day to day. You know, in theory, if the tariffs get pulled back a little bit, economy is more stabilized.
20:54.67
Sam Shirazi
Maybe Doge starts wrapping up its work because there have been more reports, and Elon Musk, I think, said this, that he would be kind of taking a step back at the end of May. So again, maybe the economy stabilizes.
21:05.43
Sam Shirazi
Maybe Elon Musk takes the backseat. Maybe Doge wraps up its work. and And the Virginia GOP can kind of regroup and think about how it wants to run the campaign. The problem is, I mean, particularly on the economic, it's very hard to change perceptions of the economy. Once voters think the economy is not going well, you know it's not like a flip of a switch that says, oh, everything's fine now.
21:26.24
Sam Shirazi
And the Democrats found this out the hard way. I mean, once inflation hit in 2022 timeframe, that inflation... you know that inflation hit, continued until 2024, even though the actual rate of inflation came down, but prices were still high. And there was really no way to change perceptions or you know make things better for the Democrats in terms of the economic message, because it's just really hard in politics to convince someone that the economy going great when maybe they're having a hard time buying groceries or or whatever. And and definitely the Democrats felt that in
22:03.96
Sam Shirazi
2024 and president Trump benefited it. And now the Republicans are getting the reverse of that. Now that they're in power, people are expecting the economy to get better and prices to go down or at least stabilize, but the tariffs have kind of totally shooken things up.
22:20.67
Sam Shirazi
And the other part of it, the things with doge and the firing of federal workers, mean, even if that stuff is a little bit, Less in the fall and the summer.
22:31.63
Sam Shirazi
mean, the reality is people have lost their jobs and they're not going to forget about that. And it's not like, you know, that's something that is going to go away anytime soon. And even the federal workers who are still there.
22:44.40
Sam Shirazi
I mean, the reality is a lot of them have lived with the possibility they could be losing their jobs. So even if they don't end up losing their jobs, they still went through that whole ordeal. And so I think the do the Doge thing is it's tricky because I don't think that, again, if if Elon Musk and Doge kind of wrap up their work, I don't think that's the end of the story for the Virginia GOP. So...
23:05.45
Sam Shirazi
I didn't mean to spend the entire podcast just talking about this, but I do think it is one of those things that the Virginia GOP is it's in a tough spot. And, you know, I'll try to keep an open mind. I'm not going assume Democrats are guaranteed victory. I'm not going to assume they're going to get this massive blowout. I think a lot of things can still change.
23:25.70
Sam Shirazi
politics, you know, one thing happened one day, another thing happens another day. There's a lot of different things that could happen. i don't, I will try to keep my best to to do, do my best to keep an open mind.
23:37.55
Sam Shirazi
But I do think the Virginia GOP is getting to a point where they really have to do some hard thinking and they have to think about getting their act together, frankly, because otherwise, you know, the,
23:49.98
Sam Shirazi
the narrative is there that the Virginia GOP is in trouble. And unless they figure out a way to change that narrative, it's going to be tricky. and And, you know, people can usually tell, okay, when a campaign has momentum, when it doesn't have momentum, and and not to kind of go too off track, but if you think about what happened in 2024, you know, President Biden had that first debate performance, and it was pretty bad. And I think everyone can agree on that. And the narrative was just, you know, he, there was no way he was going to win.
24:22.39
Sam Shirazi
And I think, you know, he tried to stay in that race for a while and obviously that didn't work out. And so the Democrats felt like they had to do some sort of game changer. And obviously the game changer was president Biden dropping out and vice president Harris getting in the race. And I think,
24:37.62
Sam Shirazi
She probably did better than what President Biden was going to do, but it was still very late in the game and it it just wasn't enough and the Democrats weren't able to win in 2024. So I think the danger for the Virginia GOP this year is even if they're able to kind of get their act together, or they're able to figure out some other formula.
24:55.10
Sam Shirazi
That might not be enough because once these things are kind of baked in, it you know, Elections sometimes are these massive ships and you know they're going one direction and it takes a long time to change course.
25:07.70
Sam Shirazi
And you know it it might just be one of those things that it might be too late to completely change things. But you know there is still a decent amount of time, not a whole lot of time, but there is enough time where in theory,
25:20.92
Sam Shirazi
we could get a different outcome in November if the Virginia GOP starts to get its act together and, you know, they figure out the LG race, they get their ticket in order, and then they kind of move on and figure out what they want to do for the general election in November. So, anyways, a lot going on.
25:38.33
Sam Shirazi
I'm sure by the time the next podcast comes out, there'll be a lot of other things to talk about. But for now, that was Federal Fallout, and I hope you'll join me next week. Thanks.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.83
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This is a special bonus episode to go over some breaking news that happened on Monday in the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor. So the front runner, Fairfax Supervisor Pat Herrity has announced that he is withdrawing from the Republican Lieutenant Governor's race.
00:23.72
Sam Shirazi
And that means by default, the other candidate on the primary ballot, John Reid, will be the Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor. So to set things up, Pat Harrity, he's a supervisor in Fairfax County.
00:35.17
Sam Shirazi
His dad also had that role. So both of them were well known in Fairfax County. And the sense was that he was more of the front runner because he had raised more money. He was more of the establishment figure and he had more backing from the party.
00:49.54
Sam Shirazi
And so there was a sense that in all likelihood, he was more likely than not going to be the Republican nominee. Obviously, the fact that he withdrew is a big deal. The reason he withdrew was that he recently had heart surgery and he had been attempting to soldier on in the primary, but obviously that was not possible given his health issues.
01:10.56
Sam Shirazi
And it goes without saying that I send Pat Herrity my best wishes. I hope he makes a speedy recovery. Hopefully this is not something that will affect him long term and he can make a full recovery.
01:21.69
Sam Shirazi
But obviously it was something that meant that he was not going to be able to continue on the campaign trail.
01:28.76
Sam Shirazi
So this also means that the Republican ticket for this November is set in Virginia. So for governor, we are going to have as the Republican nominee, Lieutenant Governor Winston Sears.
01:40.22
Sam Shirazi
For attorney general, we are going to have the incumbent Jason Miyares running for reelection. And then obviously for Lieutenant Governor, we will have John Reid as the Republican nominee. And I looked up Virginia election law, so you didn't have to. And it appears that because,
01:57.46
Sam Shirazi
Pat Herrity withdrew before the start of early voting that the Virginia can just go ahead and cancel the Republican primary for LG because if Pat Herrity withdraws, there's only one other candidate. By default, John Reid is going to be the Republican nominee.
02:14.59
Sam Shirazi
And so there's no need to have a statewide primary for Lieutenant Governor on the Republican side. Obviously, there's still going to be some primaries for Republicans in the House of Delegates in some seats, and there's going to be some local seats where there might be primaries for the Republicans.
02:32.05
Sam Shirazi
But that's obviously a lot fewer than having a statewide primary where every voter in Virginia, in theory, could choose to vote in the Republican primary. The Democrats are still going to have their statewide primary, both for LG and AG. So there will be a primary on June 17th.
02:48.68
Sam Shirazi
Again, Virginia voters have the option of voting in either the Republican or the Democratic primary. There's going to be a lot fewer people on the Republican side who are going to have a primary in a few districts, whereas the Democrats, the entire state, there's going to be a primary on the Democratic side. So one interesting thing that this change might do right off the bat is we'll see if some more independents and other people who who typically lean to the Republicans, because there's not going to be a primary on the Republican side statewide, do they choose to go into the Democratic primary and vote in June 17th? Will that make a difference? Who are they going to vote for?
03:32.83
Sam Shirazi
I mean, realistically, my sense is that and most of the time people don't cross over and vote in the other party's primary. It's just, I mean, you hear about it, but the practical thing is it's just not something that typically makes a huge difference in these races. So I don't anticipate that being a huge deal.
03:50.99
Sam Shirazi
But at the same time, the Republicans have their nominees set. And I wanted to talk a little bit about what this might mean for November. So as I mentioned, Pat Herrity, he is known to be more of the establishment figure. There was a hope by some Republicans that he might be able to win over some crossover voters in Fairfax County.
04:14.18
Sam Shirazi
And there there was even a sense that, well, maybe the top of the ticket's looking pretty tough for Republicans, but Pat Herrity might win some of these more traditional Republicans that have moved away from the GOP in recent years towards the Democrats. He might be able to get people to split their tickets. So even if the Republicans lose at the top of the ticket, there was a chance that maybe Pat Herrity might win for lieutenant governor.
04:37.96
Sam Shirazi
think obviously now that he's withdrawn, that becomes less of a possibility. I think on the flip side, John Reid, he is more of a political outsider. He's had a long career in politics, but he hasn't necessarily had elected office. And in recent years, he's been more known for being a radio host.
04:58.72
Sam Shirazi
I will say that compared to Pat Herrity, John Reid is probably closer to the MAGA side of the political aisle on the Republican side. So it's possible that him being the nominee will fire up more of the base, which obviously at the top of the ticket with Winsome Sears, there isn't necessarily as much of a excitement for her among the more hardcore MAGA base because she has been a little bit arm's length in the past to President Trump.
05:28.01
Sam Shirazi
However, now it doesn't appear that Lieutenant Governor Sears is going to distance herself from Trump, but still there have been statements in the past that I think have upset some of the more hardcore MAGA base. And John Reid, maybe being on the ticket, might be able to excite some of those people to come out.
05:44.07
Sam Shirazi
Now, realistically, I don't think this is something where people are that swayed by who the lieutenant governor nominee is. I think it's unlikely that... This is going to change that many votes in the grand scheme of things. But obviously it shakes things up because I think most people were assuming that Pat Herrity was going to be the Republican nominee.
06:04.70
Sam Shirazi
And I think Democrats are excited at the possibility of John Reid being the Republican nominee because whenever someone's on radio, they've said a lot of things. And I think there's a lot of things that Democrats now are going to spend time going back, looking at his record, trying to bring up some of the things that he said in the past.
06:23.78
Sam Shirazi
And then when he's on the ticket with Winsome Sears, the Democrats will try to tie that to Winsome Sears because they'll say, oh look at this thing that John Reid said that – Winston Sears is running with him and she hasn't distanced himself from him.
06:35.33
Sam Shirazi
So I think the Democrats are going to try that dynamic. And I will say in recent Virginia history, there was something that happened kind of like this in the Democrats were successful in 2013 with the Republican Lieutenant Governor candidate E.W. Jackson.
06:53.12
Sam Shirazi
So the Democrats were able to find a lot of the things E.W. Jackson had said. They put that out there. Compared to the rest of the ticket, E.W. Jackson did pretty poorly in 2013. He lost by almost 11%, even though the governor's race was relatively close.
07:11.46
Sam Shirazi
And so I think you could see Democrats trying that strategy with John Reid. I think the only issue with that is realistically, there just isn't a lot of ticket splitting these days, even compared to 2013. So I do think that most people vote based on the top of the ticket.
07:26.72
Sam Shirazi
think most people are going to be straight ticket voters on both sides. The only slight change might be that in in theory, Pat Harity might have gotten some people who voted for Spanberger at the top of the ticket to vote for him and in LF that's not going to happen now. In theory, maybe some people who vote Sears at the top of the ticket, they vote Republican. Maybe they don't vote for John Reid for LG.
07:56.06
Sam Shirazi
At least that's the Democrats hope. Again, I don't I think we're talking about handfuls of votes here and there. this isn't going to be any sort of Huge game changer for the LG race. But I do think it it kind of sets November up early for the Republicans. And so another benefit the Republicans are going to have is their ticket set. They can start coordinating more. They can start running more. The local cam committees know who their statewide nominees are going to be.
08:24.34
Sam Shirazi
And so in that sense, that might help a little bit. The Democrats will have to wait until after June 17th to figure out who their LG and AG nominees are going to be.
08:34.38
Sam Shirazi
You know, the the one person I'm curious to see what happens in his future is Pat Herrrity. So if he's not running for lieutenant governor this year, he's up for reelection in 2027 for his Fairfax County supervisor seat. That's something that's been targeted by Democrats in the past.
08:51.86
Sam Shirazi
I think, obviously, if there's going to be hits to the local economy due to the cuts in the federal government, I'll be curious to see what Herrity decides to do in his future. Does he decide to run for reelection in 2027?
09:04.67
Sam Shirazi
Or does he decide maybe it's the time for him to retire due to his health issues? And again, I, you know, my heart goes out to Pat Herrity. I hope he takes time and makes a full recovery and is back out on the campaign trail one way or another in the future.
09:18.76
Sam Shirazi
But obviously, it'll be interesting to see what he decides to do in 2027. And if he decides to run for reelection. So there's been a lot of twists and turns already in the 2025 Virginia elections, and we're just getting started. I'm sure we'll see more things happening. I'd be shocked if this is the only surprise before November, and I think I will try my best to keep everyone updated. I'm not going to always be doing these special bonus episodes, but I do think that this was important enough, given that we won't have a statewide Republican primary, to just give an update.
09:51.38
Sam Shirazi
Let people know that the Republicans ticket is set. Let people know that the Democrats still have a primary on June 17th. And I will say this. I do think the June 17 primary on the Democratic side is important for a couple reasons. One, I talked about it in the past, you know, it looks like Democrats are in.
10:11.70
Sam Shirazi
in the driver's seat right now in Virginia, obviously that could change, but right now it looks like things are looking pretty good for the Democrats. And so whoever wins the Lieutenant Governor nominee on Democratic side on June 17th, there's a decent chance that they may end up being the next Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General in Virginia.
10:29.30
Sam Shirazi
So I think it's an important election in that sense. You know, I think sometimes with these primaries, there's not a lot of focus on them. People are focused on November. But obviously, you need to get through the primary first.
10:41.74
Sam Shirazi
And i know some of us who are hardcore political people like to pay attention to the races, like to pay attention to what's going on, who the candidates are.
10:51.34
Sam Shirazi
I'll probably do another episode at some point before the primary on the LG and AG race on the Democratic side. But I encourage everyone who feels inclined to vote in the Democratic primary in Virginia on June 17th to do their research, pick the candidates they think would be the best for the LG and AG spots, and to just take some time and think about June 17th as opposed to just focusing on November, because I think that's going to be an important
11:19.76
Sam Shirazi
date for the Democrats. And, you know, overall, it's It's going to be an interesting year in Virginia, as I mentioned. I think this announcement on the Republican side settles things, but obviously we have to wait and see what happens on the Democratic side. So anyways, thanks everyone for listening. I will be out back on Saturday morning with the regular podcast episode, but just wanted to do this quick update on what happened today in Virginia. And so thanks everyone for listening, and I will catch you next time on Federal Fallout.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.77
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This is a special bonus episode looking at the latest Virginia campaign finance numbers.
00:12.58
Sam Shirazi
so April 15th was not just tax day. It was also the deadline for campaigns to file their first quarter campaign finance numbers in Virginia. and I should note that obviously we're a long way off from the general election. A lot can still change. These numbers are early. They're from the first three months of the year.
00:32.42
Sam Shirazi
We're still to have a lot more time to figure out what's going on in Virginia and also what the fundraising is looking like, but this is an early opportunity to just take a look, see where things are, which campaigns are raising money, which are maybe lagging behind a little bit.
00:47.32
Sam Shirazi
And I wanted to just kind of give a quick overview in this bonus episode. And I'm going to take a little bit of time. I'll talk about the statewide offices first. I actually found the House of Delegates numbers are more interesting because I think there's a lot going on with some of the races that are going to be competitive this year.
01:03.95
Sam Shirazi
Okay, so let's start first with governor. In the governor's race, Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger has raised more than twice the amount of the Republican nominee, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears. So Spanberger raised about $6.7 million dollars in the first quarter, whereas Winsome Sears, she raised a little bit over $3.1 And if you look at cash on hand, Spanberger has a big cash on hand advantage. She has over $11 million dollars right now as of the filing, whereas Sears had a little over $4 million.
01:38.61
Sam Shirazi
So Abigail Spanberger, she's always been good at fundraising. And you know that's just one of her strengths. So you're seeing that reflected in the governor number. Sears is you know raising it a respectable amount, but certainly behind Spanberger.
01:52.54
Sam Shirazi
And I think that's going to be one of the dynamics to look for this year. is Spanberger continuously raising more money than Sears? For Lieutenant Governor, the Republican Pat Haraday has raised the most amount in the first quarter with 540,000. That's ahead his that's far ahead of his GOP primary rival John Reed, who raised about $178,000. On the Democratic side, most of the main candidates raised between $300,000, and the leading Democrat was LeVar Stoney, who raised $428,000. You will see in these contested primaries that sometimes the donors will wait to see who wins the primary before they make donations.
02:35.59
Sam Shirazi
Uh, that's basically because they don't want to necessarily give a donation to someone who might not win the primary. And especially in Louisiana governor primary, there's so many people running, it's a little unclear who's the front runner. So I expect after the primary more so on the democratic side for the numbers to really jump up because whoever becomes a nominee, get a big donation from some of the big donors. And so, I think it's a little early to know who has,
03:00.08
Sam Shirazi
the lead in in fundraising for lieutenant governor for the general election. I think for the primary, you know, the the leading candidates on the Democratic side certainly are raising a respectable amount of money. I don't know if this is the type of primary where money is going to necessarily decide things because it's not like one of them is raising huge amounts more than the the others. So I didn't think the lieutenant governor primary, it didn't really give too much clarity in terms of who's considered the front runner given the fundraising numbers.
03:28.65
Sam Shirazi
Okay, now let's move to Attorney General. The incumbent Republican, Jason Meares, raised by far the most with $1.5 million. That was followed by Jay Jones on the Democratic side, who raised $931,000, which was much more than her his Democratic primary opponent, Shannon Taylor, who raised about $534,000.
03:50.05
Sam Shirazi
And this is, again, one of those things where I expect whoever becomes a Democratic nominee for AG will get a big influx of cash after the primary. So I wouldn't necessarily read too much into the fact that Jason Meares is up right now in the money because he's an incumbent. Obviously, he's a Republican nominee. He's getting the donations.
04:07.83
Sam Shirazi
I think whoever becomes a Democratic nominee will get a infusion of cash after the primary. And I do think that given the fact that Jay Jones has a decent fundraising lead, that does help him in the primary. If you look at cash on hand, he has over twice the cash on hand that Shannon Taylor has. So Jay Jones has almost one point five million dollars in cash on hand.
04:28.85
Sam Shirazi
Whereas Shannon Taylor has six hundred sixty six thousand. So I think, you know, this is a primary where the money is definitely on the side of Jay Jones right now. And I think that's another factor that might make him the front runner right now for the Democratic democratic nomination for attorney general.
04:45.76
Sam Shirazi
Okay, now let's move on to the House of Delegates, and I won't do every single Delegates district because that's a lot for just fundraising numbers. I did want to note that generally in the targeted seats, the Democrats have been out raising at least this quarter, and there are some GOP incumbents that fell behind in terms of the fundraising, and I think...
05:06.20
Sam Shirazi
It's, it's just a sign that maybe things are tilting one way right now in the house of delegates. Now I should note that under Virginia law during the general assembly session, uh, the members cannot fundraise while the session is in, is there is a general assembly session.
05:22.07
Sam Shirazi
However, That was not the entire first quarter. And some of these incumbents have not raised a whole lot of money. And so I don't think you can just say, well, there was a session going on. And in some of the races, the incumbents are even behind in cash on hand, which is usually a pretty bad sign because the incumbents have a big war chest that they've built over the years.
05:42.62
Sam Shirazi
And so the fact that some of them are behind and cash on hand is not a great sign for the Republicans. And I think it's just a sign this year that the Democrats are going to have a pretty decent fundraising advantage if things go the way they're going. Because if you think about it, Democrats are fired up, there's grassroots fundraising, there's the big institutional donors that are coming in.
06:02.13
Sam Shirazi
And frankly, usually when there are also PACs and corporate lobbyists who are trying to figure out who to donate to, they're trying they usually want to donate to the party that's in the majority and or the party that's going to be in the majority of the next session. And right now, both those things are the Democrats. So I think there's a lot of things working against the Republicans trying to fundraise right now in the House of Delegates.
06:27.22
Sam Shirazi
You saw in some districts, like the 41st District in Southwest Virginia, the Democrat Lily Franklin raised a lot more than the Republican incumbent, Chris Obenshain, and she has more cash on hand. And so that's obviously good sign for her if she has, at this early stage, already has more money than the Republican.
06:48.68
Sam Shirazi
And one one thing to keep in mind this time, there aren't too many Democratic primaries. So some of these Democratic challengers are starting to get the big checks early because they don't face a primary. i think in some of the districts, the donors are going to wait and see who the Democratic nominee is.
07:02.31
Sam Shirazi
But in some of these other districts, the The Democratic nominee is already picked against the Republican incumbent. And that obviously helps fundraising because you can go out and say you're taking on this Republican and that helps bring in the checks. So overall, I would say the Democrats definitely have an advantage right now in fundraising in the House of Delegates. You know, it's it's one of those things where.
07:25.70
Sam Shirazi
The donors might be sensing that this is the time to go on the offense and try to pick up some seats. and And these challengers are having an easier time, obviously fundraising, when they can run against what's going on in D.C.
07:38.90
Sam Shirazi
and run against the Trump administration. And I guess one thing I should mention, I mean, there's I talked about some of the top tier battlegrounds on my podcast about the House of Delegates. and And in those districts, the Democrats generally are are are raising a decent amount of money.
07:52.50
Sam Shirazi
Some of those districts, the Republicans are also raising a a decent amount of money. I did want to talk about some of the second tier races because... While it's early, we don't know what's going to happen. I think there is a possibility that Democrats have a good night in November and there might be a bigger wave than people anticipate. And sometimes in those waves, incumbents who didn't think that they were going to be in competitive seats or incumbents who who haven't faced a competitive election in a long time, sometimes are caught sleeping and then they might lose their election.
08:20.08
Sam Shirazi
And so I think that's potentially a danger for Republicans because Republicans, Obviously, we don't know how big of a wave it's going to be. It could be kind of a normal election where Democrats might be able to flip a few seats.
08:32.17
Sam Shirazi
It could also be like a 2017 scenario where Democrats flip double-digit seats. It's just too early to tell. But I do think the Democrats are more in the offense mindset and more willing to perhaps go in some of these reach districts where Republicans might not have thought that they have to defend them, they Democrats are willing to compete in them. The donors are willing to make donations.
08:54.99
Sam Shirazi
And so you you can't necessarily assume it's off the table because of some of those dynamics. And I just wanted to point out one district. So this is House District 66. This is south of Fredericksburg in Swatsylvania County, primarily.
09:08.89
Sam Shirazi
You have the Republican incumbent Bobby Orak, he is being being challenged by Spotsalvania school board member Nicole Cole. And I just thought this was interesting because it kind of shows you some of the dynamics that might be in play. This district voted for Trump by about two points.
09:25.71
Sam Shirazi
So obviously it's it's a little bit of a reach for Democrats to try to win it. But in this environment, I don't think it's necessarily impossible. And you saw Nicole Cole, the Democrat, she raised over $55,000. Whereas the Republican Bobby Orak, he raised less than $2,000.
09:40.37
Sam Shirazi
He raised $1,950. Obviously, that's not a huge amount of money. And I don't know if that's because he he doesn't necessarily think he's in a competitive race or because he has a huge war chest.
09:52.27
Sam Shirazi
So I will say a lot of these incumbents have built war chests over the years. If you look at the cash on hand, Nicole he Cole has about $50,000, whereas Bobby Orak has $218,000.
10:03.54
Sam Shirazi
Bobby O'Rourke still has a decent money advantage. The issue is there's still a lot of time into the election. And if each quarter looks like this quarter, the money advantage is going to start dwindling away. And I think there is a risk for the Republicans that some of these secondary tier districts where they haven't run a competitive race in a long time, they aren't necessarily taking the race super seriously.
10:24.53
Sam Shirazi
If there's a blue wave that comes in November, it just tends to wash everyone away. And especially if you haven't invested in the race and it's more of a you you think it's not competitive, whereas the other side is competing, there is a risk you might be able to lose the seat.
10:40.24
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, just to spend one minute on the 66th district, it's one of those districts where if you get a surge of Democratic turnout and you have a few Trump voters in November flipping and the rest of the Trump voters are not necessarily as engaged and you get lower turnout on the Republican side, I that doesn't take a whole lot to flip that district. So while, yes, historically it's a Republican district,
11:02.66
Sam Shirazi
Bobby Oreck's been there a while. I don't think you can just assume, well, this is never going to be competitive because we don't know what the margin is going to be at the top of the ticket. Is it going to be a five point? Is it going to be a really, really close race? And maybe when some Sears might be able to pull it off, is it going to be a five point Spanberger win? Is it going to be a 10 point Spanberger win?
11:21.24
Sam Shirazi
We just don't know. I think if we're in five point Spanberger win territory, Bobby O'Rourke in the 66 is probably safe. If we're getting closer to 10-point Spanberger victory territory, I mean, that's where things could get dicey for some of these incumbents in the more reached districts for Democrats.
11:37.50
Sam Shirazi
And I think, you know, realistically, in this type of environment this year, i don't think any incumbent in a seat that is single-digit Trump should necessarily feel 100% safe.
11:50.61
Sam Shirazi
You know, there's an old expression that you're either running unopposed you're going to run scared and it's better to run scared. And so I think we might be entering into that environment for the Republicans, but I don't necessarily see all the Republican incumbents taking their races as seriously as maybe they should. So anyways, one thing to keep in mind, I did want to just quickly talk about two other things.
12:10.31
Sam Shirazi
you know, what is money for? Sometimes we just fixate on the fundraising numbers without really thinking through, okay, what you know what's the actual use of having this money? And while money isn't everything, money can't win you every single race, I do think it's important.
12:23.19
Sam Shirazi
There are things you have to pay for. You have to pay for mailers, you have to pay for TV ads, if it's a really high profile race, radio ads. campaign staff, people that knock on the doors, you you know, all that costs money. Obviously the top of the ticket will probably help you, but the more you as the individual candidate can spend on your race, the more you can spend getting your name out there.
12:43.54
Sam Shirazi
I think that helps you. And and so while i don't think just because someone has a big but fundraising advantage doesn't automatically, they're going to win.
12:53.36
Sam Shirazi
It certainly doesn't hurt if you have a fundraising advantage. And I think it's one of those metrics that you look for in races to try to figure out who might be serious trying to take on some of these Republican incumbents.
13:05.03
Sam Shirazi
And the second thing I should say, so right now, I would say both at the governor level and some of these House of Delegates races, the Republicans are a disadvantage in fundraising. I think there's basically two possibilities this year.
13:17.36
Sam Shirazi
One of them is some of the big Republican donors look at Virginia, they look at things are getting kind of dicey and they're just like, look, it's just not worth us spending the money here because it's, it's not going to go well. And we might as well save our money donated in the midterms.
13:32.66
Sam Shirazi
You know, that is a danger for the Virginia GOP. You know, obviously they could make the argument, well, you don't want a huge democratic landslide. We still have to try to compete. Even if it's a tough race this year, we don't want all these incumbent Republicans to lose.
13:47.41
Sam Shirazi
Sure. I mean, that's something you can tell donors. It's not necessarily the most compelling message. Whereas if you looked at 2021, Governor Junkin was able to raise money. And in 2023, because the Republicans had credible paths of winning and that that led to Republicans getting a lot of money in Virginia, more so than they had in 2017 and 2019.
14:07.82
Sam Shirazi
But obviously, that was a better political environment for Republicans. And I think the risk right now when the political environment isn't great for Republicans is that some of these big donors are just going to sit on the sidelines.
14:19.78
Sam Shirazi
I will say that reg Virginia does not have any campaign finance limits. So if a big donor wants to come in, you don't need a whole lot of them to start filling in the gaps.
14:28.75
Sam Shirazi
Obviously, Governor Youngkin has been a good fundraiser during his time as governor. He's able to bring in the donations. His PAC might have a lot of money. We'll see if he's willing to spend it this year in Virginia or if he wants to hold on to his money for future political ambitions.
14:43.63
Sam Shirazi
Again, he has the same problem where he might if he spends all his money in Virginia this year and it doesn't go well, you've kind of blown the money. I think the big wild card, and this is the thing that no one really knows what's going to happen, is Elon Musk. Does he come into Virginia?
14:59.13
Sam Shirazi
I think the sense is that after what happened in Wisconsin, if Elon Musk does come into Virginia, it would help the Democrats. But obviously he has a lot of money. And I do think there's a possibility after Wisconsin that he doesn't necessarily stay on the campaign trail. He's not the face of the Republican campaign because they didn't really see that working out well in Wisconsin.
15:20.62
Sam Shirazi
But, you know, he might donate to some of the PACs and kind of indirectly get his money in here. And then that get trickles down to the Republican candidates. Obviously, the Democrats will try to figure that out and try to figure out where the money's coming from and try to tie it back to Elon Musk if he ends up donating.
15:36.87
Sam Shirazi
But it's a little bit different when he's just making donations as opposed to in Wisconsin when he directly went on the campaign trail. It was pretty easy to tie the Republicans. to him. So we'll just have to wait and see. and And he's not the only big Republican donors. I mean, there are other Republican donors out there, and they might be able to fill in the gap if they choose to, because the reality is the Democratic grassroots are fired up.
15:58.33
Sam Shirazi
Big Democratic institutional donors are fired up. They are going to be donating it this year in Virginia. And I think that's just one of the factors among many to look for in terms of how big of a victory Democrats are trying to get, because right now they're definitely on the offense.
16:12.70
Sam Shirazi
Their mentality is, We're going to try to win the governor's race big, and we're going to try to flip a lot of House of Delegates seats. And the Republicans have to think through, you know, what is their strategy to counter that? What is their strategy to get the donors to buy in, to try to win the governor's race, to try to save some of these Republican incumbents in the House of Delegates?
16:30.48
Sam Shirazi
Because again, i mean, I've talked about it. the The risk is things start slipping away for the Republicans. It's still early. a lot can change. lot of the donors could come in the future finance, campaign finance reports can look different. So I don't want to dwell on it, but I did want to just kind of touch base on where campaign finance is looking right now. So that's about it right now for campaign finance. Obviously we'll keep you updated as the future reports come in. And thanks everyone for listening and I'll see you next week on Federal Falling.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.77
Sam Shirazi
Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, I will be interviewing Democratic consultant Ben Tribbett. He's the found founder of Pocket Aces Consulting.
00:14.91
Sam Shirazi
And I'm also old enough to remember when Ben had his blog, which was one of the original go-to sources for Virginia politics. And now you can get his talk hot takes on X.
00:28.06
Sam Shirazi
So Ben, what made you want to take the leap from giving hot takes online to starting your own consulting firm?
00:36.63
Ben
I got into politics when I was very young.
00:40.73
Ben
And so when I was in high school, I started doing volunteering for campaigns. And then I got to manage my first campaign when I was still a teenager, but which was for a Fairfax County school board race.
00:54.34
Ben
By the time I was 21, I managed my first winning delegate race where we unseated a Republican incumbent. And from that point, I was kind of off to the races from the consulting side of things.
01:06.01
Ben
And so I actually was there before I started the blog. And when I went to Las Vegas to play poker full time, I decided to start Not Larry Sabato, the blog, as a way to sort of stay in touch with Virginia while I was while i was playing poker.
01:21.88
Ben
So I did that for about a year and a half and got the blog off the ground. And so by the time I got back into political consulting, after I kind of winded down doing the, we'll call it the journalist thing for a few years,
01:35.14
Ben
you know, it was more of a return home for me than it was trying something new.
01:39.97
Sam Shirazi
Got it. Well, I did want to ask you one kind of interesting question about the gambling side of things, because I know Nate Silver and you seem to like gambling. Is there something that maybe attracts people to both politics and gambling?
01:54.21
Ben
Well, first of all, poker is a game of skill, not a game of chance, Sam. So poker players would not consider themselves gamblers. But I do also like to partake in other forms of gambling.
02:04.53
Ben
And I think you know anyone who is doing wagering, especially on stuff like sports, there's certainly a numbers component to it. And that's been the side of politics I've always been on is the looking at precinct numbers, looking at trends, looking at statistics.
02:22.44
Ben
And so I'm trying to figure out what that means and portends for the future. So there's certainly some overlap there.
02:29.24
Sam Shirazi
Got it. Well, I wanted to ask you about being a consultant because after Democrats lost the last election, there was a lot of blame directed at the consultant class. And can you just explain what a consultant does and why they're not all bad?
02:44.15
Ben
Yeah. Well, and I think a lot of that blame was deserved. I mean, the the Democratic consultant class structured very differently than what Republicans do. So when people say, you know, you're a campaign consultant, it means very different things if you're a Democratic consultant or a Republican.
03:03.45
Ben
Democrats tend to be structured in these very rigid sort of a pyramid of a campaign. It's a, you have a staffer on the ground and they have a consultant that deals with each aspect of the spends that they're doing. So they'll have a television consultant, a digital consultant, a male consultant, on larger campaigns, they might bring in an expert that's a field consultant.
03:29.83
Ben
And this is overlaid with your traditional staff. Obviously there's also fundraising consultants. the Republicans tend to do more of a model that is a general consultant. They put bring in one firm that sort of handles all these aspects of your campaign for you.
03:46.73
Ben
And that's the model that Democrats use in California. And that was really what, when we started Pocket Aces, while there's times in which we might do a aspect of a campaign for someone,
03:58.82
Ben
and go into that structure. Generally, our candidates, we're general consultants for, which makes us a very different product than what you see from other democratic firms in Virginia, because we handle everything from the start of a campaign to the finish if we're if we're asked to do that.
04:18.19
Ben
And it I think it makes a campaign People have commented before that they think some of our candidates have had better messaging, for example, like better themes.
04:28.43
Ben
And I think a lot of that revolves around the fact that what they're saying on television, what they're saying on radio, what they're saying in the mailbox, what they're saying on X and social media, it's all the same thing because they have the same people that are working on it instead of having different crews that are getting on a conference call for 10 minutes a week.
04:48.34
Sam Shirazi
I think so sometimes people are a little bit unsure about why the consultants are needed. So kiating can kind of explain the difference between like a campaign manager, or someone working directly on a campaign and why the consultants would need to also be there to kind of come in and help the campaign?
05:04.40
Ben
Yeah, so I think obviously you know each campaign's a little bit different, and I understand in some of the local races why there can be frustration with consultants because if you're running for the county board and in a county and these consultants don't know anything about your local issues, a lot of times people on the ground will say, well, why do we need somebody from DC to come in and tell us how to run for the the county board in Prince William County? Or or you know really, you can insert that anywhere.
05:32.20
Ben
And I think what consultants have is a broader look at the electorate because they're seeing it in so many different areas. So one of the places that we had a large amount of business in 2018 for Pocket Aces was in Orange County, California.
05:52.50
Ben
And it was, if you remember that cycle, sort of Orange County had been a Republican steadily Republican County in California. And in 2016, it flipped to Hillary and everyone realized, wow, there's a ton of stuff that might be in play here.
06:07.03
Ben
And the reason that we did so much work in Orange County, and and there were three Congressional that we worked on there that year, as well as some other races, was it had a lot of overlay with what we had seen in Virginia 2017. And And so as consultants, we were sought after because we had seen kind of the first effects of the Trump presidency, what voters in 2017 were moving against Trump, what voters are being mobilized for primaries, what new people you might expect to come into that primary, and what groups were respondent to different messages. and
06:44.10
Ben
And so, you know, in in Orange County, California, where you have a lot of diversity, know, There's a large Asian population. There's a large population of sort of upper income suburban women that were moving very quickly at that time towards the Democrats.
06:58.74
Ben
These were the exact same thing that had happened in Virginia the year before. And so from a consultant perspective, what a manager that's on the ground there might not be able to do is know exactly what's happening elsewhere and how that might apply to their race.
07:16.36
Ben
We see so much polling data. And look, I know Tip O'Neill said all politics is local, but in this era, all politics is national in terms of how the electorate moves.
07:27.80
Ben
You see very similar moves state to state among demographic groups. I think the reason that Nate Silver became as successful as he was in 08 where people thought he had uncorked this magic formula for 538, was he was really just applying statistics to what he was seeing from how demographic groups were moving and then predicting the outcome of those primaries between Hillary and Obama.
07:53.83
Ben
and And frankly, it was... following a very, very steady pattern state to state among how white working class voters were breaking versus African-American voters versus educated voters.
08:07.60
Ben
And the only place where you saw a real difference in the 08 primaries was Hillary was pulling more of the white vote in southern states.
08:18.54
Ben
There were a little bit more, you know, there was more of sort of African Americans voting for for Barack and white voters voting for Hillary in the south that was evident in those results. Otherwise, basically, it was a direct match group to group around the country in almost every state.
08:37.45
Ben
depending on whether you were looking at a caucus electorate or a primary. And so from a consultant perspective, when we're looking at these campaigns, the movement we see and in one area, if we see polls and in New York and New Jersey, they may very well have application to Virginia. That messaging may have application to Virginia.
08:55.76
Ben
And so that's what we're looking at from consultants is having that broader set of data and understanding what's moving people in this in this time. And you know right now, I would say, Sam, and I know it's a long-winded answer, but you know, as a candidate, you would need a consultant more than ever right now because politics is changing so quickly.
09:20.33
Ben
And so you would you would want to arm yourself with somebody who knew what groups had moved in the 2024 election and what groups were moving now since the 2024 election and whether those groups were over or underrepresented in your district and how you could best speak to them.
09:38.11
Ben
Now's the time you would want to have those kinds of people to be able to help you.
09:42.31
Sam Shirazi
I think it's helpful for people to to hear, you know, the value added that consultants have and not just the negative things you always hear online.
09:50.07
Ben
I would also say, Sam, a lot of people always, when they're saying you know negative things about consultants, and and look, there's plenty of negative things to say, but one of the things that was looking at is look how much money they're making.
10:01.95
Ben
But a lot of times that money that you see on the reports is very misleading. For example, when we do a mail piece for someone, that's the consultant is paying the printing and the postage as part of those payments you see go out. So you might see a check go to a consultant that's for $35,000.
10:20.77
Ben
that that We're probably clearing on something like that $2,000 $3,000. two or three thousand dollars And so while that's not always transparent as transparent as it could be on the finance reports, I think some of the anger that gets put towards campaigns having consultants is they people feel like they are sopping up all the campaign resources when oftentimes that's just not the case.
10:43.90
Sam Shirazi
Before I turn to Virginia, I had one last question because I think these are the people who are the real scam artists. So you've talked a lot about the scam packs and I would call it the grifter industrial complex.
10:54.88
Sam Shirazi
Can you explain the issue and what Democrats can do to address it and maybe why that's more of the real issue as opposed to consultants?
11:01.99
Ben
Yeah. So there's a few pieces of this. Number one is, and I'll make this statement and people are going to hear it and think immediately, well, I think that would ever come out of his mouth. But, the biggest problem facing the democratic party right now is small dollar donors.
11:19.71
Ben
And the reason that the small dollar donors are such a problem is that when large donors came in the party in the, in the past and, you know they might have interests that they were interested in. You might have someone who you know is donating to pro-choice candidates or someone who's donating to candidates who want to see more gun safety or you know go down the list.
11:39.68
Ben
They oftentimes have the the resources to know what's going on in campaigns, to know which candidates are competitive, to know which candidates are just kind of just putting out some b******t.
11:52.93
Ben
These small dollar donors don't have that information and they're set all over the country. So there's nowhere to how to communicate with them. And so they're coming into areas that they don't know anything about and helping to select candidates for those areas that are not necessarily the people who are strongest on the ground.
12:12.90
Ben
I think of that Kentucky Senate race from a few years ago where all the national Democratic donors decided that Amy McGrath was going to be the person who would unseat Mitch McConnell and pumped in tens of millions of dollars to her campaign.
12:27.47
Ben
Yet she barely emerged from a primary against a state rep who she outspent 50 to one because that she wasn't the kind of candidate that Democrats on the ground in Kentucky wanted to field.
12:39.80
Ben
And I think that the small dollar donors come in and they pervert this process. I think small dollar donors in your area, there's nothing more valuable that you can put together, but it's these donors from around the country that just sort of come in because they saw a tweet or they, they heard a name or they're recommended by a scam pack that took three quarters of their donation. And, and they're coming in supporting candidates that they don't know anything about.
13:06.69
Ben
I'm, i think frequently, these donors are supporting people in primaries. They don't even know there's a primary going on, right? They think that they're just seeing a tweet that goes out that says, this is our Democratic candidate, and and they're interfering in primaries that they don't know are are ongoing.
13:23.06
Ben
You know, in the in last cycle, and this is a seat we would never be able to carry, but we spent so much money, millions and millions of dollars against Marjorie Taylor Greene.
13:35.72
Ben
In one of the most Republican seats in the country because people want to donate against her. And look, in the general election, that's going to happen. But I will tell you, that started all the way in the primary. And there were three candidates who were running in that primary, two of which ran digital strategies to raise a lot of money, the third of which was actually an elected official that lived in the district.
13:56.98
Ben
Right. And they got completely overrun by the two candidates who did a bunch of digital spending, neither of whom were even lived in the district. They both moved in to to the district just to run and and and basically gripped off of these donors.
14:16.06
Ben
And you see these scam packs come in and they amplify these candidates. It's, it's, it's never supporting strong candidates. It's always supporting candidates that are, uh, want to partner with them and are going to give them the biggest cut of the donations.
14:32.18
Ben
And it's really become a cancer on the party because it deters stronger candidates from running. Now, in Virginia, we don't face this as badly because we have unlimited campaign contributions.
14:45.76
Ben
And the upside of a limited of unlimited contributions, and I know this is probably big money out VA is not going to like hearing this, right? But the upside of the unlimited contributions is if somebody is getting that kind of support, there's ways to catch up to them.
15:00.98
Ben
In a federal race for Congress, for example, where you have donation limits, if someone comes in and raises millions and millions of dollars from the grassroots from around the country, you never have a chance to even compete with them.
15:15.19
Ben
And so, you know, we saw this in the 7th District last year where, you know, Eugene Vindman, I think, won by 44 points in the early vote and by Election Day was winning by, i think, ballpark 10 points.
15:27.30
Ben
Once the other candidates had done a little bit of communication, it was a competitive race. But early on, the race wasn't competitive because none of the other candidates had the resources to talk to voters publicly.
15:40.33
Ben
early on. And so he he may not have been the candidate that people chose to nominate had national small dollar donors not been interfering in it to allow the voters in that district to figure out who they wanted to be their member of Congress.
15:54.00
Sam Shirazi
I think that's all really helpful for people who are trying to kind understand the mechanics of politics. And I could ask you about this stuff all day, but I know we have to move on to Virginia stuff. So I will ask you generally about Virginia. You know, what are the vibes? You mentioned 2017. Is this kind of 2017 type vibe? What are you thinking is going on this year? you know Obviously, more so at the governor's race, but if you want to talk about any of the other races going on.
16:20.27
Ben
Yeah, so far it feels bigger than 17. the The wave that we're likely to catch this year just feels like it's absolutely massive. I think the 2017 wave was primarily driven from surges in turnout. Yeah.
16:40.65
Ben
And turnout surges are worth one vote each. And so what I mean by that is when you start to persuade voters and you move someone from the other side to your side, it's worth two votes for you in a campaign if youre if that person's a regular voter because they go from being a plus one to a minus one or vice versa, in this case, a minus one to a plus one.
17:04.92
Ben
So it's a two vote swing. When you turn somebody out, who otherwise might not have voted, they're worth one vote to you because they go from a zero to a plus one instead of a minus one to a plus one, if that makes sense.
17:18.59
Ben
And so you get much bigger swings in the electorate when you see people moving away from a party or candidates than you do when it's just some groups are really excited about it.
17:32.53
Ben
And 17 was really the story of excitement You saw the Republicans were more excited than they had been in any cycle in Virginia governor history with Ed Gillespie.
17:46.15
Ben
And they still got completely blown out because the Democratic excitement was that much greater for Ralph Northam, who got, I think, around a half million more votes than Terry McAuliffe had gotten four years earlier.
17:57.60
Ben
That was a turnout surge. What I'm feeling happened this year is not just a turnout surge. I'm feeling a movement away from the Republican Party. There's so many people that voted for Trump that are realizing he was serious about everything he said, and some of some of whom are losing their jobs, some of whom are feeling other impacts of the Trump presidency in real ways to their families.
18:23.44
Ben
that are going to move them from being, you know again, minus one voters to plus one voters. And when you get those kind of movements in the electorate, seats that you never imagined can suddenly come into play very quickly.
18:35.96
Ben
Places that you thought might be competitive for pickups turn into landslides very quickly because the electorate moves so much faster with that. And I just everything I'm seeing on the ground, all the numbers I'm seeing is telling me that this is a year that you're going to see voters switching and surging.
18:55.11
Ben
And that would lead to a historic type of win for the Democrats, who have never, by the way, Sam, in the modern history, won a governor's race in Virginia by double digits.
19:06.24
Ben
But if I was setting a Las Vegas line, I would absolutely put the line and as a starting point in the double digits for this year.
19:14.91
Sam Shirazi
I think most people think the Democrats are favored, but it's certainly, you you make a compelling case that it it could not be that, it might end up being not that close.
19:24.80
Sam Shirazi
And I guess, you know, I'm trying to grapple with, you know, what exactly is going on and and how big of a surge there is. And and and how much vote switching there is, as you mentioned.
19:35.50
Sam Shirazi
And I think the thing that I'm trying to think through is what what is the Republican plan? Because it just seems like they're a little bit deer in the headlights, don't really have a lot of plans to counter what's going on.
19:48.02
Sam Shirazi
And so do you think there's a way the Republicans can kind of right the ship to maybe... You know, realistically, it might be hard for them to win, but maybe they'll kind of get get a competitive and maybe the House of Delegates, they don't lose that many seats.
20:01.57
Sam Shirazi
You know, you do you think that's possible or kind of the the train's already left the station?
20:05.99
Ben
Well, the train's leaving the station. i think what the Republicans are likely to to do when they get their numbers back this fall is to, when you're having both a surge against you in terms of turnout and voters are leaving you, the first problem you've to deal with is the voters leaving you.
20:23.95
Ben
I mean, I think you're already seeing the Republicans picking up on this. You saw that the purple caucus got formed from the House Republicans this week where they're calling themselves the the purple district or the purple Republicans. that I don't know.
20:38.25
Ben
I saw the list of them. i couldn't really differentiate from any of them, you know, like what made them purple other than they had a marginal district. I don't think all their voting records are all that purple is purple.
20:50.37
Ben
my point, but I think they're going to be looking at how do we hold some of these voters that are fleeing the Republican party? Because you're not going to be able to solve this just with a surge of going to the base and getting more base turnout.
21:07.70
Ben
And so, you know, that's probably going to be for them breaking with Trump is going to be the only pathway that they have to trying to hold some of those voters. And that, of course, is dangerous and double-edged and you know creates all sorts of perils for the campaign.
21:25.16
Ben
But I think they're going to have to look at that kind of strategy as a as a way to try to deal with the people leaving, because turnout just ain't going to cut it this year.
21:35.94
Ben
It's just not, it's, you can't, you can't turn, there aren't enough voters to turn out in a state that the Republicans already lost to go win it just by turning out the base.
21:46.06
Sam Shirazi
you might see some individual delegates maybe trying to distance themselves from Trump. Do you really think the Republicans, you know, statewide are going to do anything to try to distance themselves from Trump? Because it seems like the mentality is we're just going down with the ship. if And if if Trump takes us down, you know, it is what it is.
22:03.77
Sam Shirazi
I haven't seen any of them really try to distinguish themselves from Trump.
22:08.87
Ben
Yeah, I think you know each person has to kind of look at their own politics on this. you know For example, Jason Merez, who's the attorney general. I think that there's probably a spot in the administration for him if he's not successful.
22:24.23
Ben
So I doubt that he wants to to go blow up his relationships in order to, you know, potentially, let's say hypothetically lose by eight instead of lose by 15. Right.
22:35.81
Ben
So I think he's probably more go down with the ship. I think. somebody like a Pat Herity is probably more likely to see some breakage from Trump if he was to emerge as the Republican nominee for LG.
22:48.67
Ben
And Winston Sears obviously has in the past had some breakage with Trump. So she could always go back towards emphasizing that now that she's through her primary season. But again, like I said a few minutes ago, but you know if if we were sitting in a sports book right now and the the book put up a line of Spanberger minus eight and a half,
23:09.24
Ben
which is about the record of a Democrat in Virginia, I can't imagine that there wouldn't be a lot more votes for Spanberger minus eight and a half than Sears plus eight and a half right now.
23:19.31
Sam Shirazi
it's just kind of the reality the Republicans have to start to grapple with. I did want to ask you about, you know, after 2025, because you mentioned 2017, Democrats learned some lessons that they applied 2018.
23:32.14
Sam Shirazi
ah ah twenty eighteen Do you think after 2025, there are going to be lessons that Democrats can apply in 2026? Obviously, it's still early, but it sounds like, you know, you there might be a playbook that that's being successful in Virginia that could be applied next year in the midterms.
23:49.74
Ben
Yeah, this is the they look, this is the the test case. And I'm having already talking to candidates, you know, when they're running around the country that they want to know what's going on in Virginia. What are we seeing from our polling in Virginia? And they'll all be studying the results that come out of Virginia that give them some idea what they might see and in their areas.
24:10.15
Ben
and and And look, the same way that we look to other states, I think Hampton Roads, for example, which has been an area of Virginia that you know has bounced around and in recent years, that the Northern Virginia and Richmond suburbs have been consistently moving to Democrats, that Hampton Roads suburbs have been oh sometimes moving towards Democrats, but occasionally have bounced back towards Republicans in other cycles.
24:35.91
Ben
It's bounced around a little bit. It's not the straight line that you see in Northern Virginia and the Richmond suburbs. And so you know I look at the special election that happened in Florida last month, and in a Navy town in Pensacola, that county voted Democrat for Congress.
24:55.58
Ben
For the first time since they had voted for Bill Nelson, I think 20 some years ago in a race that he was barely contested in and in the in terms of a serious election, probably 40, 50 years so since they had voted for a Democratic candidate.
25:09.75
Ben
Well. What groups are overrepresented in Pensacola that are less represented in other districts? and And, of course, veterans would go right to the top of your list of you would suspect that is a movement against the Republican Party amongst people in the military or veterans, which wouldn't surprise me at all with some of the things going on with this administration. And so, you know, that would immediately make you in Virginia circle. Well, obviously, Virginia O2 goes right to the top of your list of, okay, if that's happening, that seed is very likely to flip back to us.
25:43.88
Ben
And Virginia 1, you start to look at and say, oh maybe Virginia 1 is in play. And I even start to to think, you know is this a cycle that's big enough that you know a few months from now, we're seeing a strong candidate emerge in Virginia 5?
26:01.44
Ben
That's going to be make it competitive because, you know, the the height of the Democratic wave is when Tom Perriello was successful in Virginia five. And the math does allow you there where you could win it.
26:13.53
Ben
But you would have to be at the very, very top of a wave.
26:16.53
Sam Shirazi
if you just look at 2018, there was a big blue wave and in Virginia. And I think, you know, the way things are going, that's a possibility in 2026. 2025.
26:25.16
Sam Shirazi
I did want to shift gears to one question about an issue that is kind of near and dear to your heart, and and it's a local Northern Virginia issue. It is the Fairfax Casino. So can you explain to everyone why a casino in Fairfax, like Tyson's Corner area, is a good idea and how people would vote for it in a referendum? Because I think there's certainly been a decent amount of opposition to it.
26:49.70
Ben
Yeah, I mean, Sam, I'm the head of a group called the Virginia Players Alliance, which I founded a few years ago that advocates for more gaming in Virginia that is friendly to the consumer.
27:04.16
Ben
And so what we're really focused on from the Players Alliance perspective is making sure that the as Virginia expands its gaming opportunities, that it's done in ways that are fair for the players.
27:15.28
Ben
And that the the payouts are fair for the players and that the the things that come with gambling are an asset to the community. And so we jumped all over the opportunity to help with the Fairfax project because there's so many possibilities that come with that. I think you know talking about a but Fairfax County finally getting for the first time its own sort of tourism industry based here when you have a convention center.
27:45.51
Ben
fairfax The Fairfax board has been asking for this for my entire adult lifetime. And no one's been willing to build this convention center because the economics of a standalone convention center just don't work in Fairfax County.
28:01.16
Ben
But one that was attached to a high-end casino and hotel, the economics would work for it. And we would finally be able to host major conferences in the county.
28:11.85
Ben
The revenue that comes from a casino, especially a high-end one in a place like Tyson's Corner, allows you hundreds of millions of dollars between the state and local government to spend on schools and other public needs.
28:26.56
Ben
And that doesn't even factor in the actual economic boost that the economy gets from the thousands of well-paid union jobs that go into a facility like this. And so, you know, to me, it's a no-brainer.
28:39.86
Ben
We have MGM across the river. Anyone who's been there knows that it's it's a safe place to go. It's what a high-end casino looks and feels like.
28:49.100
Ben
And it generates hundreds of millions of dollars. of for Maryland and for Prince George's County, a big chunk of which comes from Virginians. And so I think there's a lot of people in Northern Virginia that are looking at this saying, you know this isn't a gambling discussion because it's already here.
29:11.18
Ben
The General Assembly's already legalized us to do unlimited sports betting on our phones from home. And so you know when we're talking about gaming, how do we do it in a way that it's attracting people in from outside of the community that are leaving their money here and having a great time doing it instead of just being targeted to people in in our communities, right?
29:36.100
Ben
And I think, you know, the cat's out of the bag on on gaming in Virginia. I mean, I can go on my phone now, log on the Virginia Lottery website, and I don't know, Sam, if you ever go into these things, but you can now, there's slot machines on the Virginia Lottery website.
29:55.09
Ben
and you can go up to $50 a spin on these slot machines. And if you hit the the the little more spins button or the programming thing when you're logged in, first you load up the $50 spins, you can load up to 100 spins per push of the button that's preset. In other words, the button on the $50 machine will light up where you can bet $5,000 per push the button per push of the button on the Virginia Lottery website on the slot machines that they have to order 100 spins of $50 each right off the top.
30:31.64
Ben
The idea that we have that, but we can't have a high-end facility in a place like Tyson's Corner, that could attract in, uh, people that, uh, allows for a social aspect versus people doing this from their home, that's safer for people that brings in tourism.
30:50.25
Ben
to me, it's just asinine. So I think as all these facts kind of get to presented to voters, a lot of the opposition melts away, because it's, it's not really a discussion about, uh,
31:01.84
Ben
gaming, gaming's already here. It's a discussion about whether or not we want to keep some of this revenue in our community and whether we want to have it in in one facility. and And I'll tell you, Sam, from a player perspective, having a casino is a lot safer for players because they have programs to go find problem gamblers, to pull them off of the floor, to make sure that people aren't wagering when they're too drunk or too high or you know exhibiting other problem behaviors, none of those things are available when people are betting from home, when you can't see them and talk to them.
31:40.68
Ben
And so I think we want to encourage, you know from from my perspective, and you know I think this is something that Players Alliance is advocating for, we want gaming more gaming in person in these types of facilities versus things on our phones.
31:56.63
Sam Shirazi
Well, I think you certainly make a strong case for the casinos. I guess the the question I have, you know having looked at the Richmond casino referendum and the fact that you know Fairfax is wealthier community, and as you probably know better than I do, the electorate is going to be older and whiter and wealthier.
32:09.58
Ben
Thank
32:16.92
Sam Shirazi
you know How do you think a referendum would go? Do you you have a sense of Yeah, my sense is the the opposition is going to say this doesn't make sense in Fairfax County. you've You've laid out a good case about why it might make sense.
32:30.53
Sam Shirazi
But is that going to be able to carry the day, particularly when Richmond rejected the casino not too long ago?
32:37.85
Ben
Yeah. You know, Richmond rejected the casino the first time in a year where it was passing everywhere else in Virginia. It was on the ballot. So it seems like there were some unique factors that were going on there.
32:48.67
Ben
And that may have been related to the campaign that they ran. it could be related. I wouldn't necessarily say that there was a, that Richmond is a a canary in the coal mine about Fairfax County.
33:01.52
Ben
You know, Referendums are always touchy things in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County is known for voting no on it's voted no on bonds before, it's voted no on when the Board of Supervisors wanted to institute a meals tax two times, county residents rejected it. even Even in the year in 2016 when Hillary was on the ballot and Democrats were winning overwhelmingly in the county, the meals tax was failing 54 to 46.
33:30.38
Ben
My experience from having run campaigns in Fairfax is nothing is popular in Fairfax until you make a choice with it. And so I think with the casino, what you will see happen is the more that the casino is discussed in terms of you can have the revenue from the casino or you can pay higher real estate taxes.
33:54.58
Ben
You can have the revenue from the casino or we can pay our teachers less. You can have the revenue from a casino or you can have a meals tax or any of the other choices that the county has to make.
34:07.26
Ben
You see people flock to they want the casino. And so I think that the that campaign will be fundamentally about what the choices are that voters have and how how well the campaign is able to educate voters on what that choice is.
34:23.43
Ben
I know the second referendum in Richmond, there was a lot of controversy around. The mayor kind of strong-armed it a little bit to say, i think it was childcare issues. you know We won't have childcare in Richmond. We won't fund these unless unless you pass the casino. And people were, i think, put off by that.
34:42.71
Ben
I don't think this needs to be done in a threatening way. I think it's just done in a factual way. that voters can understand. Like, look, you can either have the hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue from this that the county board can put to your priorities, or you're going to pay it in a different way.
35:00.47
Ben
And we also have to remember that what the electorate looks like in Fairfax County this November, next November, any future November in the Trump era is rapidly changing.
35:13.79
Ben
the county budget is under tremendous pressure right now. All the Northern Virginia counties are facing this enormous budgetary pressure that's being created from the layoffs, from the real estate market, from the commercial real estate market and the residential.
35:32.67
Ben
And they're used to... Gold-plated services. They're used to having, you know, decent-sized class size in schools. They're used to having enough money being paid to teachers that you can recruit and retain quality teachers.
35:48.41
Ben
And I don't think Northern Virginia counties are ever going to get to a place where they're not going to prioritize that first. And if the choice on that is creating a tourism industry that has a casino and a location in Tyson's Corner, or again, raising class size or cutting teacher pay or doing any other number of things that would you know create hundreds of millions of dollars of savings in the county budget, I think that, again, voters are going to flock towards give us the casino.
36:19.92
Sam Shirazi
Well, we'll see what happens next year at the General Assembly. I'm sure it'll be a hot topic next year as well. All right, Ben. Well, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. I did want to just leave with one question about your X account, because i know that it is one of my go-to sources on election night. You're always the first to make the calls, and I think you're always 100% right. So I'm always impressed with that. And i've I've tried to emulate it, but I don't think I'm as ever as good as you and as quick as you. So kudos to your X account.
36:49.26
Sam Shirazi
I did want to say... you know You certainly have a little bit of a different style than me. i I tend to be pretty tame on my ex account. Sometimes you have some spicy takes on there and you also, i would say, air are some personal beef you have with various people.
37:05.72
Sam Shirazi
you know Why do you feel the need to do that? And is that kind of what you think people want to see? Or is it more just kind of, you know you feel like that's where you want to express yourself?
37:17.25
Ben
I just, I've always felt like, you know, I'm in politics to be real about it. And I'm going to tell people what I actually think. In terms of a lot of people will give me the feedback of like, well, you're a consultant. How can you, how can you say these things? Because you might lose a client over it.
37:35.97
Ben
Oftentimes i think it actually helps us pick up clients because we have, we're in primaries and primaries are, heavily competitive, and a lot of times Democrats are afraid to say in primaries what the distinction is between the candidates.
37:50.78
Ben
And I'm not afraid to tell people what the the choices are and why we chose to support a particular candidate because I think they're a better choice. And you know I know that there's a lot of people out there that can sometimes be a little uncomfortable with that, but especially in an area like Northern Virginia,
38:10.47
Ben
where the primaries are the election, we either lay out those choices for people or we continue to win elections and not get anything done. And voters deserve to know, you know, last year, for example, and i guess it's now a year and a half ago, you know, we took on Stella Pekarski's race against George Barker in the primary. And a lot of people said, you can't do that. You know, you won't be able to work for a number of different candidates around the state because you're taking on the the chairman of Senate Finance in a Democratic primary.
38:40.90
Ben
but we really felt that you know Stella was a better representative for that district and put our necks out to tell people about George Barker's voting record and why he should go. And, you know, the same thing, we got involved in the the famous Lucas versus Spruill primary.
38:57.69
Ben
Most of the consultants around the state went into hiding for that primary. yeah
39:02.87
Sam Shirazi
Yeah.
39:03.06
Ben
oh my we we were I was really proud to, you know, I've been working with Senator Lucas for 25 years to tell people why I thought she was the the person we needed at that time.
39:03.12
Sam Shirazi
and
39:11.79
Ben
And I think, you know, you look at what happened with the arena the year after that election and you know i I look back on that and say, boy, did she prove us right? And so you know I'm just not afraid to get in there and mix it up. And and I know that's not everyone's style, but what I have found is a lot of times when people first get involved, they're too nervous to do that stuff. And by the time they've been hanging around the block for 10 years or so,
39:38.43
Ben
they're pretty much all telling me like, yeah, go for it. Like it's time to go send a message. So I get most of my negative feedback on that that stuff from people that are just saying like, well, why can't we just elect Democrats? Well, we don't need to just elect Democrats. We need to elect better Democrats and we have to hold our are Democrats accountable.
39:57.90
Ben
You know, I would, Sam, if you don't mind like me filibustering for a second to say like, you know, the situation we have in Fairfax right now, where you have the school board budget chair being sued for embezzling money from a company.
40:13.98
Ben
This is asinine. The idea that like the school board, which is entirely controlled by Democrats, isn't able to even act.
40:23.83
Ben
theyre not They don't need to remove him from the school board. That's up to him whether he wants to resign or not. But that they're going to keep him in a leadership position overseeing the budget while there's like serious allegations of embezzlement.
40:37.61
Ben
this This is crazy town stuff that just leads to the the the party looking bad. It hurts our statewide candidates. It's the kind of story that easily shows up on Fox News to label the Democrats nationally.
40:51.57
Ben
It's just bad news for us. and And I think the only way you see that stuff change is when you hold them accountable. And I'll tell you last year, you know using that school board as an example, It wasn't until a number of us got involved criticizing them for not having gotten involved with the the the football team that was not following all the rules in Fairfax County that the that the that situation was resolved itself.
41:21.82
Ben
And prior to people sort of raising their voices on it, The school board was going to allow this team to go beat everyone 98 to nothing. That was essentially an all-star team.
41:32.62
Ben
And a bunch of kids were sort of ending their high school athletic career disappointed that they weren't allowed a fair chance to compete. And the school board was not going to do anything until we until we all started speaking about it and then they decided to. So I think oftentimes holding the Democrats accountable, you see it works.
41:54.25
Ben
They're afraid of their next election. And and they don't they want people to think they're doing a good job. And so, you know, again, like this is a new situation now of, you know, the school board members that speak up and say, look, we can't have someone accused of embezzlement that's chairing our budget committee.
42:12.95
Ben
I think they're going to do a lot better in the next election than the ones that say there's nothing we can do and cover up their eyes and pretend ears and pretend like they don't see it happening.
42:22.56
Sam Shirazi
Well, no one can ever accuse you of not speaking your mind. So I know everyone appreciates your hot takes on X, or at least they they take a look, even if they don't always agree with them. But but I do appreciate you always you know giving your opinions on things and being willing to come on here and and share some thoughts. And I think part of the reason I wanted you on was so that people got to know you a little bit. You're not just some random guy on X, you're you're a real human and you actually have, you know, a lot of insights into what's going on in Virginia this year. So Ben, thanks. Thanks again for coming on.
42:52.87
Ben
Yeah, thank you, and congratulations on getting this thing started.
42:56.10
Sam Shirazi
Thanks so much. And see here everyone next week on Federal Fallout.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.77
Sam Shirazi
Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This will be the first and hopefully many interview episodes, and I'm really excited to have as my first guest Chaz Nuttycombe.
00:14.31
Sam Shirazi
Chaz, thanks for coming on.
00:16.41
Chaz Nuttycombe
Hey, Sam, thanks for having me on. I've really enjoyed some of the episodes you've you've put out thus far and have have enjoyed your feed. And you've come on my podcast back when I was doing the CNALS podcast. And I think you came on in 2023 when we talked about the Virginia state legislative primaries. And I'm excited to talk about you know the where the primaries are right now.
00:42.51
Sam Shirazi
Yeah. And, you know, I've always been impressed with your work, Chaz, especially with state legislative races. It's a really granular thing. And I think you're doing a really good job with that. i I first noticed it in 2021 when I saw your maps and your rankings. And I thought it was really cool because I'd seen that at the congressional level, but I'd never really seen it at the state legislative level.
01:02.25
Sam Shirazi
And then your claim to fame was in 2023 when you got all 100 races in the Virginia House of Delegates and the state Senate correct. And so that was you know really impressive given you know some of those races came down to the wire.
01:17.44
Sam Shirazi
So anyways, thanks. Thanks for coming on.
01:20.22
Chaz Nuttycombe
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, Jack and I, Jack Kirsting is the is the co-forecaster at, you know, was that at C-Analysis and C-Analysis is now State Navigate, the 501c3 nonprofit. so I've, you know, been been working on for a while and, you know, Jack came on 2021. That was so the first year that we were working together and, you know, we, uh, we had a good year and in, in 2023 and, had a a pretty decent year, all things especially considered, in our state legislative forecast 2024 and, in given, you know, the small polling misses
02:01.44
Chaz Nuttycombe
really excited for for virginia twenty twenty five you know there's There's a lot at stake with you know all 100 House of Delegates seats up and you know the Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, and obviously guillatorial race.
02:21.34
Sam Shirazi
All right, Chaz. So tell me a little bit more about State Navigate. you know What's it all about and how can people help if they want to?
02:28.87
Chaz Nuttycombe
Yeah, so State Navigate is the successor to Sea Analysis, which was you know the site that i started up back in 2020 when I was in college. But now I'm a graduated man, and you know we still got a lot of familiar faces that were at Sea Analysis over at State Navigate, including my co-forecaster, Jack Kirsting.
02:52.24
Chaz Nuttycombe
And so, you know, we are a 501c3 nonprofit. And the thing that I'm really excited for is i think by sometime in May is what my goal is, is that we will have State Navigate Virginia out.
03:08.46
Chaz Nuttycombe
And by the end of this month, we will have finished out State Navigate South Carolina. For those interested, they can go to State Navigate and look at the What we have for South Carolina, that includes our state aggregate future, which has news aggregation and our district summary pages, which has candidate data, election data going down to precinct level, district demographic data, education, income, race, education by, you know, white college, non-college, that sort of thing.
03:42.42
Chaz Nuttycombe
And you know the next step with with South Carolina is building out the legislature features, which is going to have bill tracking and the ideology calculation using W nominate, which also includes the individual member probabilities of voting yay or nay on each roll call. Got to toy around with it quite a bit in my undergrad, and it's it's something I very much nerd over.
04:07.78
Chaz Nuttycombe
And, we're also working on deep campaign finance data, for, uh, for South Carolina this month as well. So once we've pretty much finished out, our front end and back end stuff for South Carolina, you know, hopefully not long after that, you know, a few weeks after we'll, uh,
04:26.18
Chaz Nuttycombe
we'll get up and running in Virginia. And, uh, you know, obviously, I think we're, we're known in Virginia for, you know, as he noted, the, uh, the forecast that we, we have because of our record.
04:38.100
Chaz Nuttycombe
and, uh, We are going to be launching our forecast for Virginia 2025 with the House of Delegates and Governor and Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General at our June 29th fundraiser in Montpelier, Virginia. That's just about 30 minutes north of Richmond City.
04:59.46
Chaz Nuttycombe
And that will be publicly selling tickets, I believe, on April 18th. I'm already contacting some, like, you know, members of the legislature and and politicos and consultants and and whatnot over the next, you know, 12 days and giving them the opportunity to get a ticket because it's kind of a small venue.
05:25.35
Sam Shirazi
Nice. Yeah, I had a chance to look at the South Carolina and look really cool. And I'm definitely looking forward to Virginia and especially with the elections this year. So anyways, congrats on getting State Navigate up and running. Now let's turn over to Virginia and this year and just the latest news since my last podcast was that Amanda Chase would not make be making the GOP primary ballot.
05:49.58
Sam Shirazi
And so Winsome Sears is the Republican nominee, Abigail Spanberger is the Democratic nominee. Chaz, what do you see in terms of Spanberger versus Sears contest in Virginia this year?
06:01.21
Chaz Nuttycombe
Yeah. Look, um, Look, um, when we're, when we're talking about the general and we're talking about the gov race, you know, i think, uh, the obvious, thing to keep in mind, that I'm sure pretty much everyone listening to this podcast already knows is that ever since Virginia has been a a two party, uh, state and, you know, black voters have, have truly had the right to vote, in Virginia,
06:28.25
Chaz Nuttycombe
you know We have elected the party opposite of the White House. This is a tradition that's gone on for, what, 50 years now or just over 50, right?
06:40.95
Chaz Nuttycombe
And so I think that's something that you know we should keep in mind. Look, I will say that I've already, pretty much the night of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election,
06:53.52
Chaz Nuttycombe
that was the final test and straw for me to be comfortable in saying that the Virginia governor race is not going to be competitive this year. uh, we can maybe quibble about margin, which margin is important because, Spanberger winning by as much as Harris won by, or maybe even a little bit less on a good night for the, uh, GOP versus Spanberger winning by double digits very much makes a difference. And,
07:22.19
Chaz Nuttycombe
what the house looks like and and whether, you know, Mieres wins and whether Republicans can retain the lieutenant governor office.
07:32.84
Chaz Nuttycombe
But unless somebody has, you know, just just kind of thinking of Ralph Northam here, I guess, like pictures of Spanberger in blackface or you know some some oppo of something spanberger did on like something she did the cia or something you know there has to be like some big scandal or oppo dump in you know like early september for abigail spanberger to not be the next governor of virginia
08:03.15
Chaz Nuttycombe
Point blank period. The only question is, is she winning narrowly? Is she winning by double digits? Is she, you know, doing better than Belial's? Is she doing better than Kane 2018?
08:19.02
Chaz Nuttycombe
Is she running ahead or behind of Harris? You know, stuff like that. that That's kind of all that really is quibble about the the Virginia governor race at this point.
08:30.79
Sam Shirazi
Well, yeah, I mean, you you certainly make a case there that Spanberger has a good shot this year. i mean, do you think it's some of these issues that are happening, such as with Doge and with the tariffs?
08:42.05
Sam Shirazi
Is that what's giving Democrats such an advantage right now? Or do you think it's just the nature of Virginia, the party out of the White House who usually does pretty well or a combination of those two things?
08:52.45
Chaz Nuttycombe
I think that, you know, you raise some issues that I think are important. I think that Doge is is definitely toxic in Virginia.
09:01.54
Chaz Nuttycombe
You know, we can I think I think Signal and I love Signal. I really do. The people at Signal are are very, very smart and probably my favorite Republican pollster.
09:12.58
Chaz Nuttycombe
But, you know, I think they put out a poll that said, you know, Virginia voters approve of Doge, but they didn't say Doge. They said, you know, like describing what Doge, you know, wants to accomplish. Right.
09:26.52
Chaz Nuttycombe
Whereas if you say Doge in in any polling in Virginia, you're probably going to see it down. Right. at least double digits. But, you know, when we talk about not, not only just for the fact that, yeah, yeah Trump is in the white house, but let's also keep in mind what I think was the big lesson in 2024 for election forecasters and election analysts.
09:50.05
Chaz Nuttycombe
When we talk about turnout and non-presidential years, I mean, let's look back at the 2017 gubernatorial map, Edgar Lesby and Republicans of Virginia,
10:00.83
Chaz Nuttycombe
held up pretty decently well with high prop voters. You know, Gillespie was winning Stafford. Gillespie barely lost Chesterfield. Gillespie even won James City County, right?
10:12.46
Chaz Nuttycombe
And I mean, this is the big thing in this this chain that the change between the party's bases, right? You know,
10:23.56
Chaz Nuttycombe
Yes, Democrats are becoming the party of of the wealthy, elite, and the educated, those those with a college degree educated, and Republicans are becoming more of the party of the...
10:38.75
Chaz Nuttycombe
Those who aren't tuning in to news every day and are just working man, working Joe, not just for white voters, but also increasingly non-white voters. saw that in 2024. So that's a thing. Trump doesn't have to
10:55.72
Chaz Nuttycombe
but trump doesn't have to be at the you know the lowest point of approval in his presidency, which is right after Charlottesville, right? October 2017 was the lowest point for job approval in Trump's presidency.
11:10.56
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, and he doesn't have to be at that point. He just has to be, you know, a couple points down in job approval. And, you know, Spanberger can, could win by double digits because of the shifting, changes between the parties, uh, voting bases.
11:28.65
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, now you don't have to go back to 2017 necessarily, to look at, you know, Republicans in Virginia doing well with high prop voters. You can look at, you can look at 2023.
11:42.61
Chaz Nuttycombe
but you know, to your point, yeah, you know, Trump is, is in the white house now. And, uh, when we talk about turnout deferentials, I think that there's going to be,
11:52.92
Chaz Nuttycombe
you know, an electorate that's going to be a democratic leaning, that probably voted for Harris. but you know, that being said 2021, that electorate voted for Biden by three points. It was just for the matter of fact that Republicans could win on persuasion.
12:08.92
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, so I mean, look, if, if Republicans can do what Trump did, in 2024 with peeling off, working class, low, low to mid prop, nonwhite voters that traditionally vote democratics, especially Latinos, especially, well, I think the main, the really interesting demographic thing,
12:32.48
Chaz Nuttycombe
That kind of is they're not really low prop and and don't lack a college degree. But, you know, I think the Indian American community is a big, big thing to where Republicans could, yeah, maybe make gains with that demographic.
12:47.45
Chaz Nuttycombe
And they are, you know, like high prop. So, you know, making gains with with non-white voters pretty much, especially on the issues of like transgender politics and immigration to.
13:03.57
Chaz Nuttycombe
you know, earn over the, the conservative parts of those demographics and, you know, being able to have that, those gains and then doing what they can on persuasion is pretty much their, their only hope in getting the areas over the line and retaining the LG office and, you know, maybe flipping the house delegates.
13:22.82
Chaz Nuttycombe
that's pretty much their best night possible. right now. I, I just don't see, any universe unless again, Spanberger has some sort of big oppo dump that comes in September, or October, that changes the outcome of the Virginia governor race.
13:39.57
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, and I think also, for the matter of fact that, that Winston Sears has a laughable campaign, i would say, you know, I,
13:51.82
Chaz Nuttycombe
the The fact that they fired Pool House, which you know was the architect for branding of the Unkin campaign, is, is insane.
14:01.90
Chaz Nuttycombe
And, you know, i mean, Sears is just, she's got two left feet and, uh, and is trying to, trying to dance. and, and it's, it's, uh, it's, it's a sight to behold. And I think that's something that's really hurting her. And the question is, you know, is there enough ticket splitting to where, you know, Republicans can retain those statewide offices? And, is there, you know, enough, enough room to gain with minority voters to where they could flip the house delegates. I think those are the only things that they are really shooting for, i would say, and, and are hoping for.
14:41.84
Chaz Nuttycombe
So.
14:42.86
Sam Shirazi
Yeah. I mean, I think i think the governor's race is is looking pretty dicey for the Republicans. And and I often think that you know, if if the Democrats win the governor's race by a decent margin, you know, the rest of the ticket is just going to get swept in. And so having said that, for LG and AG, I mean, I think the primaries are really important. They don't get that much attention, but given the way things are looking, think there's a decent chance that whoever wins the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor and attorney general will win those races in November. And so having said that, I mean, what are your thoughts on the LG and AG primaries, you
15:16.16
Sam Shirazi
You know, both both on on both sides for the lieutenantant governor, but I would say more on the Democratic side, given that it's more interesting race with all those people and then also attorney general race on the Democratic side.
15:27.79
Chaz Nuttycombe
i would I would be shocked if if John Reed were to be able to beat Pat Herity in the Republican nomination for LG.
15:39.75
Chaz Nuttycombe
I would be kind of shocked. Right. I mean, this is... I mean, look, now that being said, as I live in Hanover County, right? Right.
15:50.08
Chaz Nuttycombe
And i know then I know the power of news radio 1140 WRVA. I really do. I, you know, i've I've heard plenty plenty of their their stuff, like growing up in and whatnot. And, you know, I don't remember, you know, Reid. I don't know how long he's been there.
16:12.82
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, but I mean, if this was someone like Jeff Katz, then I think that would be a little bit different, but you know, I don't know how, how many people were like listening to his radio show and whatnot, but you know, like even then, i mean, the fact of the matter is that, you know, heritage is probably gonna out raise and,
16:30.59
Chaz Nuttycombe
you know, he's, uh, he's going to make a good pitch to, to Nova voters. And i mean, you know, uh, reads, reads base and re reads reach only goes into the, Richmond metropolitan area. And, uh, I think that, you know, I mean, if he could win Hampton roads, then, then yeah.
16:51.69
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, but I, uh, I would, I would be shocked if Herity is not the LG nominee. Going into the LG Dem primary, i mean, look, again, for for any of these these takes, it's mainly on intuition. Like, there' there's no forecast. You can't forecast any primary. There's a very volatile electorates and very unpredictable.
17:16.06
Chaz Nuttycombe
Polling is, like, good for, like, a baseline, but in terms of, like, how accurate polling is in primaries versus generals, right? so it's, it's mainly like intuition.
17:27.69
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, and you know, I, I'm not like really having my finger this close on the pulse, but. you know I mean, I think that the LG Dem primary is is competitive.
17:40.16
Chaz Nuttycombe
If I were to guess, I would say Rouse has a little bit of an advantage. you know he'll He'll do well in Hampton Roads, and then I think he's probably going to do well with rural black voters and rural white voters as well with his ads for his time Virginia Tech.
17:55.09
Chaz Nuttycombe
Yeah. you know know virginia ah his his time at virginia tech and, uh, you know, I think that the question is, where, where does s Stoney play in all this?
18:10.58
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, I think Stoney is a dead man, by the end of this, cause there's, there's no way he's going to go into, into, you know, uh, the third week of June unscathed.
18:23.25
Chaz Nuttycombe
with the water crisis, with Navy Yard, with, uh, the, casino, attempts and especially the second one.
18:33.92
Chaz Nuttycombe
You know, like the the, I think the question is with Stoney is like, is he going to carry Richmond city? I think he could, you know, he has support from black voters in the city.
18:46.92
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, and, uh, but you know, i mean, just white voters in Richmond hate them, uh, in the city proper. And I would assume that he, he probably wouldn't do well with,
18:59.83
Chaz Nuttycombe
you know, voters that aren't black in Henrico and in Chesterfield. So, you know, I mean, I think that gives Hashmi an advantage with, you know, doing well in those counties, I would guess.
19:17.97
Chaz Nuttycombe
And, you know, there's, there's Babur Lateef, which, you know, like Nova is the big question mark, I think in this, right. And I think there is a lot of attention on Nova and on Doge and and whatnot.
19:33.91
Chaz Nuttycombe
And, you know, I mean, Is is his that being his home base going to going to help him out? I have no idea. I think Nova is the big question mark and is it is really going to decide this primary, most likely.
19:50.94
Chaz Nuttycombe
Shock to nobody. and Nova is going to decide a Democratic primary. right. But, you know, I mean, in terms of like, who's doing well in Nova, I don't think anybody really has a good, like, and I don't think anybody is confident enough to say, oh yeah, we're, we're up in Nova.
20:09.07
Chaz Nuttycombe
Right. Like, I don't think any campaign has that level of confidence. with the, with the AG Dem primary, I think it's probably going to be Jones.
20:19.37
Chaz Nuttycombe
I wouldn't rule out Taylor. you know, i think that being a woman in a democratic primary is a big boost and right. You can say that applies the same for cause Allah Hashmi, and keeps her competitive as well.
20:34.39
Chaz Nuttycombe
and in addition to her base and, you know, her time in the state Senate, uh, but, you know, I think that, you know, Jay Jones has,
20:45.23
Chaz Nuttycombe
put together a campaign that's been running a lot longer and he has a lot more name recognition from his 2021 run. So, but also again, there's that, there's that question of Nova, like, you know, he'll, Jay will probably do well in, you know, obviously Hampton roads and with black voters, rural and urban, you know, but like,
21:11.94
Chaz Nuttycombe
how How is he going to play in Nova? Is that something maybe Shannon Taylor can, you know, bite into or or outright win or something? Right. So, yeah, I mean, that's that's where I think things are. But it's it's early April.
21:28.64
Chaz Nuttycombe
Right. We got two and a half months for the primary. This could age very well or of age age very poorly. So.
21:37.71
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. Northern Virginia is like the big wild card in both those races. And it's it's always hard to know because it costs a lot of money to run ads. And I don't know if that's to happen in these races.
21:49.07
Sam Shirazi
So we'll we'll see. I agree. it's It's a little bit early to to give it exact prediction, maybe closer to the primary. we We'll have a better sense.
21:56.78
Chaz Nuttycombe
Well, I think also when we talk about ads, I mean, on on the note of, you know, Stoney or maybe even the AG primary, are C4 is going to get involved in this, you know, with like doing the dirty work and attacking a candidate.
22:16.20
Chaz Nuttycombe
Right. And I could think of a few that, you know, would want to get involved in especially like going against Stoney.
22:26.37
Chaz Nuttycombe
Maybe there's one that wants to go against Taylor. I don't know. But, you know, I think that's going to be something that I think people are are watching for right now as well.
22:36.07
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, I think it's a good point. So we'll we'll just have to kind of wait and see what happens with all that. I did want to just shift gears a little bit. Don't want to ask about specific districts except one, which I might ask you after you answer this question. But I wanted to get your sense of the House of Delegates more so for the general election.
22:53.88
Sam Shirazi
Because I'm kind of struggling to, you know, i'm my guess is Democrats have a shot to pick up seats. Is it going to be, you know, like a little wave where they pick up a few of the pretty obvious seats? Or is there the possibility of like a big 2017 wave where they pick up a bunch of seats?
23:12.06
Sam Shirazi
And obviously it's very early and we can't really know the real answer to that until we get closer to the election. But what's your sense in terms of the House of Delegates and is it going to be... a little wave or a big wave, or is it too early to tell?
23:24.64
Chaz Nuttycombe
I think it's a little early. Look, again, Jack Kirsting and I are starting on the forecast this week and and we're going to unveil it on on June 29th. It starts at 3 out here in in Montpelier for a fundraiser.
23:39.08
Chaz Nuttycombe
And then we'll publicly release it, you know, month to a month half after that. Look, I think that there's, again, like just going back to what I was saying with what I think Republicans are are hoping for for a good night into where they could flip the House of Delegates.
23:57.08
Chaz Nuttycombe
I think their ceiling is 51 seats for the Republicans, right? I think that you know there is like maybe two other seats that could have put them in I don't think they were necessarily like really trying for 53 in 2021 or sorry, not 2021, 2023.
24:15.20
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, and I certainly don't think they are this time. not even 52, I think like, you know, the best case scenario for them is 51. Right. So R plus two.
24:26.56
Chaz Nuttycombe
but look, you know, again, with, with the fact that there's a Republican in the white house, And, um, And, um, I mean, a good, and some good news for Republicans recently for, for house Republicans is the fact that Elon Musk is on his way out.
24:43.80
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, but you know, is, is our Democrats going to still be able to run against him in the general? I don't know. or, you know, like, do they want to, or are they scared of his money?
24:54.67
Chaz Nuttycombe
which i would I would say, I think, is his money's a net negative, as you know you can see by the difference between the state superintendent race and the state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin.
25:06.81
Chaz Nuttycombe
But look, I think that the the ceiling for the Democrats could be 20 seats. The fact that we might enter and look,
25:16.24
Chaz Nuttycombe
I'm a numbers guy, but I'm a specific numbers guy. I'm not going to get out of my depth. I'm not an Nate Silver, right? um um don't know anything about economics, truly. I literally don't.
25:29.49
Chaz Nuttycombe
I'm not predicting a recession, right? Now, I think that for those conservatives who you know want to laugh at J.P. Morgan's face, I think they they can since you know J.P. Morgan was predicting a recession in 2023. think it was, right? And then they were saying like, okay, yeah, maybe a little bit inflation and in 2021 or 2022.
25:53.05
Chaz Nuttycombe
I think that's a good counterpoint. But, you know, we kind of have to wait and see on the recession if there is one coming or, you know, if there isn't. Because right now the markets, you know, last week were we're in free fall.
26:05.72
Chaz Nuttycombe
So look, if there's a recession, yeah, this this could be, like a 2009 situation. Now, that being said, right, I've been saying like, okay, you usually have this like intersectional moment to where the incumbent party in the White House has a big, you know, I done goofed moment with Trump, with Charlottesville 2017, with, you know, Afghanistan with Biden in 2021.
26:35.66
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, or, you know, you you don't even have to necessarily say the incumbent party. right. I think that I would kind of quibble with and say, think that there might be a chance that, uh, Ken Cuccinelli would have, would have become governor it wasn't for the 2013 shutdown.
26:52.05
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, I know that can be a hot take and I think it's plenty, you know, can be up for debate. And, you know, so I I think that the fact that this moment is happening right now is is a double edged sword for the Virginia Republicans.
27:07.98
Chaz Nuttycombe
Right. It can either be a oh, it's only going to get worse from here. Right. Or B, okay, our worst moment is now. And, you know, it could, it can get better by the time of the election.
27:22.88
Chaz Nuttycombe
So yeah, there is a little bit of wait and see, and that's why, you know, there's a 22 seat range. And, again, no hard forecast, just like in terms of where I think things are, it could be anywhere from R plus two in the house to, you know, Democrats getting to 71
27:39.72
Chaz Nuttycombe
And that is if there's a recession and, you know, again, with the fact that there is a a much different voting base and, you know, if we will see if Sears keeps stepping on her toes or whether she, you know, does some public speaking coaches or classes or whatever, because I think she has a public speaking issue.
28:03.29
Chaz Nuttycombe
um um but yeah, so I think there's a little bit of a wide range right now but you know so I I don't think there's any world in which there's something like r plus three or d plus 21 I feel i feel safe ruling that out but that's it's such a big range right to where it's like okay yeah no duh
28:24.66
Sam Shirazi
Yeah. No, I mean, it's just too early to tell. i did want to ask you about one specific district, House District 41, that is in the Blacksburg area in Southwest Virginia. i consider you a little bit of an expert in that district because you went to Virginia Tech and obviously have covered past races.
28:42.82
Sam Shirazi
And usually that that house seat is competitive. What do you think this year in terms of that district and if Lily Franklin has a chance to win it this time after she just came up really short 2023.
28:55.44
Chaz Nuttycombe
Yeah, so the college town districts, I think, are like definitely the races that I'm most interested this year. even So I'm actually going to be most likely moving into Mark Early's district in September or October just...
29:11.36
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, cause I'm, I'm looking for a new apartment and I want to stay in Richmond. So why not do it where there's good real estate for voting for the next three or four years. But the college town districts are very interesting. Right. And I think it just has to do with my, my fascination with, how the zoomer vote went in 2024.
29:31.60
Chaz Nuttycombe
Right. Um, Right. Um, I'm an older zoomer. right. An 18 year old would be calling me young. I'm 25 now. so, you know, for those, you know, maybe listen that podcast who remember me in like 2017 when, and when I was 18, right.
29:48.38
Chaz Nuttycombe
I'm, I'm, I'm old now, according to, to college students. and, uh, and, you know, they got a lot more conservative and I think, you know, there's been a lot of good writing and research on it.
29:59.92
Chaz Nuttycombe
with the fact that, you know, i think Biden is is very responsible and COVID is also responsible. But I think a big thing is that just...
30:12.27
Chaz Nuttycombe
in terms of like college students also being kind of naturally low prop. I would say that the Republican college voters are especially low prop.
30:23.07
Chaz Nuttycombe
I mean, i posted this the other day, Liberty University had like 13% of the precinct, Liberty University precinct proper had like 13% its 2024 turnout. think that might be,
30:35.36
Chaz Nuttycombe
and i think that might be like for any contested race, at least like the lowest, turnout of 2024 vote share in that precinct, in the Commonwealth.
30:48.15
Chaz Nuttycombe
And, um, um, you know, the question is, can, can Republicans get these kids out to vote? right. They've made a lot of gains here, but can they get them out to vote?
30:59.45
Chaz Nuttycombe
this is going to be their first rodeo, pretty much an investing in same day registration. right. They didn't really do that in 2023. Uh, and that almost, and because of that investment in same day registration, that almost resulted in Amanda Batten and Chris Obenshain losing.
31:17.73
Chaz Nuttycombe
Right. So i'm I'm really interested in it. And and yeah, I'm interested in the 41st. You know, i I especially just a story I love is, you know, back in 2023, it's like literally Election Day. And for Jane Tech, wanted to do like a little video on like, you know, a day and a day of Election Day following, you know, the elections font, whatever, you know, they have in the in the thing.
31:46.22
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, cause I saw the Cardinal news article, which, you know, I, I do love that article. but i I went to campus to write for J tech has three voting, uh, precincts on campus now.
31:59.46
Chaz Nuttycombe
And they're bringing out the beer bong tables. They're bringing out the foldable tables. And, and I felt good about my predictions that year.
32:05.70
Sam Shirazi
That's
32:08.68
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, I did, i thought like, okay, I feel like I feel good about like 98 in the house, uh, and then like a 38 out of 40 in the Senate. And then like when I'm seeing that and I predicted that Ovenshane was, you know, going to win, i thought it was going to be closer than people thought.
32:26.56
Chaz Nuttycombe
Certainly wasn't, it was closer than I thought, but still I'm on my drive home and I'm thinking like, if I get every single district right, but the one i live in for the past couple of years, I'm going to hate myself.
32:38.71
Sam Shirazi
you
32:41.76
Chaz Nuttycombe
I'm going to be so pissed. Right. If that is the one district I miss. And you know, it, it, it didn't happen. But look,
32:51.43
Chaz Nuttycombe
yeah i i posted the other day blacksburg now makes up a higher share of uh of the district's uh registered voters in uh in 2025 uh at least currently march 2025 versus march 2023 blacksburg makes up a higher vote share right it compared to like the rest of Montgomery County and, uh, wrote the part of Roanoke County, which, you know, open Shane, um, you know, that's something that's working against them.
33:27.37
Chaz Nuttycombe
Uh, I also think that Democrats got caught. I would, I would say, let me be specific house Democrats got costs caught sleeping in that district. Right. and I think that they,
33:38.23
Chaz Nuttycombe
also did not cut great mail. I saw a mail that they, like mail they did for Lily Franklin and it said like, Lily Franklin for for Southwest Virginia, right? Like cookie cutter crap.
33:52.10
Chaz Nuttycombe
Oh, it's a Southwest Virginia district and and whatnot. right. So they, they just pretty much phoned it in. and, uh, so, you know, uh, look, that's, that's gonna be a competitive race. I think everybody knows that, right. It was decided by 0.8%.
34:09.21
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, in 2023 it's competitive race and, uh, yeah, it got more Republican from the 2020 presidential to 2024 results. but.
34:19.79
Chaz Nuttycombe
what I was saying with, uh, for the fact that I think that these pro-Trump young voters, college voters, are not really going to be motivated to come out this year.
34:33.70
Chaz Nuttycombe
It's going to be a big thing. I'm also am interested because in these college districts, because look, the most important years in determining voting behavior later in life are when you're in your teenage years and you're in your early twenties.
34:50.97
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, right. And that, and that applies for like a whole bunch of other things psychologically. but like if there's a recession or like if these tariffs are, you know, like G Elliot Morris posted like that, uh, you know, Nintendo's news that the switch to is getting delayed or the pre-orders are getting delayed. Right.
35:11.62
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, And 18 to 25-year-old men love love gaming. they They do. you know I don't i know really play many video games much myself anymore, but maybe that's because I'm exiting the demographic.
35:28.16
Chaz Nuttycombe
But anywho, think that... it are these gains permanent or where are these, are these college kids just, they like Trump and then they don't show out or do they like Trump?
35:42.58
Chaz Nuttycombe
they are voting Democrat for everything else maybe, or did they like Trump in 2024, but now that they're not getting their, uh, switch to, or now that they're seeing like everything getting more expensive if the terrorists do that, you know, this year,
35:58.12
Chaz Nuttycombe
You know, are they are they now Democrats? Are they now like going to be out protesting? You know, I saw a TikTok that said like, you know, there's no young people at this. Was it the hands off protest?
36:09.01
Chaz Nuttycombe
Right. No teenagers, no Zoomers, no nothing. So that's that's my fat, like one of my two fascinations uh or i would say it's it's my big fascination with or what i'm looking for for virginia 2025 like those are those are the districts i'm keeping my eyes peeled on and i i'm kind of surprised that you know like that liberty district you know the lynchburg district wasn't on like the house dems list of uh of targeted districts because
36:40.56
Chaz Nuttycombe
Walker underperformed Trump by like three points. And, you know, the fact of the matter is that I think i think Walker is going to have a difficult time getting those Liberty students out.
36:52.72
Chaz Nuttycombe
So, but, you know, yeah, it voted for Trump by 11 points and that's probably all we see. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see those districts, but obviously, yeah, the 41st, I would say is I would say the 41st is the most competitive.
37:07.96
Chaz Nuttycombe
So.
37:08.86
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, well, I appreciate your thoughts on that. Welcome to the old man club. And you know now we'll have to figure out what the kids decided to do this year. I did want to leave you just, I did have one last question before we let you go.
37:22.94
Sam Shirazi
And it's actually a question about 2026. And I know this podcast is about 2025, but I want to get your thoughts on Virginia's first district. So I thought it would be closer in 2020.
37:35.43
Sam Shirazi
But Rob Whitman, the current incumbent Republican, was able to win by 13 percent, even though Trump
37:40.24
Chaz Nuttycombe
You mean 2024? You're all good.
37:41.74
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, so in 2024, 2024, that Rob Whitman was able to win the district by 13%, even though Trump won it by around 5%.
37:44.78
Chaz Nuttycombe
yeah i
37:55.28
Sam Shirazi
So Whitman really overperformed Trump, which I didn't think he overperformed that much, but... He was able to do it. I want to get your thoughts because it seems like Democrats might be thinking about targeting the first in 2026. I mean, given that Whitman won by 13 percent in 2024, mean, do you think that's realistic or you think it's a reach district? I mean, the other thing, too, is like by the time Democrats, if they win this district, they've already have this massive massive House majority. So I don't i don't know if it's really worth going after, but it seems like they're interested in going after him. What are your thoughts on the first in 2026?
38:30.00
Chaz Nuttycombe
Well, Dave Brat also won against a paper candidate in 2016 in Virginia 7 while Trump was nearly winning that district. Right. I mean, Whitman has never run against a Democrat that was trying to beat him in his life.
38:46.79
Chaz Nuttycombe
he's never run in a targeted race, I guess you could say. You know, we can say like, OK, the Democrat, you know, that ran against him in 2018 or 2020.
38:56.44
Chaz Nuttycombe
You know, they were trying to beat him, but they didn't have the resources. You can, you can say that, but either way, he hasn't run against a, a strong democratic campaign. I had, was I had a great conversation with a democratic consultant, uh, earlier this year.
39:15.17
Chaz Nuttycombe
And I was asking, you know, who do you think the Democrats should recruit, for that district? And he said, and I think, I think it is the right answer.
39:26.33
Chaz Nuttycombe
You know, I saw, I saw Virginia political meme tweet, like, you know, a lot of names that we know, but I think that, this, this consultant's answer of it's probably gotta be someone that we don't know right now. Right. So we haven't heard of like Abigail Spanberger, right. Nobody had heard of her.
39:44.21
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, when, you know, she was running for the district, right. And, and the seventh and. uh, 20, 2018. and the question is like, what is, what is the profile?
39:56.09
Chaz Nuttycombe
I think that it, I think that like Whitman is probably in danger if it's maybe someone from the peninsula or or, one of the, let's, let's say one of the peninsulas, but I would say probably the peninsula, right.
40:12.22
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, the historic triangle is probably where Democrats would probably most likely find a recruit and probably a good recruit. cause that's a big thing that, that Whitman has is, you know, he wins a lot of crossover voters in that district because he's, or in that area because he's represented that area during his, you know, for, for 20 years.
40:31.88
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, but I think that like, you know, if Democrats can get someone out in Hanover from outside of Ashland, right. So like someone in Mechanicsville, that bites into Whitman a lot.
40:45.75
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, Or yeah, they can maybe get like a rural Democrat from, you know, the Middle Peninsula. The the consultant said Middle Peninsula, but I think Northern Neck would be a good answer as well.
41:02.06
Chaz Nuttycombe
Right. Maybe like Colonial Beach or something. You know, that was that was a town that voted for Cane in 2018, if I recall correctly, and and now is very Republican. So I think like if Democrats can get someone from one of the peninsulas, or Hanover, and you know, said candidate can raise money.
41:24.55
Chaz Nuttycombe
i think Whitman is in a lot of trouble. But if Democrats are like recruiting someone from Henrico or Chesterfield, I think that's a good sign for Whitman because like there's there's only so much room, I think, that Democrats can get out of those two counties.
41:43.63
Chaz Nuttycombe
I mean, yeah, Whitman you know ran ahead of Trump and in both of those segments of the district in 2024. But I think all you have to do is put a feather on it and then you get it to presidential levels, maybe a little bit better, you know, to do a little bit better than presidential levels.
42:01.31
Chaz Nuttycombe
So I think Democrats, if they've got a nominee from Henrico or Chesterfield, I think that's a mistake on their part. so I think that's the thing to watch for is it's just who candidate there, or who the Democrats recruit as a candidate, because that's going to determine, how competitive this race is going to be is where is that democratic candidate from?
42:22.77
Chaz Nuttycombe
Um, Um, but you know, for the fact that, yeah, this is going to be what means, I think regardless, this is going to be Whitman's real race in 2026. The question is, is it like a toss up or is it, you know, like he's got like a 70 or 80% chance of winning somewhere in that ballpark.
42:41.82
Chaz Nuttycombe
And I think that really is going to come down to candidate quality on the Democratic side. So that's something we've got to watch for the next several months. You know, Spanberger was on the campaign trail in 2017. She was knocking doors for Skyler, knocking doors for Dawn and Dawn Adams and Deborah Rodman. I'm I'm pretty sure Larry Barnett as well, right, going to those events.
43:04.47
Chaz Nuttycombe
So, you know, it could be someone in the very room that, is is out there on the House Delegate campaign offices this year.
43:14.98
Chaz Nuttycombe
So, you know, we'll see.
43:17.42
Sam Shirazi
Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, even though and we got to get through 2025 first, it's going to be important for 2026 as well. So Chaz, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. I'm sure everyone's going to like hearing in about all your thoughts and check out State Navigate if you haven't had already. And thank you again, Chaz. And I'll see you next time on Federal Fallout.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.76
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode we will review the Virginia primary filing deadline and then we'll explore if the June primary might be the real contest this year in Virginia.
00:16.20
Sam Shirazi
So to kick things off, on the Democratic side, no other candidate filed for governor other than former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger. So she will be the Democratic nominee.
00:27.72
Sam Shirazi
There was not much suspense leading up to the Democratic filing deadline for governor.
00:34.66
Sam Shirazi
Congressman Bobby Scott had toyed with the idea of running, or at least didn't shoot down the idea, but it was pretty clear at the end that he was not going to be filing because he did not gather signatures.
00:47.79
Sam Shirazi
And so as expected, former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger is the Democratic nominee for governor. On the Republican side, things are not so simple.
00:59.24
Sam Shirazi
Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears had already filed her paperwork as soon as she could, and she has qualified for the primary ballot on the Republican side for governor.
01:08.58
Sam Shirazi
And there were two candidates also attempting to make the ballot, former delegate Dave LaRock and former state Senator Amanda Chase. And Dave LaRock on the filing deadline on Thursday,
01:21.49
Sam Shirazi
He said that he did not have enough signatures, so you need 10,000 signatures, valid signatures from voters registered in Virginia, including 400 from each congressional district.
01:34.26
Sam Shirazi
And Dave LaRock said he got about 9,000, which is obviously less than 10,000, so he did not end up filing. So he will not be on the primary ballot in Virginia.
01:45.80
Sam Shirazi
But Amanda Chase did file her paperwork. And so that means it's possible there could be a primary. And I wanted to just break down the process of what's going to happen next, because just because someone files the paperwork doesn't automatically mean that they're going to be on the ballot.
02:02.72
Sam Shirazi
So the biggest obstacle to be on the ballot in Virginia for statewide office this year is the 10,000 signature requirement. And I thought I'd take some time to really break down how to get those signatures and what they have what has to happen in order for those signatures to be counted as valid.
02:20.48
Sam Shirazi
So right off the back bat, the signatures have to be from registered voters in Virginia. You cannot just have random people signing the ballot. They do have to be registered to vote in Virginia.
02:33.36
Sam Shirazi
On top of that, 400 signatures have to come from each of Virginia's 11 congressional districts, basically to ensure that you have some geographic support across Virginia and it's not just concentrated in one part of Virginia.
02:48.20
Sam Shirazi
So those are kind of the basic requirements. But then the actual mechanics of filling out the signature form require some other things to have happen. First, the voter has to print their name.
03:01.68
Sam Shirazi
They have to sign their name. They have to give their full legal address where they reside, and they have to sign and date the signature petition. And if any one of those things are off, then that individual will not be counted towards the 10,000. And one of the things that can go wrong, people don't date it. People don't sign it. People give their partial address. People give their partial name. I mean, you know if you've ever done signature collection you know that there's a lot of ways that this could go wrong, particularly if people are in a rush, they're hurrying.
03:36.36
Sam Shirazi
The person collecting the signatures is doing a lot of different things and is not maybe focused. And and it it often there are many signatures when a candidate submits that are not valid.
03:49.05
Sam Shirazi
And it's often a good idea to submit way over the minimum to ensure that for whatever reason, if any of your signatures are knocked off, you still have the minimum to meet the requirements.
03:59.73
Sam Shirazi
And then on top of that, let's say you fill out a petition petition signature form all correctly, all the signatures are correct. The person who gathered the signatures has to get the petition signature form notarized.
04:11.30
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, that's not a huge barrier, but it does require someone who is authorized to be a notary in Virginia to sign that. And so that is, all those things have to be right. And if anything's wrong on the petition signature form,
04:27.30
Sam Shirazi
form, then the form can get thrown out, the signatures can get thrown out. And so all that's to say is there's a lot of things that could go wrong if you are just trying to get the bare minimum number of signatures.
04:39.14
Sam Shirazi
And the thing with Amanda Chase is she was trying to do this very quickly with a lot of volunteers who may or may not be familiar with all these different requirements. And so there's a lot of room for error.
04:50.66
Sam Shirazi
And I will say this about Amanda Chase. I think she put in her paperwork acknowledging that she does not exactly know how many signatures are valid. she does She's not gone through and validated them all because she said she didn't have the time to do that. So long way of saying...
05:08.03
Sam Shirazi
We're still not sure if she would be able to make the ballot even after she submitted her paperwork. And so what happens now is the signatures are in and they will be reviewed to see if they are actually valid signatures of registered voters in Virginia.
05:24.64
Sam Shirazi
And that can take some time because you have to go signature by signature. And we'll see what ends up happening. I don't think we are going to find out for few days what the final call is in terms of determining if Amanda Chase made the primary ballot.
05:40.96
Sam Shirazi
And Keep in mind, if she is determined not to make the ballot, we'll see if she pursues any appeals or legal remedies to try to get on the ballot. So this could still drag on a little bit longer, even though Amanda Chase has filed the paperwork to get on the ballot.
05:58.54
Sam Shirazi
So having said all that, we will just have to wait and see what happens. I think obviously if there is a primary on the Republican side for governor, I will probably do a whole episode on it because it's a big deal.
06:09.77
Sam Shirazi
And it will take a lot of the attention on the Republican side away from former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who's the Democratic nominee, and shift that to the Republican primary and Republican Winston Sears and Amanda Chase will have to go after each other and and try to win that primary.
06:26.75
Sam Shirazi
Now, again, it may not happen. We just have to wait and see. So I don't want to spend too much time on it right now, but wanted to just give everyone an update of where things stand for the Republican primary for Governor.
06:38.68
Sam Shirazi
Okay, so now let's move on to lieutenant governor. So just because there isn't a primary for governor on the Democratic side, we already know that Abigail Spanberger will be the nominee, doesn't mean there is not going to be a Democratic primary.
06:51.14
Sam Shirazi
There will be a Democratic statewide primary in all parts of Virginia for lieutenant governor and attorney general. And lieutenant governor is the race that has a lot of candidates who have filed and all the candidates have that have made it, I will list them out.
07:08.47
Sam Shirazi
And we can just quickly talk about that. So the Democratic Party has confirmed that Alex Bastani, Ghazala Hashmi, Babur Lateef, Aaron Rouse,
07:19.96
Sam Shirazi
Victor Salgado, and LeVar Stoney have all made the primary ballot. So that is six candidates running on the Democratic side for lieutenant governor.
07:30.60
Sam Shirazi
It will be a crowded race, lot of different people running. I should note that Carl Eggleston had been running for lieutenant governor, but he indicated that he had to withdraw to due to to health reasons, so he will not be on the ballot. But still, we got six Democrats running for lieutenant governor.
07:48.50
Sam Shirazi
So a full ballot of Democrats, and it should be a pretty interesting race. I'll talk a little bit later on about what the primary might look like. So I might as well round up round out the Democratic primaries, at least for statewide office.
08:03.06
Sam Shirazi
For Attorney General, as I mentioned before, there will be a primary. Jay Jones and Shannon Taylor have both made the primary ballot. That will be a one-on-one contest. So the Democrats will have two statewide offices on the primary ballot, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.
08:19.11
Sam Shirazi
On the Republican side, it appears there will also be a Lieutenant Governor primary. for the Republicans. So Pat Harity had already filed his paperwork and he has been confirmed to be on the ballot. And then right before the filing deadline, John Reed also filed his paperwork and that will be processed. I assume that he will likely be on the ballot. So I think the Republicans will have a statewide primary as well on the ballot in June.
08:49.17
Sam Shirazi
I should note that John Curran had also been running on the Republican side for lieutenant governor. I haven't heard a whole lot. I don't think that he filed his paperwork, but I'm sure I'll find out if I'm wrong about that. But it looks like it will be a one-on-one primary on the Republican side for lieutenant governor.
09:06.24
Sam Shirazi
And then for attorney general, there will not be a primary on the Republican side because Jason Miyares was the only candidate that filed. He's an incumbent. Obviously, it was unlikely that anyone serious would run against him.
09:20.21
Sam Shirazi
And so Jason Miyares will be the Republican nominee for attorney general. Okay, now I should talk about what the primary might look like and if it's it's the real contest this year in Virginia. And what I mean by that is a lot of people focus on November and there's going to be a lot fewer voters who come out on June 17th to vote in these primaries. Now, there'll probably be a several hundred thousand when you take both the Democrats and Republicans, but In the November election, there'll be at least 2 million, I'm guessing, if not more, probably well over 2 million people voting in the general election.
09:57.34
Sam Shirazi
But for the primaries, you might get, you're going to get less than 25% that. Probably, I'm guessing. I'm guessing we may get up to half a million in both primaries.
10:11.49
Sam Shirazi
And so we'll see. We'll see what those races look like. You know, on the Republican side, a lot depends on if there's actually going to be a primary for governor. If there's a primary for governor, you're going to see a lot more turnout.
10:24.01
Sam Shirazi
And we could see a lot more people showing up in June for the primary. If it's just lieutenant governor on the Republican side, I mean, it's hard to know how many people are going to come out for that.
10:36.16
Sam Shirazi
It's probably only and only going to be pretty hardcore Republicans who are going to show up for lieutenant governor primary in June.
10:42.24
Sam Shirazi
On the Democratic side, I think you're going to have more turnout because in the lieutenant governor's race, there's a lot of people running and there's also an attorney general race on the ballot. So you're going to have two of these races.
10:54.55
Sam Shirazi
And the reason I say, you know, is this the real primary? I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but as I talked about in my special bonus episode about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, I mean, things are looking kind of dicey for the Republicans.
11:10.97
Sam Shirazi
And so there's a decent chance that if former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger wins and she wins by a decent margin, she's just going to take the entire ticket with her. And so if that ends up happening,
11:23.53
Sam Shirazi
then but the primary in June is going to basically determine who's going to be the next Lieutenant Governor and the next Attorney General because they're going to win.
11:33.89
Sam Shirazi
They'll get on the ticket with Abigail Spanberger and then she's going to carry the ticket. And realistically, there isn't a whole lot of ticket splitting these days. And so the Democrats are just going to sweep the statewide offices. That's what's happened in the last four Virginia elections.
11:46.86
Sam Shirazi
The party that's won the governor's race has swept every other statewide office. So I say that because I think there's a lot on the line in the June 17th primary. Oftentimes people focus on the general election. a lot of people don't vote in these primaries.
12:00.12
Sam Shirazi
But I think it's really important that people vote both in the primary and the general election because obviously the and the person who wins the general election has to win the primary first. And so – You can't become lieutenant governor or attorney general without winning the primary.
12:14.62
Sam Shirazi
So I just think it's it's important that people not just focus on November. I think June 17th is going to be an important date as well. I should also quickly note that there will be a number of primaries for the House of Delegates. I will go over all that in a separate episode because that's a lot of different races.
12:32.44
Sam Shirazi
A lot of the House of Delegates races, however, will not have primaries because only one candidate has filed for either the Democrats or Republicans. So there's actually going to be a fair amount of House of Delegates races that won't have a primary in June.
12:45.77
Sam Shirazi
There will be some that that do have primaries, and obviously I'll go over that in another episode. I'm still waiting on the final list of primaries, which the Department of Elections will put out, but I'm guessing the majority of House of Delegates districts will not have a primary. So it's actually going to be the minority of districts that will have primaries, and that's because – incumbents A lot of them are in safe districts. They haven't faced primary challengers.
13:10.36
Sam Shirazi
And then the people who are running against them often, especially if it's a safe red or blue district, there isn't going to be a lot of people who want to run. And so there might not be a primary.
13:21.18
Sam Shirazi
Long story short, we'll have to wait and see what's going on with the House of Delegates. I'll obviously do an episode on the House of Delegates primaries once the final list of candidates who will appear on the primary ballot comes out.
13:33.88
Sam Shirazi
Okay. I wanted to just pivot a little bit and talk about one other thing before I wrap this episode up, and that is about the Republicans' chances this year. As you can tell, I've kind of taken the view that things are not going super great right now for the Republicans in Virginia.
13:51.01
Sam Shirazi
few reasons for that, obviously the firing of federal workers and their continued restructuring of the federal government – The name of this podcast is Federal Fallout. A lot of the premise of the podcast has been that that is going to have an impact in Virginia.
14:05.37
Sam Shirazi
So you have that. And then... This week, we also saw what President Trump called Liberation Day with an announcement that there was going to be a lot of tariffs.
14:16.81
Sam Shirazi
The stock market was not super pleased with that and stocks were down and there was a lot of turmoil in the financial markets. And a lot of companies are starting to get nervous because of the risk that that could lead to an economic downturn.
14:31.24
Sam Shirazi
And so that is also not in the background, and it is not necessarily great news for Virginia Republicans that people are also getting nervous about the overall economy while the Virginia economy is being delta blow by what DOGE is doing in DC. So there's a lot going on right now for Virginia Republicans.
14:53.29
Sam Shirazi
Now, having said all that, I don't want to pretend like the race is over. There's no chance that they could win. And so I did want to just talk a little bit and think through, you know, how they could potentially make a comeback in this race.
15:06.62
Sam Shirazi
I think one possibility is that DOGE wraps up its work. There have been reports that at the end of May, when Elon Musk's temporary employment with the federal government comes to an end, he may move aside.
15:19.60
Sam Shirazi
And there's a world where DOGE kind of does its thing and there's some restructuring in the federal government. And then that's kind of the end of it. And everyone moves on. So while it's a big story right now, maybe by November, it's not as big of a deal.
15:33.52
Sam Shirazi
That's possible. I think the danger in that is that obviously... The people who are affected, if you were laid off, you're still going to be probably upset about that in November. And the fact that the project might have ended is not really going to be that much comfort to you. So I'm not sure how much of a change game changer that would be for the Virginia Republicans, but it's something that could take it out of the news. And in theory, the less that there is news about layoffs of federal workers, the better it would be for Virginia Republicans.
16:03.89
Sam Shirazi
And I think the tariffs are tricky because right now they're causing a lot of havoc in the financial markets. Again, it's possible that either of the markets just take the take the tariff but the hit right now and then they kind of go on and and the economy continues. It's also possible. I think one of the reasons the stock market is a little bit in flux right now is people don't know what's the end game because on the one hand, President Trump seems really serious about these tariffs and he has always wanted to do tariffs and this is his chance to do tariffs.
16:35.83
Sam Shirazi
But on the other hand, you're also seeing hearing some of conflicting things like, well, these tariffs are just being used as a negotiating position and I think there's a hope that maybe – Countries will come and make deals with President Trump and then he'll lower the tariffs. And so in the long run, the tariffs aren't really going to be a huge deal because it's just going to cause some changes to some of the trading relationships and some of the rules between the U.S. s and other countries.
17:03.15
Sam Shirazi
But it's not going to fundamentally cause a huge shift in things. And again, i think that's a really open question. It's hard to know right now. I think the markets are starting to realize that maybe President Trump is serious about the tariffs. And I think some of the losses recently have been because the markets are coming to that realization. There was a hope that maybe and this was more of a negotiating tactic or that it wouldn't cause that big of an impact to the economy.
17:28.59
Sam Shirazi
think now we're seeing that it is going to have an impact on the economy. The question is, Is the impact in April and then things kind of recalibrate and everyone continues on and then the economy is pretty much okay in November? Or is this really kind of a long-term readjustment of the U.S. economy?
17:47.70
Sam Shirazi
It may cause short-term recession while things change. It's hard to know. Obviously, that's going to be one of those things that is going to be in the background of the Virginia governor's race.
17:58.54
Sam Shirazi
And so what are some of the issues that the Virginia Republicans are going to go be running on this year? And I think it's a little bit scattered. So sometimes you'll see them post about immigration. Sometimes you'll see them post about trans issues. Sometimes you'll see them post about COVID.
18:12.37
Sam Shirazi
Sometimes it's about President Biden. And so you have all these different things that the Virginia Republicans are throwing out there to just see what sticks.
18:24.83
Sam Shirazi
And I get it from a political standpoint that you're you're obviously trying to focus on other things, but I just don't know how much it's going to break through in a way that will connect to voters because obviously the Republicans had a fair amount of success when former President Biden was in office, but it's always easier to be in opposition. And now that the Republicans are in power in DC, they have a record they have to defend and
18:49.79
Sam Shirazi
I think posting about all these other things, while I get it, you're trying to fire up your base. I'm not sure how much that's going to resonate with voters in the middle who are expecting Republicans to be in charge of things and take some responsibility for some of the things that are going on.
19:04.86
Sam Shirazi
But I also wanted to to say that there is a universe where let's say Governor Youngkin gets really involved in the race this year, or maybe Elon Musk decides to donate a lot of money. Maybe he steps back after what happened in Wisconsin and isn't the face of the Republican Party, but he still is giving his money to the Republicans. And while obviously the Democrats will tie up try to tie the money to Musk, it's a little bit harder if he stays off the campaign trail to make the race about Elon Musk.
19:34.72
Sam Shirazi
And then you can see President Trump coming in, maybe campaigning in rural areas. And so the Republicans find a way to get their base excited and they turn out. And that'll at least you know put them in contention.
19:48.20
Sam Shirazi
I think the big question or the issue for the Republicans is if you look at 2021, things were going well for them. They basically had the political winds at their back. In the summer, there was the withdrawal from Afghanistan and all the issues that happened there.
20:03.82
Sam Shirazi
There was COVID. People were getting tired of all the COVID restrictions and the masks, and the Republicans really were able to use that energy. And then you had Governor Youngkin running He had his own money and he was getting a lot of support. And so you had a really good environment for Republicans in 2021.
20:21.38
Sam Shirazi
And still he only won by two, even though the Republicans had everything going for them in 2021. and He was able to reach independent voters and more moderate voters and convince them to vote for the Republicans.
20:35.42
Sam Shirazi
And the question is, like, how do the Republicans do that this year? and i mean, obviously, they're going to be talking about the issues they like to talk about immigration, crime, immigration. is And, you know, I'm sure that there will be some people who support that, their positions on those things.
20:50.72
Sam Shirazi
Question is become it becomes, is is this the year where they're going to be able to get enough moderate voters to come out and to get the rural turnout that they're able to win like they did 2021, which it was a close election, even with all the things going right for them in 2021?
21:08.83
Sam Shirazi
I wish we can get a good high quality poll of the Virginia governor's race. I think it's been a while since we've gotten a poll and i just it would be nice to get a little bit of a pulse check.
21:18.74
Sam Shirazi
to see where things are. i think the last polling had showed former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger up by a little bit. We can kind of see if shes that lead has grown. Is it roughly where it was?
21:31.80
Sam Shirazi
And I think that would be helpful. Obviously, we just have to wait for the next poll to come out. But i do I do think it's a valid question to just think about you know what is the coalition that Republicans are going to put together to get to roughly 50% to win this race?
21:48.18
Sam Shirazi
And you know I guess the one reason I should try to tampen down some expectations for Democrats, I think I remember in 2021 around this time, around this time So I remember 2021 around this time when there were some suggestions, well, maybe Republicans are going to have a shot in Virginia in 2021.
22:07.03
Sam Shirazi
And a lot of people kind of batted that down. No, Virginia is a blue state. Biden just won Virginia by 10 points. And obviously by November, the Republicans were able to turn things around and then they won that race in 2021.
22:21.14
Sam Shirazi
So I don't want to pretend like that's impossible. But again, what's the difference between 2021 and 2025?
22:28.53
Sam Shirazi
2021, we had a Democratic president. 2025, obviously, we're Republican president. And so i I think we'll just have to see if that historical pattern of the party that's not in the White House just gets a big boost in the Virginia governor's race, and that's just too hard to overcome.
22:42.20
Sam Shirazi
I don't want to belabor the point. I think we'll just have to to wait and see. But it's going to be an interesting year this year in Virginia. i will try to talk about the general election every once in a while, but I did want to just draw people's attention to the primary. It will be on June 17th.
23:00.33
Sam Shirazi
Early voting starts soon, about a month away. Early May will be the start of early voting in Virginia. So really not that far away.
23:09.55
Sam Shirazi
I think the primary this year in Virginia is going to be really important and it's not going to get the same amount of attention as the general election and the governor's race, but I do think it's really important. So follow along. Next few episodes, we'll be talking about different aspects of the primary. And so I appreciate everyone listening.
23:25.97
Sam Shirazi
I will join you next week on Federal Fallout.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.71
Sam Shirazi
Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This is a special bonus episode that will look at the Wisconsin Supreme Court race and what it means for Virginia this November.
00:16.38
Sam Shirazi
So it was a really crazy race in Wisconsin for the Supreme Court election there. Wisconsin always has really competitive elections, and this was no exception. Both sides came in. They spent a lot of money.
00:29.41
Sam Shirazi
They really emphasize this seat on the Supreme Court because it would decide the balance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Currently, there's a four to three liberal majority. And after the election, there will continue to be a four to three liberal majority because the candidate that the Democrats backed for the Wisconsin Supreme Court won that election, it looks like between nine and 10 points.
00:52.21
Sam Shirazi
And this was a a really big win for Democrats in Wisconsin because obviously Both sides had invested a lot in this race, but also Elon Musk had come in and he had spent a lot of money to try to help the Republicans flip this state Supreme Court seat, but they weren't able to do that.
01:11.67
Sam Shirazi
And overall, it was just a really good night for Democrats. There were two special elections in Florida in deep red seats. And while Democrats didn't win those elections, They did a lot better than they did in 2024.
01:26.02
Sam Shirazi
So really across the board, we're seeing a really strong environment right now for Democrats. And I think there's a combination of factors. One of them is just the reality that anytime a party comes into power, the opposition party tends to gain both with their own base that gets fired up because of what's going on in Washington, but also because people start moving over to the other side because they might not be happy what with what the ruling party is doing.
01:52.94
Sam Shirazi
And then there's also the reality that Democrats now are doing really well with with what are called high propensity voters. So high propensity voters are those voters who always come out, vote in every election. Doesn't matter if it's a school board, or they will vote in every single election. Typically those voters skew to be more college educated, wealthier voters. And those voters have during the Trump era really become a lot more democratic.
02:19.95
Sam Shirazi
The Republican coalition has become what's known more as low propensity voters. So those are voters that typically don't vote a whole lot other than for president. And President Trump was able to bring them out in 2024.
02:34.12
Sam Shirazi
But the downside for Republicans is those voters do not always show up in these elections that are not presidential elections. Obviously, this Wisconsin Supreme Court race was in April right after the presidential election.
02:48.61
Sam Shirazi
and it was just difficult for the Republicans to get out their base. And I think that was one thing that Elon Musk was trying to do. He was trying to come in and really reach those voters that are hard to reach.
02:59.65
Sam Shirazi
But the reality is, it seems like really President Trump is the only one who's able to turn out those voters, and he can really only do them for presidential elections. And so I think that there was a lot going on in Wisconsin. And you know obviously, I'm not an expert in Wisconsin, but But clearly the Democrats had a good night.
03:19.22
Sam Shirazi
And so the question becomes, what does all this mean for Virginia? So, I mean, it it's hard to extrapolate to November because this was one election in one state in April.
03:32.98
Sam Shirazi
But I think one thing to keep in mind is the turnout was relatively high in this election. I think some of the observers said that it was going to be close to midterm level turnout. And when you're seeing that level of turnout, the Democrats are still able to win.
03:48.00
Sam Shirazi
think the Republicans have to ask themselves, you know, what's going to happen in November in Virginia. And, you know, realistically, most people think that Democrats started off with an advantage just because they were not in the White House. and And I've talked about it before. The party that's not in the White House typically does well in Virginia elections. So I think most people would say that Democrats started off with that advantage.
04:12.72
Sam Shirazi
And you know Given that Virginia governor's races are almost always competitive, even if the Democrats have an advantage, I think most people also said that it was still going to be a competitive race this year in Virginia.
04:25.02
Sam Shirazi
I think once the inauguration happened and the scale of what President Trump and Elon Musk were are going to do in terms of Doge and the restructuring of the federal government, the laying off of workers, cutting federal funds,
04:40.19
Sam Shirazi
I think you know most observers quickly realize that obviously Virginia is dependent on federal jobs and federal money. And so it has to have an impact on what's going on on the campaign trail in Virginia, and it's going to have an impact on the election.
04:56.29
Sam Shirazi
the The question now becomes, you know is this a race where the Republicans are in a tough spot, but they might be able to to find a way to win? Or is this getting to the point where there's not a whole lot the Republicans can do to win this election in 2025.
05:13.39
Sam Shirazi
twenty twenty five Now, obviously, it's very early. There isn't a whole lot of data in terms of polling. So I don't want to draw big conclusions. I don't want to say, you know, Democrats are definitely going to win in Virginia this year. But I think the risk for the Republicans is, you know, the perception is things are getting pretty dicey for them. And while it seems like the election is a is a long way off,
05:34.22
Sam Shirazi
We really aren't that far from Election Day. Election Day is seven months away. Early voting in Virginia will start in late September. So that is not an eternity away. and And once people have kind of a perception of how things are going, it's hard to turn around the ship and kind of right the ship for the Republicans. And so the question they have to ask themselves is, you know, what is their strategy going into November to try to win this race? Because the danger for them is it just keeps slipping away.
06:04.24
Sam Shirazi
and And there's a few examples of this happening in recent Virginia history. Like I said, most Virginia elections end up being pretty close, but I think the two exceptions were 2009 and 2017. So 2009, the economy was really struggling.
06:19.93
Sam Shirazi
Virginia Republicans really were had a lot of momentum and there was really nothing the Democrats could win could can do to win that race in 2009. And nine and the democrat and excuse me the Republicans had a huge win in two thousand and nine in virginia 2017 was a little bit similar dynamic, I'd say, to 2025 in Wisconsin. In 2017, Democrats were really fired up because of the first Trump administration.
06:46.98
Sam Shirazi
and while it seemed close for most of that campaign, at the end, the Democrats really just got a big win and were able to win that race by about nine points.
06:56.91
Sam Shirazi
And so I think there's a risk for the Virginia Republicans that this could be a repeat of 2017 if there isn't some sort of change game changing moment.
07:07.12
Sam Shirazi
and And I should just caveat all that by saying, look, the reality is seven months is not a huge amount of time, but there's an old adage that a week is a long time in politics. So there's a lot that can still happen.
07:19.07
Sam Shirazi
I don't want to make it seem like this is not going to be a competitive election in Virginia. I think there are a lot of different factors you have to look at. You have to look at obviously Virginia being a more competitive state at for state elections versus federal elections. You have to look at polarization. a lot of voters just end up voting for their, the red team or the blue team. And it's hard to persuade a lot of voters to change their minds. You have to look at the possibility that Elon Musk can come in and spend a lot of money in Virginia. Although as we saw in Wisconsin, that didn't really make too much of a difference. And if anything,
07:57.13
Sam Shirazi
the Wisconsin Democrats were really able to use Elon Musk as a foil and to tie the Republican candidate for spring the state Supreme Court to Elon Musk and were able to you know energize their voters by going after Elon Musk. So it's kind of a question mark how much of impact he could have in Virginia.
08:17.53
Sam Shirazi
But regardless, obviously, he has a lot of money. And if he wanted to come in, he could he could come in. So those are all things that we have to think about when it comes to Virginia that it's not a given that Democrats are going to win and they're going to have a huge win.
08:32.96
Sam Shirazi
But I think with each day, as things are kind of going the way they're going, the odds of a kind of decent democratic victory in Virginia go up. And there has to be some sort of game changing moment at some point, if the Republicans really want to get back into this thing, because the reality is it's unlikely that Democrats are going to have a primary for governor and,
08:55.75
Sam Shirazi
it's you know it's almost certain that former congresswoman Abigail Spanberger is going to be the democratic nominee we'll see if the republicans have a primary we'll find out on tuesday on thursday with the filing deadline and we'll see if the two candidates who are trying to get on the ballot dave larock and amanda chase are able to get the 10 000 required signatures to get on the ballot but know democratic nominee is has been set for a while she's been fundraising for a while And she's got her message going. She's been opposing, former Congresswoman Spanberger has been opposing what's been going on in DC with Elon Musk and Doge and the attempts to fire federal workers.
09:38.90
Sam Shirazi
And so that's a pretty clear message. And the Republicans have not been able to come up with a kind coherent response other than to say that it's just basically necessary to have some of these workers laid off.
09:51.29
Sam Shirazi
And so, you know, I, I think it's it's going to be tough for the Virginia Republicans, to be honest. Now, having said all that, I do want to have some humility because i think November of 2024 taught a lot of people, particularly Democrats, that the reality is, you know, there there are a lot of voters that support Donald Trump. There are a lot of voters who believe in kind of that vision of America. And it's easy when you're in more of a bubble in certain areas to think, you know, that's how everyone in the country thinks and and look how how great the Democrats are doing in these elections. And obviously Democrats are going to continue winning and nothing is determined politics. Politics tends to surprise me. So I don't, I don't want to make it seem like there's no way the Republicans have a chance this year in Virginia.
10:45.78
Sam Shirazi
Having said all that, I mean, i think the big difference between November 2025 and November 2024 is going to be that these low propensity Trump voters, I don't know if they're going to necessarily come out for the Republicans.
11:00.98
Sam Shirazi
It's still an open question. i will say we do have an example from 2021 when when Governor Youngkin was able to win that election and and his campaign was able to turn out a lot of those people, particularly in rural areas.
11:15.64
Sam Shirazi
And that was kind of part of his secret to success in 2021 was he did relatively better in the suburbs, but he was able to really juice turnout in the rural areas. So in theory, the Republicans could do something similar like that in Virginia, where they basically juice the turnout in rural areas, keep the margins relatively close in suburban areas, and then, you know, get a narrow victory like Governor Youngkin did in 2021.
11:43.57
Sam Shirazi
You know, the issue is 2021 was a very different environment. Obviously, we had a Democratic president. We had kind of COVID fatigue at that point. i think it's going to be hard to see the Republicans cutting the margins in the suburbs right now. It could happen, but it it just doesn't seem like the environment where that would happen.
12:02.20
Sam Shirazi
you know Obviously, if President Trump comes in and campaigns or Elon Musk comes in and spends a lot of money, it's possible the rural areas in Virginia will have strong turnout and the Republicans can count on that. But it's also possible those areas will not have a lot of turnout because it's an off-year election and Democrats will get an even bigger win because the turnout just isn't there for the Republicans. So a lot of unknowns. I wanted to just do this podcast to give you some of my thoughts after the Wisconsin elections. And and I think it's easy to overread one election results.
12:36.44
Sam Shirazi
But the reality is both parties were looking at Wisconsin because it was the first big statewide contest, a lot of voters showing up. And they gave a pretty clear answer in Wisconsin with the Democrats winning the state Supreme Court race.
12:52.52
Sam Shirazi
And so I'll be curious to see if there's any sort of recalibration on the part of the Virginia Republicans. I think obviously Virginia Democrats are going to be happy. They're going to just kind of chug along, do their plan of opposing the changes to the federal government, which they seem to think is going to work, obviously, given how much Virginia is dependent on the federal government.
13:14.56
Sam Shirazi
And I guess the last thing I should note, I didn't want to spend too much time on the Florida special election because... The Democrats didn't end up winning those. And, and you know, obviously Florida is is a different political environment than Virginia.
13:28.47
Sam Shirazi
But there were two separate elections, and one of them was more in the Daytona Beach area, and then one of them was more in the Pensacola area. And the Democrats did relatively well in the Pensacola area, which is obviously home to a large military installation.
13:46.100
Sam Shirazi
lot of federal workers, both civilian and military, who are dependent on the federal government for their jobs and, or even if they weren't laid off, would still be affected by some of the changes that are going on in DC.
13:59.97
Sam Shirazi
And so I thought it was interesting that Democrats did pretty well in Pensacola military area. And, you know, you have to think, is that also going to happen in Hampton Roads?
14:11.62
Sam Shirazi
I think the Virginia Republicans are often describing the federal workers as just being in Northern Virginia. You know, Republicans don't do well in Northern Virginia anyway, so the changes to the federal government aren't going to be a big deal because most of the people affected are in Northern Virginia and they're already going to vote for the Democrats.
14:28.40
Sam Shirazi
I think the danger in that thinking is that if military the military workers, either a civilian or uniform military, start getting nervous about maybe losing their jobs or maybe they're unhappy with some of the things that are happening and happening in D.C.,
14:45.04
Sam Shirazi
they may also turn to the Democrats. And typically, more military-aligned voters historically have been more Republican, but we have seen times when they've swung towards the Democrats. And Hampton Roads is known for being a real swing swing area where one election will vote for Democrats, the next election will vote for Republicans, and I'll just kind of keep going back and forth.
15:05.33
Sam Shirazi
And obviously, there are some competitive House of Delegates races in Hampton Roads. And so, you know, if if the issue with the federal workers reaches Hampton Roads, I think the Republicans are going to be in even more danger than just the issues they're already having in Northern Virginia. So anyways, lots of things going on with these special elections. I will probably still talk about it during the regular podcast, which will come out Saturday morning. But I did want to talk about it right now because obviously it's on people's minds. And then also on Thursday will be the filing deadline. So I think there's going to be a lot of
15:39.78
Sam Shirazi
things that we can talk about with the filing deadline and potential primaries. And I also wanted to talk about the Democratic primary some more, given the results in Wisconsin. So anyways, exciting times in Virginia elections.
15:53.24
Sam Shirazi
keep Keep paying attention. And I hope that you will listen to the podcast that will come out on Saturday morning. And thanks, everyone, for listening. And I will see you next time on Federal Fallout.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com -
00:00.77
Sam Shirazi
Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode we will look at the most competitive races in the Virginia House of Delegates this year.
00:12.77
Sam Shirazi
The main focus will be a preview of the general election. I will do a separate episode about the primaries in the Virginia House of Delegates after the filing deadline passes. So, why should you care about the Virginia House of Delegates elections in Virginia?
00:27.52
Sam Shirazi
Well, here is a fun fact. If Democrats flip the governor's mansion this year in Virginia, it will be the first time an incoming Democratic governor will have a trifecta since 1989 when Doug Wilder won.
00:41.41
Sam Shirazi
So a trifecta means that the Democrats have the governor's mansion, they have the state Senate, and they have the House of Delegates. And so right off the bat, whoever is it is the governor, if they're a Democrat, most likely at this point, it looks like the nominee will be former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, if she gets elected, she will be able to pass bills very quickly because the Democrats have the State Senate, they have the House of Delegates.
01:04.89
Sam Shirazi
She can send her priorities over to the General Assembly and they can work on them. The only time the Democrats have had a trifecta since Doug Wilder was elected was a brief period between 2019 and 2021 when Northam had And when ralph northam had one and Just keep in mind, he didn't come in with a trifecta. That was after the Democrats won in 2019.
01:26.86
Sam Shirazi
So there was only a two-year period in the last 35-plus years where the Democrats have had a trifecta in Virginia. And one of the big problems Governor Youngkin faced while he was governor is that he never had a private trifecta.
01:40.09
Sam Shirazi
And so the Democrats were able to block his bills, and he wasn't able to pass much of his legislative agenda. So in addition, besides being able to pass bills, which is obviously very important, if Democrats win the House of Delegates this year in Virginia, they can place three constitutional amendments on the ballot next year for the voters to decide on amendments and changes to the Virginia Constitution. And the three amendments would be one on reproductive rights, one on marriage equality, and one on
02:11.86
Sam Shirazi
Restoring voting rights to people after they're released from prison serving a felony sentence. Currently, Virginia is one of the only states that bars a prisoner, if someone convicted of felony for the rest of their lives from voting. Unless the governor restores it, the amendment would automatically restore rights once someone is finished with their sentence. So there's a lot on the line, not just...
02:34.47
Sam Shirazi
for the next governor that's coming in, but really for the Virginia Constitution, if those ballots get on the, and if those amendments get on the ballot, I mean, that has long-term implications and it's very difficult to amend the Virginia Constitution. So I think the Virginia House Delegates doesn't get a lot of attention or you know there's some talk that Democrats might be able to pick up seats, but no one really talks about the stakes and why it's important.
02:58.79
Sam Shirazi
for the Virginia House Delegates elections to happen and and what they mean in the grand scheme of things. So I think it's important to not just focus on the horse race, even though most of this podcast is going to be looking at the horse race and who's up, who's down, which districts look competitive.
03:14.57
Sam Shirazi
I did want to mention that you know there are real things on the line and real policies that will be affected by who's elected in the Virginia House of Elections. Having said that, let's turn to the current lay of the land because I know people want to know what are the districts that are really going to be competitive this year.
03:30.30
Sam Shirazi
And so to keep in mind, all 100 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates are up for election. And currently Democrats have a 51-49 majority. But only a handful of those seats will be competitive.
03:44.02
Sam Shirazi
And there are currently eight seats that but former Vice President Harris won in 2024 that Republicans currently hold. And obviously, Democrats are going to be on the offense trying to potentially flip those eight seats.
03:57.20
Sam Shirazi
I think realistically, at this point, there are a few Democratic seats that might be competitive, and I'll talk about them. But I think given the environment, where the party out of the White House typically does well in Virginia elections and some of the issues we've talked about with the firing of federal workers, I think there's a sense that Democrats start off with an advantage in the House of Delegates elections and that if anything, they have the opportunity to flip some seats and we'll we'll talk about which seats might be in play.
04:24.35
Sam Shirazi
Having said that, it's not a given that Democrats will win all the Harris seats that former Vice President Harris won in 2024, or even that they'll flip the majority of them. I think there's a lot of factors you have to look at.
04:36.94
Sam Shirazi
You have to look at the fact that Virginia is more Democratic-leaning in federal elections than state elections. So I think people are more likely to vote for Republicans for state elections in Virginia as as compared to federal elections.
04:49.75
Sam Shirazi
Most of the seats that are competitive have incumbent Republicans who've won before. So that's always more difficult to defeat an incumbent. And there's always the possibility of ticket splitting. So there's something called you know ancestral Republican areas, typically in the suburbs where people used to vote for Republicans.
05:05.76
Sam Shirazi
Maybe they didn't love that Donald Trump was a Republican nominee. They might might not have voted for Donald Trump for president in 2024, but for local offices or for state offices, they would be willing to vote for a Republican.
05:19.55
Sam Shirazi
So all that is to say, like when you see the Harris number, I wouldn't kind of fixate on it. The fact that Harris won a district doesn't automatically mean that the Democrats are going win it this year.
05:30.20
Sam Shirazi
And we saw that in twenty twenty three where there were a lot of districts that former President Biden won in 2020 that the Democrats weren't able to win. So just wanted to keep that in mind as we go through these districts.
05:43.64
Sam Shirazi
So let's do a deep dive into the most competitive districts. And I'll kind of go in the order of what I think is more competitive to least competitive. Although, you know, honestly, it's hard to tell right now in some of these districts, we don't necessarily know who the Democratic nominee is going to be yet.
06:01.04
Sam Shirazi
So I will start off and and I'm starting off with the seats currently held by Republicans. I will kind of briefly talk about a few Democratic held seats at the end, but I really do think most of the competitive seats are going to be on the Republican side and they're going to have a lot of defense to do, even though they're already in the minority.
06:20.01
Sam Shirazi
So let's begin with what I think is probably the most likely seat to flip in 2025. And that is House District 57 in Western Henrico and Eastern Goochland.
06:34.35
Sam Shirazi
And so the current incumbent is Republican David Owen. He won that seat in 2023 by about two points. And the thing that I think most people think, the reason why most people think that this is gonna be a pretty competitive seat is the fact that former Vice President Harris won the district by almost nine points.
06:59.14
Sam Shirazi
And so we're talking about Richmond suburbs, very quickly moving towards the Democrats. This was a district that used to be much more friendly to the Republicans, but every cycle is becoming more and more friendly to the Democrats to the point that the Democrats, you know, generally 2024 was not a great year, but in this district, Vice President Harris actually did better than President Biden in 2020. So she improved on President Biden's performance, even though she did four points worse in Virginia overall. So it just gives you a sense of how much more democratic the seat has become
07:32.63
Sam Shirazi
And a couple things to keep in mind. I just wanted to mention that in 2023, this district was the one where Susanna Gibson ran. And obviously there was a story that came out about her doing some online videos that were consensual with her husband that were meant to be private, but eventually...
07:51.67
Sam Shirazi
The recordings were made of them and they were released. And so obviously that was a big story. I think a lot of people kind of fixate on that story. And, you know, that's the reason the Democrats lost the seat.
08:02.43
Sam Shirazi
I think it's very hard to know. It ended up being a pretty close election. And, you know, you never know when something like that comes out, like, it could have been that the seat was going to be close regardless and and she may have lost some voters here but she gained other voters who were sympathetic to she was what she was going through. So long story short, I think there were a lot of structural issues with the district.
08:26.16
Sam Shirazi
The fact that part of the district is in eastern Goochland, which is a very republican area, it kind of outweighed the fact that most of the district in Henrico County was more democratic. So I think it was a it was going to be a tough seat for the Democrats to win in 2023. Now, having said that, I think the district has come, even in these two years, a long way particularly eastern Goochland. So Goochland County is like a really red county.
08:52.67
Sam Shirazi
in the Richmond suburbs, but every cycle it's becoming a little less Republican. And I think it's just gotten to the point where this cycle, if it's a good year for Democrats statewide, I mean, it's gonna be hard for the Republicans to hold this seat, particularly because if former Congresswoman Spanberger is the Democratic nominee. She comes from this area in Western Henrico, so you think she's going to be doing pretty well at the top of the ticket.
09:16.73
Sam Shirazi
And it's you know if if she carries the district by, let's say, five points, which is being you know pretty cautious, she's likely going to carry the district by more than five points. But even five points, it's hard to see ticket splitting to the extent that David Owen is going to be able to win the seat. So Anyways, long story short, I think that this district, House District of East 57, is the one that's most likely to flip.
09:41.46
Sam Shirazi
There are two Democrats currently running. We'll see who ends up winning the primary. I'll talk about that in a different episode. But I just wanted to know that there could be a Democratic primary in this district.
09:52.78
Sam Shirazi
so let's move on to the next district, which is also in the Richmond suburbs in Chesterfield and Hopewell, House District 75. The incumbent is Republican Carrie Conyer. And I think the Republicans feel that she's a pretty strong incumbent and has a good brand in the area. So they're hoping that she might be able to...
10:10.81
Sam Shirazi
Hold on to the seat, even though Vice President Harris won this seat by about six points in 2024. Conyer carried the district by six points when she ran in 2023. So you see how there was a lot of ticket splitting, probably a lot of decent amount of folks who came out and voted for Carrie Conyer in 2023.
10:30.24
Sam Shirazi
Some of them ended up voting for Vice President Harris. Obviously, Democrats strategy is to just get those people to become straight ticket Democratic voters. Carrie Conyers is going to hope that she can win some of those people back, even if they voted for Vice President Harris.
10:44.34
Sam Shirazi
The district's interesting. So it has a pretty sizable African-American population. It's about one third African-American. Obviously, Democrats need to get out those voters. That's the bulk of the Democratic base.
10:55.56
Sam Shirazi
I think the thing that that is interesting is there is also a pretty hefty suburban portion of the district. And those voters are really moving away from the Republicans and towards the Democrats, similar to House District 57.
11:10.30
Sam Shirazi
Another House District 75 is in the Richmond suburbs. And the question becomes, you know, are those voters just abandoning the Republicans in the state elections because they're frustrated by what's going on in D.C.? Or do they kind of make a difference and say, well, we may not like what President Trump's doing, but we like our local delegate.
11:30.01
Sam Shirazi
I mean, obviously the Republicans are hoping there'll be some ticket splitting and and people will who voted for Carrie Conyer in the past will vote for her again. Democrats are hoping people will just vote straight ticket.
11:40.79
Sam Shirazi
We'll see. We'll see what ends up happening. I did want to note there's also likely going to be a Democratic primary in this district, so we'll talk it about it at another podcast when I'm going over the House of Delegates primaries.
11:53.64
Sam Shirazi
Okay. Let's move on to a district that is in primarily Williamsburg area. So this is House District 71. seventy one So it's basically Williamsburg and some of the suburbs of Williamsburg.
12:08.87
Sam Shirazi
And in 2024, former Vice President Harris carried the district by about four and a half points. In 2023, the current incumbent Republican, Amanda Batten, won the district by about two points. And I think in 2023, that was a lot closer than people had expected.
12:27.78
Sam Shirazi
So Amanda Batten is another incumbent where the Republicans think that she has a good local brand and she's able to win some voters who might vote Democratic for president. She might be able to convince them to vote for her.
12:38.85
Sam Shirazi
But I think the fact that she only won by 2% 2020,
12:42.82
Sam Shirazi
2023 was interesting because that wasn't necessarily considered a top tier battleground in 2023. But obviously this year with the presidential number and also the 2023 number, House District 71 will be a top tier battleground.
12:56.29
Sam Shirazi
And the Democrat that lost in 2023, her name's Jessica Anderson. She's running again in 2025. twenty twenty five So, you know, Democrats, a lot of their base will be college students and other people in Williamsburg, who are kind of more of a college town type vibe area, that's who they need to get out.
13:17.14
Sam Shirazi
Amanda Batten, she's going to focus on the rural parts of the district, which are pretty red, and then she'll have to win over some of the suburban voters who may have voted for Vice President Harris, but she's going to hope that they're going to, even if they vote for former Congressman Spanberger, they might split their ticket. So again, a district where she's hoping there might be some ticket splitting and the Republicans are hoping that their incumbent, Amanda Batten, would it be able to win in this district.
13:43.19
Sam Shirazi
Okay, so we will move on to another district with an incumbent Republican. This is House District 82. So this is primarily based in Petersburg and some of the rural areas surrounding Petersburg.
13:56.09
Sam Shirazi
The incumbent is Kim Taylor. in 2021 then she was reelected in twenty twenty one and then she was reelected in 2023, in a very close election, she won by just 78 votes after a recount.
14:12.06
Sam Shirazi
And the Democrat who ran against her in 2023, Kimberly Pope Adams, is running again in 2025. twenty twenty five So another race where we're seeing a rematch.
14:23.70
Sam Shirazi
You'll notice that a few of these races, there's rematches from 2025, and there's not going to be a primary in either this district or the 71st district. So House District 82, Vice President Harris won it by about 4%.
14:39.47
Sam Shirazi
And the dynamics of this district are interesting. So you have Petersburg, which is known to be a a area with more African American voters. So that's the base of the Democratic Party in this district.
14:51.92
Sam Shirazi
And then the rural areas surrounding Petersburg, are much more working class white voters, which is more of the base of the Republican Party. So you you really kind of see this dynamic where it's it depends on which party is able to turn out their voters.
15:03.83
Sam Shirazi
I think the Republicans are feeling okay about this district because one, they think Kim Taylor is a pretty strong incumbent. And then two, this district, unlike some of most of the other districts we're going to be talking about, has been moving towards the Republicans. So that Republicans are gaining with white working class voters and they're making you know marginal gains, I would say with African American voters. So they, and this is a more working class district. So I think the Republicans feel this is the type of district we can win in the Trump era. It's not some of these,
15:31.72
Sam Shirazi
suburban districts that are really more well off that the Democrats are doing well in. This is more of a traditional working class district. I think we'll just have to see which party is able to turn out their voters.
15:45.89
Sam Shirazi
I guess the one thing I should note about this district is that there are a decent amount of military installations in and around the district. So I think The fact that some of the workers might be in the district might be affected.
15:59.76
Sam Shirazi
That's something that the Democrats would be able to use. And we'll see if Kimberly Pope Adams is able to win this time in this district with a rematch against Kim Taylor. Okay, let's move on to House District 89. This is in Hampton Roads based in Suffolk and Chesapeake.
16:17.99
Sam Shirazi
This is one of the few districts where a Republican is retiring. So incumbent Republican delegate Baxter Ennis is retiring. He won by 2% in 2023, but the Vice President Harris, former Vice President Harris, was able to win the district in 2024 by about three points.
16:35.65
Sam Shirazi
So again, type of district that's a little bit more working class, has a decent African-American population. There are a few Democrats running, so we'll see if there's a primary and who might win the primary.
16:46.58
Sam Shirazi
And there's also likely going to be a primary on the Republican side, so we can talk about those dynamics in another episode. but Again, it just depends how much of a swing there is against the Republicans based on some of the changes to the federal government and Hampton Roads area, military, they're going to be affected by some of the changes that are going on in D.C. So another district that I think is going to be interesting to watch how things shake out there.
17:14.61
Sam Shirazi
Okay, so all the districts I've talked about so far, I would say those are probably the top, top tier battlegrounds. Not to say that there aren't other districts that are going to be competitive and are going to be battlegrounds and and that could flip, but those are the real top ones.
17:29.48
Sam Shirazi
The next districts I'm going to talk about are more reach districts. And it a lot depends on who the candidates are and how much the parties end up investing in these races. So I will start with House District 86.
17:44.83
Sam Shirazi
So this is in Hampton and Pocosin in Hampton Roads. The current delegate is Republican A.C. Cardoza, and he won by a lot in 2023. He won by almost 13%, but there was a big swing in 2024. Democrats carried this district by about one point, or former Vice President Harris carried the district by about one point.
18:06.90
Sam Shirazi
And part of the difference in those numbers is because the district has a decent African-American population, I think, There was more turnout in a presidential year, and that helped the Democrats in this district in 2024. AC Cardozo also benefited in 2023 by the fact there was a really competitive state Senate seat in part of the district. And so that turn that led to a lot of Republican turnout.
18:30.33
Sam Shirazi
So just keep that in mind. I don't know how competitive this will be. It really just depends on... One, can Democrats turn out African-American voters in this district? And two, is there any sort of backlash to some of the changes to the federal government? And do we see that in Hampton Roads? So we'll see how competitive this race is.
18:50.20
Sam Shirazi
i did want to talk about another district in the Richmond suburbs. So this is House District 73. This is in Chesterfield. And I think a lot of people were surprised by this district specifically because it really...
19:05.49
Sam Shirazi
Most people did not expect the Democrats to carry this district in 2024. So former Vice President Harris won this district by one point. And that was after in 2023, the current incumbent Republican, Mark Early, won the district by 9% in 2023. So again, we're seeing we're seeing a big swing.
19:23.25
Sam Shirazi
Why? Because Chesterfield is a suburban district and it's just moving towards the Democrats.
19:29.65
Sam Shirazi
It used to be known as known as one of the most Republican counties in Virginia, But in the Trump era has become more democratic.
19:37.36
Sam Shirazi
And this part of Chesterfield, you have more upper income people, college educated voters, they're really swinging towards the Democrats.
19:50.28
Sam Shirazi
Okay, so speaking of suburban districts that have traditionally been Republican, I wanted to talk about House District 64. That is in Middle Stafford County, and this is the first Northern Virginia seat that we're going to be talking about.
20:03.95
Sam Shirazi
The current Republican delegate is Paul Milde, and he won in 2023 by 9%.
20:10.56
Sam Shirazi
In 2024, it was much closer and President Trump won the district by around 2%.
20:15.60
Sam Shirazi
So the reason i I want to talk about this district is Northern Virginia. So if you think about Northern Virginia, that is kind of the epicenter of where a lot of the federal fallout is happening and a lot of federal workers are are affected. And this district in Middle Stafford likely, and don't know the exact numbers, but imagine has a decent amount of federal workers.
20:34.65
Sam Shirazi
So this is a type of district that if we're seeing a big backlash to what's going on in D.C., Even though it's traditionally a Republican district, I think could be in play. And it's really one of those districts to keep an eye on if there's going to be a backlash to what the Republicans are doing in D.C.
20:53.58
Sam Shirazi
All right. I know I'm going through a lot of districts. I will go through the last ones a little bit more quickly just because I think it's not as clear how competitive these are going to be. I think a lot really just depends how big of a backlash there'll be to what's going on in D.C. So I'll talk about a couple Northern Virginia seats.
21:11.68
Sam Shirazi
So there's House District 30. This is in Western Loudoun and Western Falk here. The incumbent Republican delegate is Gary Higgins. He was elected in 2023. The 2024 margin was about Trump plus one.
21:27.99
Sam Shirazi
And this is more of a traditionally Republican part of Loudoun County. But again, Loudoun, Northern Virginia, lot of federal workers. If you're seeing a backlash, this is the type of place where there could be a backlash.
21:40.18
Sam Shirazi
And so we'll just have to wait and see how big of an of a backlash is there to what's going on in D.C. And, you know, as I mentioned, that the title of this podcast is Federal Fallout.
21:50.68
Sam Shirazi
And I think a lot of these districts will will have to see basically how big the federal fallout is to what's going on in D.C.
21:59.76
Sam Shirazi
The last thing I should mention about this district is the Democrat running. His name's John McAuliffe. I don't think he's going to face a primary. He's raised a decent amount of money. And I think if he's able to kind of mobilize voters in Western Loudoun who are maybe affected by what's going on in D.C., he'll have a decent shot in this district, even though it's traditionally been more of a Republican district.
22:22.73
Sam Shirazi
All right. So stick with me. We got another Northern Virginia seat. This is House District 22. And this is in middle Prince William County, which is one of the few remaining, and I would say, traditionally Republican areas of Northern Virginia.
22:37.63
Sam Shirazi
The current delegate is Ian Lovejoy. He won in 2023 by about five and a half points. But the 2024 margin roughly... was roughly Harris plus one.
22:50.38
Sam Shirazi
And so I think this is a type of district that on a kind of good night, again, Democrats would be able to flip. Really depends on are the Republicans having a tough night with what's going on in D.C.? Are federal workers fed up? Are they coming out?
23:07.14
Sam Shirazi
And the one thing to keep in mind with this district is you have former delegate Elizabeth Guzman. She ran for state Senate. And then last year she ran for Congress and she came up short in both those efforts at the primary.
23:22.09
Sam Shirazi
But she's trying to make a comeback and try to win this district that is fairly diverse and has a decent Hispanic population. So we'll see how that goes. Having said that, again, it is a more traditional Republican district.
23:33.66
Sam Shirazi
So I wouldn't assume it's necessarily going to flip, but I do think type of district, if there's a blue wave, could flip in November. Okay, two more Republican districts, then we'll talk about a few Democratic districts.
23:48.34
Sam Shirazi
I wanted to talk about House District 66. This is in Spotsylvania, just south of Fredericksburg. You have Republican Delegate Bobby Oroch. He was elected in 2023 with 11 half However,
24:05.75
Sam Shirazi
however President Trump only won the district by about 2% in 2024. twenty twenty four So you're seeing that this is a district that is traditionally Republican, maybe on for the state elections voted Republican, but for whatever reason, the federal elections is more Democratic and President Trump isn't as popular in this type of district, particularly because there probably are so some federal workers here that are also affected by what's going on. And the Democrats have Nicole Cole, who is a on the Spotsylvania school board. So I think she's an elected official and and would bring her previous experience to the to the campaign trail. So think it could be competitive.
24:48.04
Sam Shirazi
A lot of these districts, it's really hard right now to know because we don't quite have all the information about where the parties are spending their money. I think that's one thing to look at is our party spending here.
25:00.60
Sam Shirazi
and are they allocating their resources to this district versus the other district? you know I know I've talked to about a lot of these districts. A lot also depends on how much of a backlash there is to what's going on in DC. you'll You'll hear me saying it as kind of a broken record, but it really is true because so many of these districts are dependent on federal government for jobs and spending.
25:22.72
Sam Shirazi
Okay, last district that's a Republican held one and is a different district, different part of Virginia. It is House District 41 that's based in Blacksburg and some rural parts of Southwest Virginia. It's really the only competitive seat in Southwest Virginia.
25:39.10
Sam Shirazi
The current delegate is Chris Obenshain. He was elected in 2023 by about one point, a very close race where he defeated Democrat Lily Franklin by 183 votes.
25:53.58
Sam Shirazi
But Lily Franklin is back this time and she is seeking a rematch. The district is about it's kind of this strange district because you have the college town of Blacksburg, which is pretty Democratic, and then you have these rural red areas.
26:06.80
Sam Shirazi
And so President Trump actually carried the district in 2024. But I would caution a little bit. 2024 was a little bit weird in that Republicans did better than expected with young people. And it's unclear if they're going to be able to keep doing that.
26:20.82
Sam Shirazi
So I think if there's a backlash among young voters, this is the type of district that's going to be put into play. And then the other thing I should mention, both with this district and the Williamsburg district, is that there are lot of college students in these districts. And oftentimes they're not super engaged in politics. They may be aware there's a governor's race.
26:40.17
Sam Shirazi
And the thing with Virginia is it has same-day voter registration. So even if a voter doesn't meet the voter registration deadline, they can go down to their local precinct.
26:50.50
Sam Shirazi
They can fill out a voter registration form. It will be a provisional ballot, so it doesn't automatically get counted. the registrar would review the voter registration. If the person is eligible to be a voter,
27:05.99
Sam Shirazi
Then the voter's ballot will be counted. And we saw that in 2023 where Lily Franklin was able to turn out a lot of students. A lot of them use same day registration. It wasn't quite enough for her to win in 2023, but it was a very close race. And I think a lot of people were surprised by the margin.
27:23.50
Sam Shirazi
And Lily Franklin did better in 2023 than most people expected. And I think that's why in 2025, even though this is a Trump district, it's going to get a lot of attention because if she's able to get, if Lily Franklin is able to get students to come out and vote, this is the type of district that could flip. So As you can see, we've talked a lot about Republican districts. I think realistically, those are go the seats that are going to be most in play this year. And the Republicans are in a tough spot because they have a lot of incumbents. They have a lot of incumbents they have to defend.
27:54.20
Sam Shirazi
They have a lot of Republicans in areas where there are a lot of federal jobs and are dependent on federal spending. And so if there's a backlash, like those those Republicans may be feeling the heat in November.
28:04.37
Sam Shirazi
Having said all that, I don't think it's necessarily impossible for... the Republicans to win a majority. I think it's going to be difficult, but I don't think it's impossible. There are a few seats in play if the Republicans have a good night, where if they have if they're able to flip two seats, they'll be able to get a majority.
28:23.94
Sam Shirazi
So I'll talk first about House District 21. This is in Western Prince William County. The incumbent is Josh Thomas. And I think This is the seat that probably the Republicans have the best shot at flipping.
28:39.02
Sam Shirazi
And Josh Thomas in 2023, he was able to win in the closest race by a Democrat. He won by, but it was still a three and a half point win in 2023. And then former Vice President Harris won the district by about five and a half points.
28:53.59
Sam Shirazi
I think why the Republicans feel they might have a shot here is this is, it's a kind of a combination district where there's some suburban, more well-off voters, and then there's working class and also Hispanic areas. And I think the Republicans feel like they're doing better in the working class Hispanic areas.
29:08.92
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, in theory, they might be able to flip the seat. I think the issue for the Republicans is Josh Thomas is pretty strong incumbent. And then obviously, Western Prince William County in Northern Virginia. A lot of workers affected by what's going on in DC.
29:21.92
Sam Shirazi
So I don't know how much momentum the Republicans are going to have in a district like this to try to come in and flip it. Similar story with House District 65. This is in Fredericksburg.
29:32.82
Sam Shirazi
the Incumbent is Delegate Josh Cole. He won by 6% in 2023. Former Vice President Harris won the district by almost nine points 2024.
29:45.42
Sam Shirazi
Pretty tough numbers for the Republicans. Again, Northern Virginia, federal workers, and Fredericksburg is also a college town. So I think all those things make this a difficult seat for the Republicans to try to come in and flip.
29:56.32
Sam Shirazi
Last district I will talk about, thanks for everyone who's cook gone through all these districts with me, is House District 97. That is in Virginia Beach. The incumbent is democrat Democratic Delegate Michael Fegans. He won by about 5% in 2023.
30:13.04
Sam Shirazi
Former Vice President Harris won the district by about 8% in 2024. And if you think about it, Virginia Beach, sometimes the Republicans are able to win these difficult seats because turnout might not be there or because they're able to convince voters because Virginia Beach is more of an area that sees swings between elections. I think the problem, again, for the Republicans is that Virginia Beach, military-dependent district, federal A lot of federal employees, federal dollars in this district. So again, I just think where the Republicans have to win this year are tough districts where they're just impacted by what's going on with the federal government.
30:50.74
Sam Shirazi
So I don't want to say it's impossible for the Republicans to win a majority, but I do think right now it is a a pretty steep hill for them to climb. And as you as you saw, most of the districts I talked about have Republican incumbents.
31:05.19
Sam Shirazi
And realistically, you know one strategy Republicans could could say to themselves is, we have a lot of incumbents. The incumbents are going to expect to get support from the party. And we should just focus on protecting our incumbents and possibly minimizing our losses so that next election, we will have a chance to win back the House of Delegates. Because I mean, it's very early. It's hard to know what's going to happen. But I think one of the dangers for the Republicans is if there's a big wave, Democrats pick up a lot of seats.
31:36.06
Sam Shirazi
you know Once you get into a hole in the House of Delegates, it might be hard hard to dig out of that hole. It might take a few cycles. And I think Republicans don't want to be in that position where there they're in a pretty big hole in the House of Delegates.
31:48.65
Sam Shirazi
And the reason I'm sounding a little bit more optimistic for the Democrats is because on Tuesday of this week, there was a special election in Pennsylvania for a state Senate seat, and the Democrats were able to flip that seat. And that was a pretty Republican district.
32:08.22
Sam Shirazi
I think President Trump won the district by about 15 points in 2024. Now, special elections are always weird, but I mean, when you're seeing Democrats flip seats like that, I think that should give Republicans some warning signs.
32:21.96
Sam Shirazi
I think another warning sign for the Republicans was that the nomination of Elise Stefanik to be ambassador to UN was pulled. So Elise Stefanik, she's a house member from New York.
32:34.95
Sam Shirazi
She was nominated to be UN n ambassador, but the Republicans started getting a little nervous about the special election for her house seat in New York. So they pulled the nomination, which is pretty drastic thing to do. And they wouldn't have done it unless there was a reason to do it. And so I think,
32:52.25
Sam Shirazi
you know If national Republicans are looking at that environment and getting nervous, you know obviously Virginia Republicans shouldn't be super comfortable because Virginia is much more impacted by what's going on at the federal government.
33:03.83
Sam Shirazi
Having said all that, on the next podcast, I do want to talk about something that's going to important that's going to happen this upcoming Tuesday in Wisconsin. Wisconsin will have a Supreme Court race. And oftentimes these races become very polarized and the national parties come in.
33:18.72
Sam Shirazi
The Wisconsin race, Elon Musk is spending money through his PAC. So I think it's basically going to be a a little bit of an early preview of what might happen in Virginia later on this year.
33:31.09
Sam Shirazi
And I think both sides are really going to be looking at this Wisconsin Supreme Court race to see what the political temperature is right now. So there's a lot going on. I'm going to try to do my best to cover it.
33:42.03
Sam Shirazi
I think keep an eye out for Tuesday with the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Who knows if the Republicans do well? Maybe I'll have to revise some of my thoughts on the House of Delegates. But right now, I would say Democrats are looking pretty good to keep their majority and possibly gain some seats.
33:59.63
Sam Shirazi
Having said that, it's not impossible for the Republicans to get a majority, but I do think it's going to be a pretty uphill climb for them to do that this year. so That's the Virginia House of Delegates. I tried to do my best to quickly go over the races. I will do more podcasts on the primaries for the House of Delegates, and I'm sure we'll talk more about the Virginia House Delegates later this year.
34:18.96
Sam Shirazi
So for now, that's it for Federal Fallout. Thank you for listening, and I will see you next week.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com - Visa fler
