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.

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