Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over a new poll from Roanoke College, and then we will dive into a different strategy that Winston-Merle Sears' campaign is trying in order to maybe come back in this race.

00:36.38

Sam Shirazi

For Lieutenant Governor, it had Democratic nominee Ghazala Hashmi at 38% and Republican nominee John Reed at 35%. And then finally, for Attorney General, the Roanoke College Poll had Democratic nominee Jay Jones at 41% and Republican nominee, the incumbent Attorney General Jason Meares at 38%. So those were the three statewide campaigns.

01:01.37

Sam Shirazi

And then for the approval ratings of the president and governor, so for President Trump, his disapproval was at 56% and his approve was at 41%.

01:14.01

Sam Shirazi

And for Governor Youngkin, his approval was 50% his disapprove was

01:20.17

Sam Shirazi

So the way Roanoke College kind of presented this poll was that this was closer than their last poll and kind of presented it as the race was tightening. And certainly the Republicans kind use this as an example of, oh, the race is actually closer than people think and we're not that far behind.

01:36.67

Sam Shirazi

I think a couple things to keep you in mind. So the last Roanoke College poll was from a while ago. It was in May. And that showed that Spanberger had a 17 percent lead. lead She was at 43% Earl Sears was at 26% in the May-Rona College poll.

01:54.08

Sam Shirazi

Now, realistically, there was not going to be any universe where Winston Earl Sears was going to get 26% the vote. And so it's possible that that poll was a little bit off and or just didn't capture the electorate accurately.

02:07.73

Sam Shirazi

And so what you saw in the recent Roanoke College poll is they actually changed the modeling of who they thought would come out in the election. And they based it off the 2021 election, which obviously that was a good year for Republicans, had more Republican turnout.

02:22.38

Sam Shirazi

And so Basically, they were modeling it as if this year the turnout was going to look like 2021. And I think that was a cautious assumption, probably to make the poll not as skewed towards Spanberger.

02:34.90

Sam Shirazi

But even with that assumption, Spanberger is still up 7% in this poll. So even if you get a very Republican friendly poll, sorry, a very Republican friendly turnout this November, at least with this these numbers, Spanberger is up by seven.

02:48.96

Sam Shirazi

And the other thing to keep in mind, obviously, there could be more of a blue wave this November. There could be more Democrats coming out than in 2021, fewer Republicans coming out because typically what drives turnout is anger.

03:01.59

Sam Shirazi

And part of the reason the party out of the White House does well in the Virginia elections is their base gets fired up because they're upset about what the White House is doing. And the the party in the White House, typically the base is not as fired up.

03:14.16

Sam Shirazi

And so you know I would say i would focus less on the shift since May because they basically did different methodology to get these numbers.

03:27.06

Sam Shirazi

I would not necessarily read so much into the tightening of the polls because the reality is, you know I've said this before, Winsomey Sears on the worst possible night for the Republicans is going to get 40%. And so in this poll, she's getting closer to that number.

03:41.80

Sam Shirazi

yeah there was no universe where she was going to get 26% of the vote in November. And so I think the the last poll might not have been totally correct. and And this poll, I would say, is a little bit closer to reality.

03:52.24

Sam Shirazi

i think the fact that Trump is a is it a negative 15% approval in Virginia, that sounds about right. Youngkin's at 7% approval positive in Virginia. Again, that sounds about right. I think his approval, disapproval has probably taken a hit.

04:07.38

Sam Shirazi

he's He's had more positive approval in the past. I think some of the stuff going on in D.C. and the cuts to Doge that Doge brought and then the subsequent cuts have probably hurt Yunkin in the sense of he hasn't really pushed back on that and and the voters have seen that. So long story short, I think this, you know, I wouldn't obsess about the specific numbers. I think people often get hyper fixated on the numbers. It's just one poll.

04:33.20

Sam Shirazi

I hope we have more polls. I think it's in the ballpark. What it kind of tells us is at the top of the tip ticket, Spamberger is doing well. It's perhaps these other lieutenant governor and AG candidates aren't as well known. And so their numbers are a little bit lower.

04:47.69

Sam Shirazi

And I think at the end of the day, this poll pretty much confirms what we've been talking about in the past few weeks, that the Democrats have the advantage in this race.

04:57.15

Sam Shirazi

one, two, three.

04:58.47

Sam Shirazi

I think the question is, is this like 2017 when Ralph Northam won by about 9%? Obviously, that was the last time Trump was in the White House. Or is it actually closer than that? Will it it keep getting closer?

05:11.17

Sam Shirazi

i think those are all interesting things to think about. And I think part of what might be happening, and we'll talk a little bit about this later with Winsomero Sears strategy, You know, the Democrats have been pretty unified behind Spanberger.

05:24.28

Sam Shirazi

They've obviously been fired up by what's going on in D.C., and there's been a lot of federal fallout in terms of job losses in Virginia. And so I think that has kind of galvanized Democratic support.

05:35.31

Sam Shirazi

So that has been going on for a while. I think on the Republican side, there were a lot of problems, obviously, with the ticket and John Reed and Winston-Murl Sears having some tension. And there just was a sense of maybe the Earl Sears campaign wasn't doing too well. And so I think that was demoralizing Virginia Republicans to a certain extent.

05:52.27

Sam Shirazi

I think what has happened recently, and we'll talk about this in the strategy part of the podcast, is that the once Merle Sears campaign is starting to maybe get more support from their base. I think the Republicans are starting to wake up a little bit.

06:04.91

Sam Shirazi

And typically you see this in Virginia elections where the party that is out of the White House very early on gets engaged because they're seeing what's going on in D.C., they're upset and they see their local election as a way to kind of express that frustration. So typically the party out of the White House starts organizing early in the Virginia elections and the party in the White House tends to be kind of asleep at the wheel for a while.

06:29.05

Sam Shirazi

And then at the end, they kind of realize, oh, there's an election we need to gear up. And I think that was part of the dynamic in 2021 where there was something building on the Republican side and Glenn Youngkin was able to tap into that.

06:40.49

Sam Shirazi

And the Democrats, It wasn't really until the end that they took the threat seriously and they thought that they were going to potentially lose. And so you you saw more Democratic engagement at the end, but it just wasn't enough given the advantage the Republicans had.

06:54.47

Sam Shirazi

And I think this year, the Democrats have very clearly kind of started off with a lead. And the challenge that Winston-Murl Sears has had is that that Her base has just not been as fired up and her campaign hasn't really been exciting them.

07:09.09

Sam Shirazi

And so we talked about there had been these panic pieces and then there had been some changes in the Winsome Earl Sears campaign. And I think in the past couple weeks, there's definitely been a little bit of a, I would say, reboot in the campaign and ah and a change in their strategy.

07:23.67

Sam Shirazi

So I think it's a good time to shift maybe to that portion of the podcast. I did want to say one last thing about the Roanoke College poll. You know, it's one poll. I wouldn't obsess about it. i think... There'll be more polls.

07:35.40

Sam Shirazi

It could be off. I think generally it's probably in the ballpark. Kind of confirms what we're seeing. So we're on a college poll. I'm glad we got it. But again, it's never a good idea to hyper fixate over one poll.

07:47.97

Sam Shirazi

And part of the reason that we're spending so much time on these polls that are coming out in Virginia is just we're just not getting that many. And so in the past, when you would get polls, a poll every week, you know, you wouldn't really spend too much time on each individual poll because there's so many polls coming out. Now we're getting basically a poll a month, which is not great. And so that means every poll that we do get, there's more attention paid to it. So I think that's why I didn't spend too much time on the Royal College poll and hopefully we'll get other polls coming out.

08:18.13

Sam Shirazi

Now, let's move on to the Winston-Marie Sears change in strategy that I've seen in the last two weeks. You know, as I've discussed, the name of this podcast is Federal Fallout. That's because the idea being what was going on in D.C. was going to affect the Virginia elections.

08:31.86

Sam Shirazi

I think very early on, the Spanberger campaign and the Virginia Democrats kind of understood how they could use that as a messaging tool in Virginia and basically push back on Trump, push back on Doge,

08:45.01

Sam Shirazi

push back on the federal cuts and kind of have that as their campaign backdrop. And it was a pretty clear message. you know It's not super complicated. You just oppose that. You say we're we're so standing up for Virginia. We're against job cuts that are coming out of D.C.

08:59.10

Sam Shirazi

and And it's been pretty consistent theme from the Democrats this year in terms of their campaign messaging. And I think that's helped them because once generally, if you have a clear message and you can stick to that message, you can kind of repeat it. The the voters get it.

09:15.20

Sam Shirazi

You know, some voters will agree with you, some won't. But at least at the end of the day, you kind of know what the Democratic campaign is in Virginia. It's like, OK, they're running against what Trump's doing. They're running against the federal cuts.

09:25.92

Sam Shirazi

the But I had talked about this in the past. I think there was a challenge that Winston Merle Sears and the Republicans had.

09:31.75

Sam Shirazi

They didn't really have a clear strategy. They didn't really have a clear message. I mean, sometimes you'd see them kind of trying to sidestep questions about Doge and the federal cuts.

09:42.87

Sam Shirazi

Sometimes you'd see them talk about immigration. Sometimes you'd see them talk about crime. Sometimes you'd see them talking about schools. So there would kind of been a muddled message. you know if you I heard from even Republicans, like what was the Republican message this year in Virginia? What are they running on?

09:58.27

Sam Shirazi

I think it was a very hard message to kind of get out there for a while. I think Winston Merle Sears was essentially just running as Youngkin's successor. So she was saying, well, I'm just going to continue the Youngkin brand in Virginia. going to continue doing what he's doing now.

10:13.86

Sam Shirazi

I think in some ways that makes sense because because he has slightly positive approvals in Virginia, but it's not like he's an overwhelmingly popular figure in Virginia. And frankly, like most voters don't really follow state politics that closely. They don't really know what Youngkin has done and not done.

10:28.55

Sam Shirazi

And so i didn't I don't think that was a super compelling message, particularly when all the oxygen is being sucked up in D.C. by Trump. So if you're trying to talk about Youngkin and what his administration has done, I mean, that's not really going to get a whole lot of attention as compared to something like what's going on in D.C.

10:44.25

Sam Shirazi

So I think my sense is there was some rebooting going on. There were her campaign team were sitting down looking at polls, what issues pull well, thinking through how can we message what's going on in Virginia in a way that benefits us.

11:00.57

Sam Shirazi

And they kind of found an issue that I think they're trying to latch onto for a couple of reasons.

11:06.32

Sam Shirazi

They thought things through and they wanted to kind of grasp an issue that they could run in this year in Virginia. And I think the issue that they focused on was the trans issue and specifically the they spent a lot of time talking about the locker room and the idea that there might be people in the locker room that aren't supposed to be there. And you know there's a few reasons they're doing this. I think one, they're trying to emulate what happened in 2021.

11:32.58

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, Glenn Young can spend a lot of time talking about schools in 2021. And, you know, I think in some ways there's a comparison, but I also think that issue was different in 2021 because we had the COVID school lockdowns. I think a lot of parents were focused on COVID school lockdown and Glenn Youngkin was able to kind of tap into that.

11:50.23

Sam Shirazi

I think that issue has kind of faded into the background. the other reason I think they're spending time on this and they think it's a winning issue is in 2024, President Trump during the campaign, was you talked about that issue. There was a famous campaign ad that talked about that issue.

12:05.96

Sam Shirazi

And so I think they're trying to emulate in some ways what President Trump did. So it's kind of a mix between what worked for the Republicans in 2021 and what worked for the Republicans in 2024. And I also think there's just the reality that in their minds, the way they're framing this issue,

12:21.39

Sam Shirazi

Their polling is probably looking pretty good on this issue. And i think in some ways it makes sense and in some ways it doesn't. And I think in some ways there are rewards to this, using this strategy. I think that in some ways there are risks.

12:35.47

Sam Shirazi

So the rewards from their perspective is I think this is the type of issue that really fires up their base. So my sense is they are trying to get their base engaged because they their base had been kind of sleepy for a while. And I think we're a little bit frustrated by the, the, um,

12:51.55

Sam Shirazi

And it' some of the drama that was happening on the Republican side on the ticket. And so the Winston-Merle Sears campaign kind of sees this as a way that they can engage their base, get them focused on the election.

13:03.44

Sam Shirazi

And again, it's it's a clear message. They can kind of push it out and consistently push it out. And so their base will get it. like And I also think, frankly... This is something that Winsome Morseers feels comfortable talking about, and she doesn't feel like she has to be so guarded. So when she talks about the federal cuts in D.C., you can just tell she's uncomfortable. She doesn't really want to talk about it.

13:24.89

Sam Shirazi

She doesn't want to say anything that the Democrats can use. So that's just like not an issue she wants to be talking about. She's not passionate about it. You can just tell that is not what she wants to be talking about. I think an issue like this, it's something that is more...

13:38.30

Sam Shirazi

in her wheelhouse, and she just feels comfortable going out there. And her campaign probably says, okay, she looks more engaged, more like a better candidate when she's talking about this issue. So let's get this issue out in front and try to get her to talk about it.

13:50.89

Sam Shirazi

And all this is happening in the backdrop of what is some additional federal fallout. So I mean, this podcast has mainly been talking about the federal fallout coming from the cuts in DC, and what has been going on with Doge, and the job losses as a result of federal job cuts.

14:09.08

Sam Shirazi

But there's been a lot of other federal fallout. I don't always talk about it. And one of the federal fallouts that is hitting Virginia specifically is the idea that Title IX requires certain things in terms of who can use which but which locker room and and restroom.

14:24.40

Sam Shirazi

And there have been some attempts by the Trump administration to get certain school districts in Northern Virginia to change some of their policies. Now, most of the school districts have said that this is an open legal question. The Supreme Court's going to review it.

14:37.70

Sam Shirazi

And so it's a little bit premature. for us to make changes. Let's just wait and see what the Supreme Court says, and then we can decide how we're going to deal with this issue. I think the Trump administration's position is you're violating the law, you should change your policies. And if you don't change your policies, then we might take away your funding that you're getting from the federal government.

14:58.01

Sam Shirazi

And so that's all happening in Northern Virginia. And Winston Merle Sears, she visited this week Loudoun County and she visited Arlington and specifically for this issue and specifically for the trans issue in schools.

15:12.23

Sam Shirazi

And so it's really getting ah decent amount of play in the. right-wing circles. You see a lot of posts from the Winston-Williams Sears campaign on it.

15:22.54

Sam Shirazi

You see a lot of posts from and more Republican-leaning accounts on social media about this. And I think it's something that they feel like, if we push this out, it's going to fire up our base, and potentially it could win people in the middle who this issue polls well for us. So that's kind of the Winston-Williams Sears hope with this issue.

15:43.90

Sam Shirazi

It gives them something to run on, it gives them something fire up their base, and they think it puts the Democrats on a defensive, and this is an issue that pulls well for them. I think there's a little bit of a risk with this strategy in that The salience of this issue may not be as much as that they they think it is in the sense of, yes, it might pull well if you just ask someone about this specific issue.

16:06.05

Sam Shirazi

But what is it on the list of someone's concern? And overwhelmingly, most elections, people's top concern is the economy. And I think this election specifically cost of living, inflation is very important. And I think specifically in Virginia, some of the federal job cuts is are also very important.

16:22.28

Sam Shirazi

So while, yes, I think there are certain people who might agree with Winston-Marie Sears, this isn't necessarily the thing that's going to be deciding the the election for them. And a good example of this is the abortion issue in 2024. So after the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the abortion issue polled really well for Democrats. So in 2022, they ran on abortion It did really well and did relatively pretty well in the midterms, considering people were predicting a red wave and there wasn't a red wave.

16:52.20

Sam Shirazi

In 2023, Democrats in Virginia ran on the abortion issue and they were able to retain control of the state Senate and were able to flip the House of Delegates. So all that is telling them, yeah, abortion is doing pretty well. Let's run on it in 2024.

17:06.44

Sam Shirazi

And I think the polling in 2024 still showed that Democrats were doing better on abortion than Republicans. The problem is the salience of the issue had fallen. Part of that is because time had passed since the Supreme Court ruling.

17:18.83

Sam Shirazi

Part of it was that a lot of states had put in protections for abortion. and And so it wasn't just as big of an issue issue and the economy was more top of mind. And so it's not just the polling of and a specific issue you have to look at. You also have to look at the salience of the issue. And I think there's a risk here if you're the Winston-Marcel Sears campaign, particularly this is all you're talking about.

17:41.56

Sam Shirazi

you know If this every day you're talking about this issue and Virginians are saying like, OK, we get it. But like, I'm worried about inflation. I'm worried about you know job losses from the federal cuts.

17:53.57

Sam Shirazi

And this is all they're hearing from you. i think that puts you in a difficult spot. And you you know it's a it's ah ah it's a fine but line between wanting a message that that connects and having a consistent message, but also a message that connects with people where they are. And I think sometimes in these types of campaigns, there's a risk that if you don't talk about what the voters want to talk about, you're kind of in love with your issue. You think this issue is a real winner for us. I really want to talk about this issue, but it's not what the voters want to talk about because they have other concerns.

18:25.42

Sam Shirazi

And again, i go back to 2024. I think that was a lesson the Democrats learned, not just with abortion, another good example, is issues with democracy. you know, the Democrats wanted to talk about the threat that President Trump might pose, given what happened after January 6th.

18:40.97

Sam Shirazi

But the reality is some voters cared about that, but a lot of other voters said, look, my top concern is the economy. i think President Trump's going to be a better option in terms of potentially lowering costs.

18:52.24

Sam Shirazi

Now, the the opportunity Democrats have after that is obviously ah Costs have not necessarily come down. And arguably, part of that is the tariffs that President Trump has put on. So if the Democrats are talking about, well, President Trump is you know putting on these tariffs, that's causing inflation to stay high.

19:12.51

Sam Shirazi

and Meanwhile, he's cutting back on the federal government. That's causing job losses in Virginia. And that's what voters are hearing from from the Democrats. And yeah that's what voters mainly hear about care about.

19:24.20

Sam Shirazi

And then from the Winston-Murl Sears campaign, they're hearing you know this issue about trans in school over and over and over again. And you know at some point, voters are going to maybe say, and this isn't necessarily the top issue on my mind. I don't know why you keep talking about this.

19:39.25

Sam Shirazi

And so i think I think that's kind of where we are. i mean, it's possible that in August, the Winston-Murl Sears campaign really wants to start talking about this because it's going to fire up their base. Their base starts to wake up.

19:50.68

Sam Shirazi

And then maybe in September and October, they'll shift messaging a little bit to focus on things more voters in the middle care about. Because the reality is most voters in the middle probably aren't paying attention right now.

20:01.77

Sam Shirazi

As we've said, there's an old adage, the campaign really starts after Labor Day. And so it's possible that right now, the voters in the middle are not really paying attention. What Winston-Marie Sears is doing is more to kind of fire up her base, kind of signal to her base, like, I care about the issues you care about. You should get engaged in this election.

20:19.87

Sam Shirazi

So if Her base is fired up that kind of matches the Democratic enthusiasm. And then you go into the final sprint of the campaign and you kind of focus on those voters in the middle.

20:31.07

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I think i think that might make might work to a certain extent. I think the problem is. How does she reach the voters in the middle? And I think that is the thing that's this issue. I just don't know if that's what's going to reach voters in the middle who, you know, at the end of the day, might be caring more about the economy.

20:49.49

Sam Shirazi

And I think the additional challenge that Winsor Morales-Sears has is a resource issue. So this week, Abigail Spanberger started to open her war chest. She placed buys for this fall.

21:01.44

Sam Shirazi

totaling over $10 million. dollars So she started saying, placing, that they're not all airing right now, but up through the election day, she's already put $10 million dollars down for ads.

21:12.29

Sam Shirazi

And Winston Merle Sears has not really done that at all. And so which campaign is able to push their message? I think Winston Merle Sears to try to make up for that is trying to do more social media posts,

21:23.72

Sam Shirazi

trying to maybe get some free media to local news coverage. And yes, that can maybe help the gap. But if your opponent is spending 10 million and you're not spending a whole lot of money on the air, I think that's going to be a challenge that Winston Merle Sears is going to face in the final stretch of the campaign.

21:39.59

Sam Shirazi

And again, i think the Spanberger campaign is pretty disciplined. They want to focus on their issues. They want to focus on cost of living. They want to focus on some of the cuts coming from DC. And so if people are getting, seeing all those ads from Spanberger talking about the economy and cuts in DC and the her plans to maybe try to lower costs,

21:59.90

Sam Shirazi

if that's the issue that's really resonating with voters, I think there might be a chance that it doesn't really matter what Williams-Maril Sears is doing because she just doesn't have, one, the ability to reach those voters, and it's just not the saie the same salience for that issue.

22:14.65

Sam Shirazi

So, you know, we'll we'll just have to wait and see. I think there's been, the last two Virginia elections have had examples of where both has has worked. So, obviously, in 2021, Glenn Youngkin had success with the school issue.

22:28.27

Sam Shirazi

And it wasn't just about the COVID closures. yeah He talked a lot about critical race theory in that election. He did also talk about the trans issue. I will say, i do think the Republicans, to a certain extent, may have risk misread that election where they thought that it was really these hot button social issues that won the schools for them, when maybe it was more the COVID closures.

22:50.79

Sam Shirazi

And the reality is, Every parent who had kids in school was affected by those COVID school closures and the subsequent learning loss. And so I think that was a strong issue for the Republicans when they were able to talk about that.

23:05.23

Sam Shirazi

And they may have misread that really that was the issue that people cared about. And these other more social hot button issues like CRT or trans issues was not really the reason they won schools.

23:16.82

Sam Shirazi

in 2021. twenty twenty one But another nevertheless, I think obviously, i think at the time, a lot of Democrats tried to dismiss that and specifically tried to dismiss the CRT issue.

23:28.28

Sam Shirazi

And eventually it did lead to Glenn Youngkin winning. Now you can debate whether it was more COVID that led to the win versus some of these other social issues. But I do think there's no doubt that the school education issue was one of the reasons Glenn Youngkin won 2021. And and But then again, you can contrast that to 2017. So 2017, Democrats were running kind of a similar campaign, mainly like an anti-Trump campaign in Virginia.

23:53.27

Sam Shirazi

And Ed Gillespie, who was a Republican nominee, had a similar issue with Winston Merrill Sears. What do you do? You can't really run too close to Trump. You can't run away from Trump. And so Ed Gillespie in kind of the end of the campaign talked a lot about immigration and there was a lot of talk about MS-13.

24:08.22

Sam Shirazi

So kind of very similar, you know, Trumpy type issue, but something that they thought both the base and the middle voter were was with them on this immigration issue.

24:18.39

Sam Shirazi

But at the end of the day, like it didn't really matter because that was that election was basically a referendum on Trump. And so I remember at the end of that campaign, a lot of Democrats started getting nervous. They said, oh, this immigration issue, you know, Trump won in 2016 with this. We're going to we're in trouble in Virginia.

24:33.51

Sam Shirazi

And obviously Northam won by nine percent. And so I think there's there's basically two scenarios. I mean, there is one scenario where there's a little bit of a repeat of 2021 where Earl Sears is able to really seize this issue. Voters get kind of agree with her.

24:47.74

Sam Shirazi

it kind of gives her campaign new life. Now, I don't know, given some of the issues she has with fundraising and Trump's popularity in Virginia. I don't know if this is the type of issue that could get her to a win. Maybe it can, but even a close race is probably ah ah good outcome for the Virginia Republicans given then the environment.

25:08.40

Sam Shirazi

So that's one possibility. Like basically it's a repeat of 2021. Either this gets Winsome or Sears to a win, or at least it just leads to kind of a close election. I think the other possibility is that this is like 2017, where this is an issue that some people on the right really care about, but the average voter in the middle is not living and breathing this stuff every day. And so what they're seeing is all this stuff coming out of DC with Trump and most Virginians disapprove of Trump's performance, according to the Roanoke College poll. And so if you're upset at what Trump's doing and you just want to send a message, so you vote for the Democrats in the election,

25:45.42

Sam Shirazi

that'll lead to a pretty big Spanberger win because remember, Trump's disapproval is 56% in Virginia. So if most people who disapprove of Trump vote for the Democrats this November, Democrats are going to get a pretty healthy win.

25:59.18

Sam Shirazi

One, two, three.

26:00.51

Sam Shirazi

And obviously there's really no way of knowing what's going to happen in the election until the votes start coming in and we get the results. So we'll just have to wait and see on that. I do think the Spanberger campaign probably needs to think about some sort of strategy to deal with this because Republicans are going to keep talking about it.

26:18.18

Sam Shirazi

I think she'll get asked by it from the media. There is one debate so far scheduled. I think it'll be only debate debate in this election and she'll probably, Winston Merrill Sears will probably bring it up. So I think Spanberger needs to be prepared to to talk about it during the debate.

26:34.53

Sam Shirazi

And so it's it's not an issue that's going to be going away necessarily. And particularly if the Trump administration takes further action against some of these school districts in Northern Virginia. So definitely interesting to see how it plays out this November.

26:49.40

Sam Shirazi

It's part of the federal fallout. That's what what's going on in this campaign. I think I have been more focusing on federal fallout that potentially could help the Democrats. We'll see if this will help the Republicans this year in Virginia. And thanks everyone for sticking with me. We're getting down into the home stretch and I'm sure there will be more interesting polls, more interesting things to talk about.

27:14.70

Sam Shirazi

But for now, 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