Hey everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode, I wanted to go over some lessons from Governor Youngkin’s time in office and just talk about what the incoming governor, a governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, might learn from that.

00:17.24

Sam Shirazi

But before I get to that, I did want to talk about two pieces of things that are in the news. One is redistricting and some redistricting news, both nationally and in Virginia.

00:27.83

Sam Shirazi

And then it is another special election. So Virginia, there’s always an election going on and there is going to be a special election.

00:35.35

Sam Shirazi

This is for the state Senate seat that Lieutenant Governor-elect Ghazala Hashmi will be resigning from. And so that’s going to be the special election that will coming up. So we’ll talk about that. So first, i want to talk about redistricting, both nationally and in Virginia. Nationally, there was some news specifically from Texas. So Texas, a lower court had found that The attempts to redistrict in Texas was a racial gerrymander and had put the maps on hold. That was appealed to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court issued its ruling in that case and basically, long story short, allowed the Texas maps to go forward, which means Texas will be using the new maps that were drawn this year in the elections next year for the midterms.

01:19.83

Sam Shirazi

So that most people expect the Texas Republicans are going to be picking up seats because of that. So overall, in a way, it’s good news for the Republican Party. But... I think it does have important implications here in Virginia because in Virginia, we obviously are going through our own redistricting process.

01:38.07

Sam Shirazi

The Democrats have said that they will, again, in January, vote to put a referendum on the ballot in the spring to do redistricting. Given that the Democrats have majority in the General Assembly, it’s almost certainly going to pass.

01:49.33

Sam Shirazi

So increasingly, it’s looking like there will be a referendum in the spring on redistricting in Virginia. That’s assuming none of the legal challenges the Virginia Republicans are bringing are going to work. But let’s just assume the referendum is going to happen. I think this this Texas ruling increases the likelihood that there will be a redistricting referendum passing in Virginia.

02:10.90

Sam Shirazi

Because in theory, like let’s say the old maps were used in Texas, then there was an argument, you know, we don’t need redistricting in Virginia. It’s not necessary. Now I think the Democrats are going to come back and say, look, We did the redistricting for a reason here in Virginia because we’re trying to counter what the Republicans did in Texas and other states.

02:28.60

Sam Shirazi

So I think this increases the likelihood that Virginia is going to redistrict. And I think it also increases the likelihood that assuming the redistricting referendum passes in Virginia,

02:38.75

Sam Shirazi

the Virginia Democrats are going to start really pushing perhaps a 10-1 map. Now, there was some news. The Speaker of the Virginia House Delegates, Don Scott, had floated during an interview with Larry Sabato that he may want to push for a 10-1 map. Certainly, the President pro temp of the Virginia Senate, State Senator Louise Lucas, has been very vocal about her belief that there should be a 10-1 map.

03:03.68

Sam Shirazi

So 10-1 means that instead of the current map, it will be drawn in a way that will elect 10 Democrats and one Republican. I think, you know, there’s a lot of things you have to look at. you have to look at the incumbent Democratic congresspeople and whether they would be okay with their districts being changed that much in order to get to a 10-1 map.

03:23.68

Sam Shirazi

It’s also possible Virginia could go for a 9-2 map. i think I think given the rhetoric, I think it’s likely that at a minimum it’s going to be a 9-2 map. The question becomes, do the Democrats really push for a 10-1 map?

03:35.74

Sam Shirazi

And i think the other question is just, let’s assume the Democrats you know are able to get the referendum on the ballot. there’s The legal challenges don’t work. Do the Virginia Democrats unveil their map and before the referendum? Or do they kind of keep it a surprise and tell the voters, you know,

03:51.97

Sam Shirazi

just vote for the referendum because we need to do redistricting and we’ll figure out the maps later. i mean, obviously the Virginia Republicans are going to use that against the Democrats and just tell the voters, you should just assume this is going to be a 10, one map because the Democrats aren’t even willing to show you the map that they’re going implement should this pass. So a lot of interesting stuff with Virginia redistricting, a lot of unknowns in terms of potential legal challenges, potential what the map’s going to look like. But I think, think, um,

04:19.10

Sam Shirazi

Long story short, I think the Texas ruling increases the likelihood that Virginia is going to redistrict. And so that’s something that we’re going to be looking for in 2026. And you know the way that this ties back to the Virginia elections this year is obviously Democrats had to win the Virginia elections in order for redistricting to happen. I also think at the end, because the Democrats looked like they were going to do so well, they had the confidence essentially to go for redistricting and they didn’t feel like doing it last minute was going to upend the elections because Frankly, they probably had a feeling that it was going to be a landslide anyways, and obviously it did turn out to be a landslide. So that’s enough on redistricting. I just want to give people quick update on that.

05:11.39

Sam Shirazi

she will have to resign in order to become lieutenant governor so she will be resigning from the state senate next year at the beginning of the year so that means someone has to replace her and there will be a special election the and the date of the special election was announced for january 6th so that’s when the democrat versus republican special election will happen in state senate seat that gizal hashmu is vacating however Before that that, the parties have to pick their nominees. And this is a very blue seat. And so unless something really crazy happens, in all likelihood, the Democratic nominee is going to be the next state senator from this district. And there will be a firehouse primary this Sunday. So Sunday, December 7th here in Virginia, there will be the firehouse primary in that part of Virginia. There are, we’ll see who all the candidates are, but there are essentially two candidates.

06:05.20

Sam Shirazi

frontrunners for this state Senate nomination. There are two delegates in neighboring districts. There is Delegate Mike Jones, and then there is Delegate Deborah Gardner. Mike Jones comes more from the Richmond side of the district. Deborah Gardner comes more from the Chesterfield side of the district. So I think there’s going to be some of that dynamic.

06:23.09

Sam Shirazi

Of note, Ghazal Hashmi has endorsed Mike Jones. So I think that’s a big endorsement for Jones. And we’ll see how far that takes him. The thing is, there’s not a lot of time to really organize. i mean, obviously, we all knew that this special election was going happen. But I think the date of the Firehouse primary was pretty quick in terms of when it was announced. And yeah, so just keep an eye out for that. We’ll have to see who wins the nomination.

06:47.67

Sam Shirazi

And then once the nominee is determined, obviously, we’ll have to wait for the January 6th special election here for the state Senate seat because all Hashmi is vacating. Okay, now let’s turn to the main topic of the podcast, which is...

07:01.72

Sam Shirazi

four lessons from Governor Yunkin’s time in office. And I did four lessons and that’s one lesson per year of when he’s been in office. And frankly, these are more lessons. I don’t want to say they’re lessons of what not to do, but more lessons learned from Governor Yunkin. I think, you know, I’m not going to go into all of the accomplishments Governor Yunkin had. i think probably the place that i think he made the most progress was in education, particularly kind of non- controversial things that you don’t often hear about. I talked about it a little bit with Todd Truitt about some of the standards and things that are a little bit more technical. I think there was some bipartisan agreement and Governor Youngkin was able to get a little bit done. i mean, obviously there was a lot of culture war stuff with the schools as well that kind of, you know was more of what the media covered and what both sides wanted to talk about. But I think there was some progress made on the education front. that frankly, I think Governor-Elect Spanberger is probably going to follow and there’s not going to be too much change on some of these technical standards.

08:03.77

Sam Shirazi

However, you know i think I think there’s a lot that Governor Youngkin wasn’t able to do. and And a lot of that was because he never had a trifecta. The advantage Abigail Spanberger has is she’s going to come in with a trifecta on day one. So on day one,

08:15.27

Sam Shirazi

The Democrats in the General Assembly are going to start passing bills and they’re going to send them over to Governor Alex Manberger. And I imagine, you know, there might be some changes made to some bills, but for the most part, these bills are going to get signed. And I don’t anticipate Governor Alex Manberger having to veto as many bills as Governor Youngkin because she’s going have a trifecta. And we’ll get to that in the second year of the Youngkin administration. But I wanted to start with the first year of the Youngkin administration.

08:39.96

Sam Shirazi

So obviously 2022, Governor Yunkin has just been elected in 2021. It was a big, don’t i don’t know if it was an upset because i think at the end it was kind of clear that Yunkin had the advantage, but certainly took the political world by storm when Governor Yunkin won in 2021. And he was kind of the fresh new face on the scene for the Republican Party. Came in in and January 2022. He was sworn in. He had a lot of momentum. He obviously had a lot of things on his side. And that’s typically what happens. Typically, when you’re first elected, you’re the most popular and you have the most momentum and you have the biggest mandate to do things because...

09:17.02

Sam Shirazi

The voters have just elected you. And frankly, we’re seeing that with Governor-elect Spanberger. She had a much bigger win than Youngkin, but obviously Virginia is a relatively bluer state. And so I think we’re seeing that kind of the honeymoon period, as they call it. Governor-elect Spanberger is now in her honeymoon period, and she’ll probably be in that for some time after she takes office.

09:57.18

Sam Shirazi

The General Assembly will be new, you have to work with the General Assembly, you to figure out laws, there’s just a lot of kind of governing. stuff that is, you know, doesn’t always make the news, but it it takes up a lot of time if you’re a new administration. And I’m not saying that Governor Youngkin didn’t do all that stuff, but, you know, pretty clearly he had his eye on national politics as well. And this is something that we’ve seen a lot in Virginia. When you see these governors coming in with big or historic wins, there’s often talk at the national level about, you know, they could be a future president, future vice president.

10:30.21

Sam Shirazi

in 2009 when Governor McDonald came in. He got a big win, kind of like Spanberger got a big win. And you know he was he looked like he could be a potentially good candidate. Now, obviously, he had some issues later on that quieted some of that. But you saw that in 2009. Mark Warner had a similar thing when he was first elected in 2001. There was talk that he might run in 2004. We saw it with Doug Wilder when he was elected in 1989. So this is something that often happens with Virginia governors because the governor election in Virginia is the only game in town in these off years along with New Jersey. So they get a lot of attention. And so I think i think the issue Governor Youngkin had

11:07.85

Sam Shirazi

was, you know, he quickly kind of hit the road. And there was kind of a joke that he was spending so much time outside Virginia. And I remember in the run up to the 2022 midterms, he kind of did this tour across the country. He went to Arizona, he went to Maine, he went to Oklahoma, I think he he went to Oregon and a bunch of places, s stumping mainly for Republican governor candidates.

11:29.29

Sam Shirazi

And I think his advisors were probably telling him after 2021, this is going to be a red wave. You’re going want to campaign for all these people. And when they all win, you’re going to get you know a lot of the credit because you you went and campaigned with them. I mean, unfortunately, like for the Republicans, it wasn’t a red wave in 2022. And I remember, for example, in Arizona, Minnesota, Maine, these kind of purplish states that Youngkin went and campaigned for.

11:53.50

Sam Shirazi

the Republicans lost in all those states. I mean, really the only states where Youngkin was able to help the candidate win was in some of the red states where they were going to win anyways. And so I think it was a bit of a letdown for Governor Youngkin. And there was also a sense that he was maybe spending too much time out of state. He took his eye off Virginia, particularly in that first year, because you’re a brand new governor.

12:14.62

Sam Shirazi

And he kind of very quickly started hitting the road. There was a sense that he was really kind of keeping an eye on 2024. he didn’t really you know, care that much about the day to day governing of Virginia. So I think for Governor-elect Spanberger, I think there’s a temptation to want to kind of focus nationally and, you know, go on all the talk shows and all that. I mean, and, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that per se, but I do think the voters don’t like it when you take your eye off the ball, particularly when they just elected you, they want you to focus on the job. So I think that’s going to be an important lesson and we’ll see how Governor-elect Spanberger does with that.

12:47.72

Sam Shirazi

Okay, now let’s move on to the second year of the Yunkin administration, which was 2023. And this was a very important year because there were also the General Assembly elections. The entire state Senate and the entire House of Delegates was up for election. And Governor Youngkin pretty much went all in to try to get a trifecta. He needed a trifecta in order to pass the laws he wanted to pass. In 2022, he was able to pass a couple but bills that he wanted. But for the most part, the Democrats in the state Senate had blocked most of his agenda. And he basically went all in, raised a lot of money, campaigned a lot,

13:21.86

Sam Shirazi

In order to get majorities in the state Senate and the House of Delegates. And he came pretty close at the end of the day. But in politics, you know winning or losing by a close amount is not necessarily that important if you’re not able to win. And he was not able to get majorities in the Virginia General Assembly.

13:39.78

Sam Shirazi

And in fact, the Democrats were able to flip the House of Delegates. so the Democrats got a 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates, and they got a 21-19 majority in the state Senate, which means they could basically block all the bills that Youngkin wanted to pass.

13:52.88

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I think the good news for Governor-elect Spanberger is this is much less likely to happen to her in 2027. Why? Because Donald Trump’s going to be in the White House. And so...

14:03.52

Sam Shirazi

you know We saw what happened in 2025. I think it’s very unlikely that the Democrats are going to lose their majorities in the state Senate and the House of Delegates. If anything, at least in the state Senate, they’re going to grow their majorities and they could even grow their majorities in the House of Delegates. So I think there’s a good chance Governor-elect Spanberger is going to have a Democratic trifecta for four years, which obviously for her is good news. But I did want kind of one thing to to learn from what Youngkin did that The main issue that he had problems with and the Republicans had problems with in 2023 was the abortion issue. Because 2022, there was the Dobbs decision, obviously, that overturned Roe v. Wade.

14:57.83

Sam Shirazi

he essentially wanted to kind of unlock the key of how do you deal with the abortion issue for Republicans? And his proposal was to come up with this 15 week abortion.

15:08.93

Sam Shirazi

He called it a limit. Democrats called it a ban, but he basically said at 15 weeks, there would be some sort of limit on abortion with some exceptions for life of the mother and rape or incest. And so I think, I think that was what he wanted to run on. And his plan was if I get majorities,

15:26.22

Sam Shirazi

even when I’m running on restricting abortion a little bit, that will show that I’m able to do this. And again, maybe he was looking towards 2024, but the problem is the Virginia Democrats very easily were able to seize upon that. And because any change to abortion law, which, you know, the Republicans and Governor Youngkin were admitting that they were going to do, it opens it up to this accusation of you’re going ban abortion in Virginia and,

15:48.56

Sam Shirazi

The Democrats very clearly wanted to make the 2023 elections a referendum on the abortion issue. And you could argue, given some of the districts they won in places like suburban Henrico and suburban Loudoun and suburban Prince William County, you could argue that in those critical swing suburban counties, the Democrats were able to win the day on the abortion issue.

16:10.42

Sam Shirazi

and Governor Duncan was not able to get his trifecta. And I think the lesson there is sometimes you can’t run out too far ahead of the voters. Like if the voters are telling you, we don’t want to change the abortion laws, you just kind of have to accept that. And, you know, the reality was if the Republicans in 2023 had said, we’re not going to change the abortion laws in Virginia. And if anything, if the Democrats win, they’re going to, you know, make abortion much easier. And, you know,

16:36.21

Sam Shirazi

yeah all the things that they want to argue, that might’ve been a different conversation. But when you opened the door to limits, it it allowed the Democrats to just say, you’re going to have an abortion ban. And I think it’s important for the Democrats now that they have this big trifecta,

17:17.65

Sam Shirazi

All right. Now let’s fast forward to 2024, the third year of the Yunkin administration. So in 2024, Democrats have control of the entire General Assembly. So Governor Yunkin obviously understood that his legislative agenda was not going to get through.

17:31.28

Sam Shirazi

And you know he had to veto a bunch of bills because the Democrats now were able to pass a bunch of bills, given that they controlled the House of Delegates and the State Senate. So kind of legislative activity was not going to work for Governor Yunkin.

17:43.31

Sam Shirazi

So what he did was he wanted to shift to something that was perhaps more within his power and within the bully pulpit of the governor. And and that was the arena. So the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals, they have... to play in an arena. And traditionally they had been playing in downtown DC at the Capital One Arena, but it’s kind of an older facility. And Glenn Youngkin really wanted to lure that arena across the river and put it in Alexandria in a kind of a prime spot of real estate in Alexandria.

18:17.73

Sam Shirazi

Now, I think these types of projects are often exciting for politicians because they get a lot of press attention. And it’s it’s a big accomplishment that I think Governor Youngkin wanted to get done.

18:29.82

Sam Shirazi

you know Arguably, in many ways, it didn’t make sense because one, that part of Alexandria you know doesn’t have the best access to all the metro lines. There is a metro there, but it’s only one line of the metro versus downtown DC. All the metros converge there.

18:47.82

Sam Shirazi

There’s going to be a lot of traffic. Frankly, Alexandria at that time, the economy was pretty strong. So it didn’t really need this new economic thing. And, you know, sometimes people sell arenas as a big job creator. I mean that part of Alexandria is relatively more well off. It didn’t need a lot of, you know, more lower paying jobs that arenas sometimes bring. And so it just logically made more sense for the arena to be in D.C.

19:14.43

Sam Shirazi

But having said that, I think Governor Youngkin was very persuasive. He was able to kind of push it through pretty far. The problem for him was he hadn’t necessarily done all the legwork in the Virginia General Assembly because there there was going to be some tax incentives and other things. And so you couldn’t just do it through the executive branch. The legislative branch also had to pass a bill. And think the problem Governor Youngkin had was that The Democrats were kind of skeptical of this proposal. And there was one person, the state Senate, that kind of blocked this proposal.

19:47.17

Sam Shirazi

She was the president pro temp of the state Senate. She was also, the I think, the chair of the finance committee. And that was State Senator Louise Lucas. I think she tried to meet with Governor Yunkin. She wanted kind of something in return and in order to get this done. And Governor Yunkin was really never, you know, my understanding was really not necessarily that engaged with her. and And it was more of a negotiation with the government.

20:10.98

Sam Shirazi

ana owner And I think that just didn’t work because you did need the legislature to be involved. And so I think obviously the arena didn’t end up happening. The owner of the arena in DC said he’s going to stay there. He’s going to renovate it. He got some incentives from DC. So you could argue maybe he was trying to play both sides and see who would give him a better deal.

20:31.08

Sam Shirazi

But at the end of the day, I think the lesson here for Governor-elect Spanberger is you really need to work with the legislature. And you as the governor, you may think you’re you know have a lot of power, and you do.

20:43.17

Sam Shirazi

But Virginia’s legislature, General Assembly, is is a pretty powerful General Assembly. And there’s sometimes been said it’s one of the most powerful state legislatures in the country. And there’s a lot the state state legislature can do for you. It’s a lot they can do against you. And it’s it’s obviously easier when you have a trifecta and your your party’s in power in the General Assembly. But I still think it’s important for Governor Lex Manberger to do the personal relationships, to make sure that her agenda can get through, that they’re on the same page, that there isn’t this kind of tension between the executive and legislative branch, because just the the reality of power is sometimes there is that kind of tension. And so long story short, short you know i think

21:22.99

Sam Shirazi

Governor Alex Spanberger herself was a member of a legislative body. She was a member of Congress. And so I think she understands what it’s like to be in the legislature. And so it’ll be interesting to see how she works with the General Assembly.

21:35.09

Sam Shirazi

All right. Now let’s turn to the last year of the Yunkin administration, which was obviously 2025. And the lesson here is you really have to figure out what’s going to happen with the election because you as the incumbent world governor cannot run for reelection. So you are still kind of the leader of your party in the state because you are the top executive official in Virginia. And I think governor Youngkin, you know, to, to defend him or to kind of give him credit. I mean, as soon as Donald Trump was elected, it was going to be very difficult for the Republicans to win in Virginia. And I think that’s just the reality. It didn’t really matter.

22:12.25

Sam Shirazi

frankly, who the Republican nominee was, I think they going to lose no matter what. Having said that, I do think there were some things that Governor Youngkin did that maybe he could have done differently. The first, and I’ll talk about the John Reed thing. So in around April, he called for John Reed to not be the Republican nominee because of what had come out, you know, supposedly about this Tumblr and John Reed denied that it was Tumblr. Long story short, Glenn Youngkin asked John Reed to drop out. John Reed said no. He kind of stood up to Glenn Youngkin and he remained the Republican nominee.

22:45.28

Sam Shirazi

I think that created kind of a tension in the Virginia GOP. It kind of showed that Youngkin wasn’t necessarily in charge of the Virginia Republicans. It also you know frankly, kind of showed he was basically a lame duck at that point because he wasn’t able to get his way. And so I think that was kind of a blunder and it didn’t necessarily want to have have to happen.

23:04.89

Sam Shirazi

Now, to defend Governor Yonkin, the story kind of reemerged in the fall, but it wasn’t as big of a deal because it had already kind of been aired out in April. So you could argue maybe Governor Yonkin’s strategy was to kind of air this stuff out in April so that when it came out in the fall, it wasn’t that big of a deal.

23:21.44

Sam Shirazi

Maybe. i mean, I don’t know if that was the grand strategy, but, you know, either way, that was not necessarily the the greatest thing that happened. And then kind of the bigger issue was Winston Earl Sears, Governor Youngkin endorsed her.

23:33.95

Sam Shirazi

he was She was her his lieutenant governor. And so obviously, you know, he was trying to let her run her own campaign. And, you know, he didn’t want to get too involved.

23:45.24

Sam Shirazi

But around the summer, it was pretty obvious that the Winsorne-Rose Sears campaign was not going to be able to run this thing like effectively. And a lot of people basically told Governor Yunkin, you have to come in and kind of either provide money or provide some organization. And I think he did that to a certain extent, but it was, it was not the same as when he was running in 2021. And I think he certainly could have earlier in the year done a better job, you know fundraising, organizing, trying to do more,

24:11.20

Sam Shirazi

you know Again, the reality is the Virginia Republicans are going to lose no matter what, but there’s a difference between a 10-point loss and a 15-point loss, particularly for the House Delegates candidates.

24:22.38

Sam Shirazi

you know It’s hard to tell how much of it really is ultimately Winston Earl Sears’ fault versus Governor Youngkin’s fault versus the federal Republicans’ fault, but You know, we’ll have to see what Governor-elect Spanberger does in 2029.

24:35.18

Sam Shirazi

twenty twenty nine The biggest wild card is who’s going to win the presidential election in 2028. I think if the Republicans win in 2028, that’ll make the Democrats’ job in 2029 in Virginia pretty easy because I suspect they’re going to have a good shot of winning. I think if the Democrats win in 2028 for the presidential election, that will make the 2029 Virginia elections, very interesting because, that’ll be, to a toss up type race. And so anyways, you know, those were kind of the four lessons, of the Yunkin administration I wanted to go over.

25:08.04

Sam Shirazi

I think, you know, it’s easy when you’re not in office, when you’re not in power, hindsight to say, oh, he should done this. He should have done that. you know, I’m not necessarily trying to pick on governor Yunkin. It’s,

25:17.35

Sam Shirazi

You know, politics, there’s things you get right, there’s things you get wrong. That’s kind of the nature of it. But I did think it was going to be, I thought it would be interesting to do this, mainly to just preview what Governor-elect Spamberger has to deal with. And frankly, she has she has an easier job, mainly just because she has a trifecta. So i I anticipate next year she’ll be able to sign a bunch of bills. She’ll be, you know, holding bill signing ceremonies saying, you know, I got so much done with the Democrats and the General Assembly.

25:43.50

Sam Shirazi

perhaps redistricting will be an interesting thing that she’ll have to deal with. But, you know, generally I think she’ll have an easier job than Governor Youngkin. And that’s just kind of the reality of the political situations they both had to take over. So anyways, hopefully people found this episode interesting. I think I have a few more episodes in me, at least for this year before the holidays, still trying to figure out long-term plans for the podcast. I know people asked me about that. I’m I’m still figuring out. I think at least for the holidays, i’m going to take a break, but you know we’ll we’ll see what 2026 holds. And yeah, anyways, I really appreciate everyone who’s been listening. I will continue to do this, at least for till the holidays. And I hope everyone enjoyed this episode. And this has been Federal Fallout. And I’ll join you next time.

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