00:00.44

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode we will first go over just some updates about special elections that will happen early next year in Virginia. And then I wanted to kind of wrap up the year with some of my final thoughts on 2025 and give you a little bit of a sense of what I might be doing in the new year with the podcast.

Sam Shirazi

So before we get to that, the first thing I wanted to go over was the special elections. In the beginning of the new year in Virginia, I wanted to just give you an update about the nominations for the three House of Delegates special elections. The first special election will be on January 6th. That will be House District 77. The current incumbent, Mike Jones. He is resigning to run for the state Senate in the seat that Ghazala Hashmi has resigned. So in that House of Delegates district, there was actually kind of a surprise in the firehouse primary where the expected front runner Michelle Mosby was not able to win. Instead, former ACLU attorney Charlie Schmidt won the nomination. And I think that was a pretty big surprise because Michelle Mosby had a lot of endorsements, including from Mike Jones, the delegate who was about to resign. And I think it just goes to show you, you never really know what’s going happen in these firehouse primaries. These tend to be very low turnout elections because they’re party run primaries and it’s just less well known than the regular primaries and regular elections. And this one, you know, I think it just goes to show you if so if a candidate runs a good campaign and is able to get out their supporters,

01:36.60

Sam Shirazi

they’re going be able to pull out the upset. So that’s what happened in this House of Delegates district. The other two House Delegates districts, they were not surprises. I think the front runners, the people we expected to win, did end up winning. So in House District 23, this is where current incumbent Candi King is resigning to take a place in the Spanberger administration. Margaret Angela Franklin won the nomination as expected. And then in House District 11,

02:15.28

Sam Shirazi

So a lot of just kind of quick updates on the special elections next year. The House District 77 special election will be on January 6th. The two other House Delegates special elections will be on January 13th. I haven’t yet heard of any more special elections, although in Virginia there will always be elections coming up. Obviously, New Year, I talked about redistricting, there’ll be midterms, so a lot to cover in the New Year.

02:41.29

Sam Shirazi

Before I kind of shift to what 2026 might look like, I did want to just kind of have some reflections on 2025 and look back on the year and some of the lessons.

02:51.52

Sam Shirazi

And they aren’t necessarily like as the exact thoughts that I’ve expressed the entire podcast. I kind of wanted to do a little bit bigger picture stuff and a little bit more, you know, looking forward to what 2025 in Virginia teaches us about elections and politics.

03:06.96

Sam Shirazi

One thing I wanted to note, so the name of the podcast, Federal Fallout, I think at the beginning when I started this, I had a feeling that there was going to be a big impact on to what was going on in D.C. and Virginia, and that ended up happening.

03:18.88

Sam Shirazi

I want to give a shout out to Blue Virginia Lowell Feld, who runs that site, put together a list of what he considered to be the top political stories in Virginia in 2025.

03:30.29

Sam Shirazi

And he listed number one, not the election itself, but he listed federal fallout as the number one Virginia political story. Now, I wish I could say that the number one political story was the podcast, Federal Fallout. He didn’t necessarily mean the podcast, although he did mention it. He really meant the concept of Federal Fallout, the idea that what happened in D.C. with the federal cuts and everything else going on DC was going to impact the Virginia elections. I think that really was the big picture story of the year in Virginia. The elections were kind of a consequence of that. I mean, obviously there was kind of candidate specific dynamics that we saw in the governor’s race and the attorney general race, but kind of the overarching theme of the election was really what was going on in DC. You could also argue, I think in hindsight, the issue of affordability and economic issues and cost of living

04:22.94

Sam Shirazi

I think that was also important. You know, obviously they’re kind of intertwined to what’s going on in D.C. And and so I think that’s all kind of what happened this year in Virginia. And kind of in hindsight, I mean, none of it was really super surprising that that’s what was going to happen given what was going on in D.C. And I think specifically with DOGE,

04:41.74

Sam Shirazi

I mean, I think when DOGE happened, it was pretty clear what was going to happen this year in Virginia because of just the scale of it and the impact that it had in Virginia. And so that’s kind of what gave me the idea for Federal Fallout. That’s why i did the podcast.

04:56.90

Sam Shirazi

As you can tell, It was a bit of a labor of love for me. I just did this because I thought it was interesting. I thought it’d be interesting to talk about the Virginia election, have some guests on.

05:07.33

Sam Shirazi

I didn’t make any money off of the podcast as much as I you know, enjoy doing it. It wasn’t something that was I was doing for money. No one was telling me what to do on the podcast. No one was, you know, feeding me lines or anything like that. I really did it because I felt partly it was kind of a something I thought I could give back to people and and give them context to what’s going on in Virginia. I know I’ve gotten good feedback from a lot of people and I appreciate that.

05:33.38

Sam Shirazi

Part of it was also just my personal interest in the election. It allowed me to really dive deep, allowed me to really think about the election, think about what was going on. And I think one of the challenges when you are a political analyst, when you’re doing these podcasts, especially when you’re trying to be objective, is to try to figure out what is going on.

05:52.84

Sam Shirazi

And I think particularly in this election, I think it was important to really just kind of not overthink things and just look at the reality of what was going on in Virginia with the Federal Fallout, with the economic situation, with a lot of what was going on in D.C. And it kind of reminded me of a quote from George Orwell. It’s kind of a famous quote, but it says, he said that to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. And I think that’s kind of a good summary of and of what the challenge in politics is to kind of figure out what is right in front of it your face. And I think so sometimes it’s so easy to get tied up into what’s going on in social media or tied up on, you know, the latest story that you kind of lose sight of the bigger picture.

06:38.56

Sam Shirazi

and you know, in this election, i think it was... kind of clear when you had so many stories about the impacts on Virginia that that was going to be a big part of the election this year. And I think part of the challenge when you are the political analyst trying to figure out what’s going on is to really focus on the present. And I think the present is really hard to get your mind around. And you know I think the past is pretty easy. You can kind of go back and figure out what happened in past elections.

07:07.26

Sam Shirazi

The future is kind of hard to know. It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen. you know. The present is really the challenge. it’s you know It’s knowable, but it’s also difficult to know. And you know the reason I say all this is I think the Republicans, and and this is this happens every party that wins a presidential election, they’re stuck in the presidential year. They are stuck in 2024.

07:27.24

Sam Shirazi

They want it to be 2024 forever. But obviously things change. And I think the Democrats have to be careful not to fall into a similar trap about 2025. Like, you know, the Virginia Democrats, they’re going to want it to be 2025 forever. You know, this was a great year.

07:42.08

Sam Shirazi

They did really well at the top of the ticket. They flipped so many House of Delegates seats. They want to make it 2025 for the rest of time. We saw this with the Virginia Republicans after 2021. I think this was one of the problems Glenn Youngkin fundamentally had during his time as governor. He just kind of always felt like it was 2021. He never really shifted from 2021. And I think...

08:01.42

Sam Shirazi

and you know I think Spanberger, it’ll be interesting to see what she does. My sense is she’s pretty good at gauging public opinion. And I don’t think she’s the type of politician that’ll be stuck in one moment for the rest of her time in office.

08:15.56

Sam Shirazi

And so all that’s to say is just because 2025 ended up one way, just because 2024 ended up one way, it doesn’t mean future elections are going up like that. 2026 is going to be different than 2025.

08:27.69

Sam Shirazi

And that’s why I’m saying like being... connected to the present in politics is very difficult to get the kind of current pulse on the electorate, on what’s going on, the issues that are important.

08:39.12

Sam Shirazi

It’s just, it’s a challenge. And I think what this election kind of showed is that, you know, the issues that were hot in 2024, some of them are still hot, some of them are not hot. And the issues that are going to be hot in 2025, some of them going to relevant in 2026, some of them are not going to relevant.

08:55.32

Sam Shirazi

And so I think it’s just really important for all politicians and all of us to kind of not get sucked into kind of one time frame for the rest of time. And it’s a challenge. And I think it requires a lot of work. I mean, this podcast, and it I tend to not have a lot of notes, so i’m not it doesn’t take me necessarily a long time to prepare for the podcast.

09:16.62

Sam Shirazi

But to kind of follow everything, to think about everything, to kind of synthesize everything in my mind, it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of effort. As much as I love doing it, it is you know pretty challenging to try to to balance that with everything else I got going on.

09:33.16

Sam Shirazi

And so that’s a long way of saying to to kind of shift to 2026. Virginia is going to be interesting. Obviously, redistricting is a big unknown. Frankly, if redistricting passes, I think the midterms might not be super exciting because we might know what’s gonna happen. The districts are basically going to be like drawn to a elect a certain number of Democrats, a certain number of Republicans.

09:55.51

Sam Shirazi

I think if the district lines don’t change, it could be a little bit more interesting in the second and the first district. But, you know, obviously, those are probably going to be the main districts that will be competitive in Virginia if the lines don’t change.

10:10.62

Sam Shirazi

And so all that’s to say is, you know as much as I’d like to kind of do the same amount of podcasting for 2026, I just don’t think it really makes sense in Virginia because there just isn’t necessarily a lot to cover for the midterms beyond the redistricting battle.

10:28.46

Sam Shirazi

And I’ll do my updates. I don’t intend to do zero podcasts in 2026. I think I will do some podcasts every once in a while if there’s a big moment like redistricting, or maybe the primaries, but they’re going to be less frequent.

10:42.05

Sam Shirazi

And I don’t think I really kind of had the bandwidth to do as many guest interviews. And and so as much as, you know, it pains me to say, I’m not going to have as much podcasting in 2026 as in 2025. You know, I had thought about maybe doing a general midterms podcast, like nationwide, but you know To be honest, just as like you know candor to the listener, i don’t know if I have the expertise and or the ability to spend the time to really synthesize 50 states’ elections.

11:13.38

Sam Shirazi

I’m pretty good in Virginia. There’s a lot of great people out there. I’ve had some of them on as guests. I feel pretty confident when I talk about Virginia elections. Other states, obviously, I follow what’s going on. I know other states, but I’m not the same sort of expert in other states. And I don’t really just want to...

11:29.56

Sam Shirazi

you know say things that I’m not pretty sure about. So all that’s to say is I don’t think I’m going do some sort of midterms podcast. I think what I’m going to be doing is focusing on Virginia in 2026, as I have been more so on social media. So if you follow me on social media, you’ll keep seeing my posts.

11:47.64

Sam Shirazi

I think the podcast is helpful in certain instances where there’s a lot of news or there’s something I want to share. But I don’t think I’m going to do the weekly podcast every Saturday morning. i don’t think I’m gonna have you know as many interviews just because, to be honest, it’s just it is a lot of work. And 2025, there was a lot of material. Virginia elections, really interesting. 100 House of Delegates, three statewides. you know Not to say that the midterms in Virginia going to be interesting, just a little less.

12:17.10

Sam Shirazi

And it’ll be interesting to see how the Democrats govern. You know, I’m not, I’m more of a political person, less of a policy person. So I don’t necessarily have the expertise to talk about all the different policies the Democrats might bring into the election. you know My focus is going to be more on the redistricting side, more on the elections.

12:33.67

Sam Shirazi

There’s also going to be those three referendums not related to redistricting. It’s easy to forget about those, but those are also going to be happening. So all that’s to say is you know it’s been a really fun ride doing the podcast. I appreciate all the guests who have come on. I appreciate all the good comments I’ve gotten.

12:48.75

Sam Shirazi

I appreciate all the listeners. I’ve tried to do my best to educate the public about what’s going on in Virginia, what’s going on you know, in terms of the different races and what it means. And, you know I’ve tried to, you know, see all the different angles of it. I’ve tried to be objective.

13:06.88

Sam Shirazi

I think most of my assessments were pretty accurate in terms of some of the stories that that got a lot of social media play weren’t necessarily as important in the real world. I think some of the things that happened while they made the election interesting, the fundamental dynamics of the election were kind of shaped a long time ago by the thorough fallout. I think that kind of premise really ended up being correct. And, you know, when you start the podcast called Federal Fallout, you’re you’re assuming that it’s going to happen. But it was interesting to see the results as they came in, particularly northern Virginia.

13:40.94

Sam Shirazi

You know here was a big shift in 2024 against the Democrats in Northern Virginia, and then 2025, Northern Virginia came back to the Democrats in a big way. And I think a lot of that was a federal fallout. And so it was kind of interesting to see it happen when you know at the beginning of the year, you kind of have this feeling that there is going to be a federal fallout. And then a lot of different things happen during the election cycle.

14:01.90

Sam Shirazi

But at the end, you see it kind of come to fruition. And you know on the Democratic side for them. And you know there was obviously the shutdown. That was like another thing that was going on during the election. And it’s kind of crazy that there was a shutdown on election day, looking back on it.

14:14.98

Sam Shirazi

So a lot of interesting stuff. I think you know I talked about the lessons that Democrats and Republicans can learn. But I think the big picture takeaway, kind of going back to what I said you know towards the beginning,

14:26.92

Sam Shirazi

is you really have to think about what the voters care about right now. And I think what the voters were telling both parties in 2024 and 2025, I mean, there were a lot of other issues going on.

14:40.50

Sam Shirazi

But I think a lot of Americans are struggling economically, trying to just make ends meet. And there’s this feeling that you’re constantly falling behind. Young people, they feel like they can’t buy a house.

14:52.04

Sam Shirazi

Older people, they’re kind of worried about their retirement and worried about you know being able to pay all the bills, take care of their kids. And, you know, there’s just a feeling of economic insecurity.

15:04.06

Sam Shirazi

A lot of that is tied to affordability, but there’s a lot of other issues. And i’m not a policy expert. I’m not going to pretend to know all the magical formula. It’s going to fix all these economic problems. But I do think, you know, that was a big reason the Republicans won in 2024.

15:18.32

Sam Shirazi

to the extent people don’t feel like things are getting better in 2025. I think that’s part of the reason Democrats have momentum. It’s part of the reason why the Democrats did well in Virginia and New Jersey. And so I think going forward, we’re really going to have, we’re kind of at a time when this issue is kind of defining politics.

15:36.29

Sam Shirazi

I will be curious to see, know, my sense is the Democrats are probably going to be stuck a little bit in 2025. And in 2026, they are going to want to,

15:44.96

Sam Shirazi

So they’re going to want to run the same playbook they did in 2025 and 2026. We’ll see. Maybe the voters have moved on. I suspect the economy is still to be a really important issue. But maybe the Republicans are going to come up with a better plan to deal with the economy, get more messaging on the economy. Maybe it’s going to work. Maybe it’s not going to work. So anyways, long story short, I think every election is unique. Just because one thing happened in 2035 doesn’t mean it’s going to happen in 2026. But it’s it’s been an interesting journey. I hope everyone’s enjoyed it.

16:13.92

Sam Shirazi

As you can tell, i think for this year, I’ve kind podcast as much as I could. I will take a break for the holidays. You’ll probably get podcasts every now and then from me next year, but less than this year, just because there’s less to cover compared to such an exciting state election in Virginia and really a historic one, considering the scale of Democratic victory.

16:36.03

Sam Shirazi

The fact that we had the first woman governor elected, the first South Asian and Muslim a person elected statewide in Virginia for lieutenant governor, the first black attorney general elected in Virginia, a lot of new delegates, a big Democratic majority, and really just a lot of historic things happened this year in Virginia, a really special election. I know for the Democrats, it was definitely a good feeling when they won the Virginia elections really big. I know the Republicans, you know, were pretty down after the outcome.

17:08.20

Sam Shirazi

You know, I’ve been through politics for a while. I’ve been through elections for a while. I mean some elections you you win, some elections you lose. I think Virginia tends to swing back and forth. So I don’t think Democrats should get too confident. Republicans shouldn’t get too down in the dumps.

17:22.50

Sam Shirazi

Certainly things can change. And, you know, we saw 2021 Glenn Young got a big win. Even though was relatively close, he still won, which was you know a big deal for a Republican in Virginia. 2025, Spamberger gets a really big win for a Democrat in Virginia, and we’ll see what 2029 has to to hold in store in four years. So anyways, i know I’m kind of going on and on about kind of the reflections about the podcast this year.

17:47.74

Sam Shirazi

it was special to do it for me. I thought, you know, I hope everyone’s enjoyed it. And, you know, like I said, I’m not completely done with it, but I think it’s going to be scaled back a little bit just based on everything going on.

18:01.60

Sam Shirazi

So I really appreciate everyone who’s listened. It’s been really special to do it. Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to listen and to come on the show. it’s meant a lot. And I hope, you know, to continue doing it in a more limited form next year.

18:17.28

Sam Shirazi

And so all that’s to say is I appreciate everyone. I hope everyone has a great holiday season. We’ll see you back in 2026 in Virginia. There’s always election every year of election year. So that’ll be exciting. But for now, this has this has been Federal Fallout and I’ll join you next time.

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