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Episode 8: Ben Tribbett Interview
00:00.77
Sam Shirazi
Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, I will be interviewing Democratic consultant Ben Tribbett. He's the found founder of Pocket Aces Consulting.
00:14.91
Sam Shirazi
And I'm also old enough to remember when Ben had his blog, which was one of the original go-to sources for Virginia politics. And now you can get his talk hot takes on X.
00:28.06
Sam Shirazi
So Ben, what made you want to take the leap from giving hot takes online to starting your own consulting firm?
00:36.63
Ben
I got into politics when I was very young.
00:40.73
Ben
And so when I was in high school, I started doing volunteering for campaigns. And then I got to manage my first campaign when I was still a teenager, but which was for a Fairfax County school board race.
00:54.34
Ben
By the time I was 21, I managed my first winning delegate race where we unseated a Republican incumbent. And from that point, I was kind of off to the races from the consulting side of things.
01:06.01
Ben
And so I actually was there before I started the blog. And when I went to Las Vegas to play poker full time, I decided to start Not Larry Sabato, the blog, as a way to sort of stay in touch with Virginia while I was while i was playing poker.
01:21.88
Ben
So I did that for about a year and a half and got the blog off the ground. And so by the time I got back into political consulting, after I kind of winded down doing the, we'll call it the journalist thing for a few years,
01:35.14
Ben
you know, it was more of a return home for me than it was trying something new.
01:39.97
Sam Shirazi
Got it. Well, I did want to ask you one kind of interesting question about the gambling side of things, because I know Nate Silver and you seem to like gambling. Is there something that maybe attracts people to both politics and gambling?
01:54.21
Ben
Well, first of all, poker is a game of skill, not a game of chance, Sam. So poker players would not consider themselves gamblers. But I do also like to partake in other forms of gambling.
02:04.53
Ben
And I think you know anyone who is doing wagering, especially on stuff like sports, there's certainly a numbers component to it. And that's been the side of politics I've always been on is the looking at precinct numbers, looking at trends, looking at statistics.
02:22.44
Ben
And so I'm trying to figure out what that means and portends for the future. So there's certainly some overlap there.
02:29.24
Sam Shirazi
Got it. Well, I wanted to ask you about being a consultant because after Democrats lost the last election, there was a lot of blame directed at the consultant class. And can you just explain what a consultant does and why they're not all bad?
02:44.15
Ben
Yeah. Well, and I think a lot of that blame was deserved. I mean, the the Democratic consultant class structured very differently than what Republicans do. So when people say, you know, you're a campaign consultant, it means very different things if you're a Democratic consultant or a Republican.
03:03.45
Ben
Democrats tend to be structured in these very rigid sort of a pyramid of a campaign. It's a, you have a staffer on the ground and they have a consultant that deals with each aspect of the spends that they're doing. So they'll have a television consultant, a digital consultant, a male consultant, on larger campaigns, they might bring in an expert that's a field consultant.
03:29.83
Ben
And this is overlaid with your traditional staff. Obviously there's also fundraising consultants. the Republicans tend to do more of a model that is a general consultant. They put bring in one firm that sort of handles all these aspects of your campaign for you.
03:46.73
Ben
And that's the model that Democrats use in California. And that was really what, when we started Pocket Aces, while there's times in which we might do a aspect of a campaign for someone,
03:58.82
Ben
and go into that structure. Generally, our candidates, we're general consultants for, which makes us a very different product than what you see from other democratic firms in Virginia, because we handle everything from the start of a campaign to the finish if we're if we're asked to do that.
04:18.19
Ben
And it I think it makes a campaign People have commented before that they think some of our candidates have had better messaging, for example, like better themes.
04:28.43
Ben
And I think a lot of that revolves around the fact that what they're saying on television, what they're saying on radio, what they're saying in the mailbox, what they're saying on X and social media, it's all the same thing because they have the same people that are working on it instead of having different crews that are getting on a conference call for 10 minutes a week.
04:48.34
Sam Shirazi
I think so sometimes people are a little bit unsure about why the consultants are needed. So kiating can kind of explain the difference between like a campaign manager, or someone working directly on a campaign and why the consultants would need to also be there to kind of come in and help the campaign?
05:04.40
Ben
Yeah, so I think obviously you know each campaign's a little bit different, and I understand in some of the local races why there can be frustration with consultants because if you're running for the county board and in a county and these consultants don't know anything about your local issues, a lot of times people on the ground will say, well, why do we need somebody from DC to come in and tell us how to run for the the county board in Prince William County? Or or you know really, you can insert that anywhere.
05:32.20
Ben
And I think what consultants have is a broader look at the electorate because they're seeing it in so many different areas. So one of the places that we had a large amount of business in 2018 for Pocket Aces was in Orange County, California.
05:52.50
Ben
And it was, if you remember that cycle, sort of Orange County had been a Republican steadily Republican County in California. And in 2016, it flipped to Hillary and everyone realized, wow, there's a ton of stuff that might be in play here.
06:07.03
Ben
And the reason that we did so much work in Orange County, and and there were three Congressional that we worked on there that year, as well as some other races, was it had a lot of overlay with what we had seen in Virginia 2017. And And so as consultants, we were sought after because we had seen kind of the first effects of the Trump presidency, what voters in 2017 were moving against Trump, what voters are being mobilized for primaries, what new people you might expect to come into that primary, and what groups were respondent to different messages. and
06:44.10
Ben
And so, you know, in in Orange County, California, where you have a lot of diversity, know, There's a large Asian population. There's a large population of sort of upper income suburban women that were moving very quickly at that time towards the Democrats.
06:58.74
Ben
These were the exact same thing that had happened in Virginia the year before. And so from a consultant perspective, what a manager that's on the ground there might not be able to do is know exactly what's happening elsewhere and how that might apply to their race.
07:16.36
Ben
We see so much polling data. And look, I know Tip O'Neill said all politics is local, but in this era, all politics is national in terms of how the electorate moves.
07:27.80
Ben
You see very similar moves state to state among demographic groups. I think the reason that Nate Silver became as successful as he was in 08 where people thought he had uncorked this magic formula for 538, was he was really just applying statistics to what he was seeing from how demographic groups were moving and then predicting the outcome of those primaries between Hillary and Obama.
07:53.83
Ben
and And frankly, it was... following a very, very steady pattern state to state among how white working class voters were breaking versus African-American voters versus educated voters.
08:07.60
Ben
And the only place where you saw a real difference in the 08 primaries was Hillary was pulling more of the white vote in southern states.
08:18.54
Ben
There were a little bit more, you know, there was more of sort of African Americans voting for for Barack and white voters voting for Hillary in the south that was evident in those results. Otherwise, basically, it was a direct match group to group around the country in almost every state.
08:37.45
Ben
depending on whether you were looking at a caucus electorate or a primary. And so from a consultant perspective, when we're looking at these campaigns, the movement we see and in one area, if we see polls and in New York and New Jersey, they may very well have application to Virginia. That messaging may have application to Virginia.
08:55.76
Ben
And so that's what we're looking at from consultants is having that broader set of data and understanding what's moving people in this in this time. And you know right now, I would say, Sam, and I know it's a long-winded answer, but you know, as a candidate, you would need a consultant more than ever right now because politics is changing so quickly.
09:20.33
Ben
And so you would you would want to arm yourself with somebody who knew what groups had moved in the 2024 election and what groups were moving now since the 2024 election and whether those groups were over or underrepresented in your district and how you could best speak to them.
09:38.11
Ben
Now's the time you would want to have those kinds of people to be able to help you.
09:42.31
Sam Shirazi
I think it's helpful for people to to hear, you know, the value added that consultants have and not just the negative things you always hear online.
09:50.07
Ben
I would also say, Sam, a lot of people always, when they're saying you know negative things about consultants, and and look, there's plenty of negative things to say, but one of the things that was looking at is look how much money they're making.
10:01.95
Ben
But a lot of times that money that you see on the reports is very misleading. For example, when we do a mail piece for someone, that's the consultant is paying the printing and the postage as part of those payments you see go out. So you might see a check go to a consultant that's for $35,000.
10:20.77
Ben
that that We're probably clearing on something like that $2,000 $3,000. two or three thousand dollars And so while that's not always transparent as transparent as it could be on the finance reports, I think some of the anger that gets put towards campaigns having consultants is they people feel like they are sopping up all the campaign resources when oftentimes that's just not the case.
10:43.90
Sam Shirazi
Before I turn to Virginia, I had one last question because I think these are the people who are the real scam artists. So you've talked a lot about the scam packs and I would call it the grifter industrial complex.
10:54.88
Sam Shirazi
Can you explain the issue and what Democrats can do to address it and maybe why that's more of the real issue as opposed to consultants?
11:01.99
Ben
Yeah. So there's a few pieces of this. Number one is, and I'll make this statement and people are going to hear it and think immediately, well, I think that would ever come out of his mouth. But, the biggest problem facing the democratic party right now is small dollar donors.
11:19.71
Ben
And the reason that the small dollar donors are such a problem is that when large donors came in the party in the, in the past and, you know they might have interests that they were interested in. You might have someone who you know is donating to pro-choice candidates or someone who's donating to candidates who want to see more gun safety or you know go down the list.
11:39.68
Ben
They oftentimes have the the resources to know what's going on in campaigns, to know which candidates are competitive, to know which candidates are just kind of just putting out some b******t.
11:52.93
Ben
These small dollar donors don't have that information and they're set all over the country. So there's nowhere to how to communicate with them. And so they're coming into areas that they don't know anything about and helping to select candidates for those areas that are not necessarily the people who are strongest on the ground.
12:12.90
Ben
I think of that Kentucky Senate race from a few years ago where all the national Democratic donors decided that Amy McGrath was going to be the person who would unseat Mitch McConnell and pumped in tens of millions of dollars to her campaign.
12:27.47
Ben
Yet she barely emerged from a primary against a state rep who she outspent 50 to one because that she wasn't the kind of candidate that Democrats on the ground in Kentucky wanted to field.
12:39.80
Ben
And I think that the small dollar donors come in and they pervert this process. I think small dollar donors in your area, there's nothing more valuable that you can put together, but it's these donors from around the country that just sort of come in because they saw a tweet or they, they heard a name or they're recommended by a scam pack that took three quarters of their donation. And, and they're coming in supporting candidates that they don't know anything about.
13:06.69
Ben
I'm, i think frequently, these donors are supporting people in primaries. They don't even know there's a primary going on, right? They think that they're just seeing a tweet that goes out that says, this is our Democratic candidate, and and they're interfering in primaries that they don't know are are ongoing.
13:23.06
Ben
You know, in the in last cycle, and this is a seat we would never be able to carry, but we spent so much money, millions and millions of dollars against Marjorie Taylor Greene.
13:35.72
Ben
In one of the most Republican seats in the country because people want to donate against her. And look, in the general election, that's going to happen. But I will tell you, that started all the way in the primary. And there were three candidates who were running in that primary, two of which ran digital strategies to raise a lot of money, the third of which was actually an elected official that lived in the district.
13:56.98
Ben
Right. And they got completely overrun by the two candidates who did a bunch of digital spending, neither of whom were even lived in the district. They both moved in to to the district just to run and and and basically gripped off of these donors.
14:16.06
Ben
And you see these scam packs come in and they amplify these candidates. It's, it's, it's never supporting strong candidates. It's always supporting candidates that are, uh, want to partner with them and are going to give them the biggest cut of the donations.
14:32.18
Ben
And it's really become a cancer on the party because it deters stronger candidates from running. Now, in Virginia, we don't face this as badly because we have unlimited campaign contributions.
14:45.76
Ben
And the upside of a limited of unlimited contributions, and I know this is probably big money out VA is not going to like hearing this, right? But the upside of the unlimited contributions is if somebody is getting that kind of support, there's ways to catch up to them.
15:00.98
Ben
In a federal race for Congress, for example, where you have donation limits, if someone comes in and raises millions and millions of dollars from the grassroots from around the country, you never have a chance to even compete with them.
15:15.19
Ben
And so, you know, we saw this in the 7th District last year where, you know, Eugene Vindman, I think, won by 44 points in the early vote and by Election Day was winning by, i think, ballpark 10 points.
15:27.30
Ben
Once the other candidates had done a little bit of communication, it was a competitive race. But early on, the race wasn't competitive because none of the other candidates had the resources to talk to voters publicly.
15:40.33
Ben
early on. And so he he may not have been the candidate that people chose to nominate had national small dollar donors not been interfering in it to allow the voters in that district to figure out who they wanted to be their member of Congress.
15:54.00
Sam Shirazi
I think that's all really helpful for people who are trying to kind understand the mechanics of politics. And I could ask you about this stuff all day, but I know we have to move on to Virginia stuff. So I will ask you generally about Virginia. You know, what are the vibes? You mentioned 2017. Is this kind of 2017 type vibe? What are you thinking is going on this year? you know Obviously, more so at the governor's race, but if you want to talk about any of the other races going on.
16:20.27
Ben
Yeah, so far it feels bigger than 17. the The wave that we're likely to catch this year just feels like it's absolutely massive. I think the 2017 wave was primarily driven from surges in turnout. Yeah.
16:40.65
Ben
And turnout surges are worth one vote each. And so what I mean by that is when you start to persuade voters and you move someone from the other side to your side, it's worth two votes for you in a campaign if youre if that person's a regular voter because they go from being a plus one to a minus one or vice versa, in this case, a minus one to a plus one.
17:04.92
Ben
So it's a two vote swing. When you turn somebody out, who otherwise might not have voted, they're worth one vote to you because they go from a zero to a plus one instead of a minus one to a plus one, if that makes sense.
17:18.59
Ben
And so you get much bigger swings in the electorate when you see people moving away from a party or candidates than you do when it's just some groups are really excited about it.
17:32.53
Ben
And 17 was really the story of excitement You saw the Republicans were more excited than they had been in any cycle in Virginia governor history with Ed Gillespie.
17:46.15
Ben
And they still got completely blown out because the Democratic excitement was that much greater for Ralph Northam, who got, I think, around a half million more votes than Terry McAuliffe had gotten four years earlier.
17:57.60
Ben
That was a turnout surge. What I'm feeling happened this year is not just a turnout surge. I'm feeling a movement away from the Republican Party. There's so many people that voted for Trump that are realizing he was serious about everything he said, and some of some of whom are losing their jobs, some of whom are feeling other impacts of the Trump presidency in real ways to their families.
18:23.44
Ben
that are going to move them from being, you know again, minus one voters to plus one voters. And when you get those kind of movements in the electorate, seats that you never imagined can suddenly come into play very quickly.
18:35.96
Ben
Places that you thought might be competitive for pickups turn into landslides very quickly because the electorate moves so much faster with that. And I just everything I'm seeing on the ground, all the numbers I'm seeing is telling me that this is a year that you're going to see voters switching and surging.
18:55.11
Ben
And that would lead to a historic type of win for the Democrats, who have never, by the way, Sam, in the modern history, won a governor's race in Virginia by double digits.
19:06.24
Ben
But if I was setting a Las Vegas line, I would absolutely put the line and as a starting point in the double digits for this year.
19:14.91
Sam Shirazi
I think most people think the Democrats are favored, but it's certainly, you you make a compelling case that it it could not be that, it might end up being not that close.
19:24.80
Sam Shirazi
And I guess, you know, I'm trying to grapple with, you know, what exactly is going on and and how big of a surge there is. And and and how much vote switching there is, as you mentioned.
19:35.50
Sam Shirazi
And I think the thing that I'm trying to think through is what what is the Republican plan? Because it just seems like they're a little bit deer in the headlights, don't really have a lot of plans to counter what's going on.
19:48.02
Sam Shirazi
And so do you think there's a way the Republicans can kind of right the ship to maybe... You know, realistically, it might be hard for them to win, but maybe they'll kind of get get a competitive and maybe the House of Delegates, they don't lose that many seats.
20:01.57
Sam Shirazi
You know, you do you think that's possible or kind of the the train's already left the station?
20:05.99
Ben
Well, the train's leaving the station. i think what the Republicans are likely to to do when they get their numbers back this fall is to, when you're having both a surge against you in terms of turnout and voters are leaving you, the first problem you've to deal with is the voters leaving you.
20:23.95
Ben
I mean, I think you're already seeing the Republicans picking up on this. You saw that the purple caucus got formed from the House Republicans this week where they're calling themselves the the purple district or the purple Republicans. that I don't know.
20:38.25
Ben
I saw the list of them. i couldn't really differentiate from any of them, you know, like what made them purple other than they had a marginal district. I don't think all their voting records are all that purple is purple.
20:50.37
Ben
my point, but I think they're going to be looking at how do we hold some of these voters that are fleeing the Republican party? Because you're not going to be able to solve this just with a surge of going to the base and getting more base turnout.
21:07.70
Ben
And so, you know, that's probably going to be for them breaking with Trump is going to be the only pathway that they have to trying to hold some of those voters. And that, of course, is dangerous and double-edged and you know creates all sorts of perils for the campaign.
21:25.16
Ben
But I think they're going to have to look at that kind of strategy as a as a way to try to deal with the people leaving, because turnout just ain't going to cut it this year.
21:35.94
Ben
It's just not, it's, you can't, you can't turn, there aren't enough voters to turn out in a state that the Republicans already lost to go win it just by turning out the base.
21:46.06
Sam Shirazi
you might see some individual delegates maybe trying to distance themselves from Trump. Do you really think the Republicans, you know, statewide are going to do anything to try to distance themselves from Trump? Because it seems like the mentality is we're just going down with the ship. if And if if Trump takes us down, you know, it is what it is.
22:03.77
Sam Shirazi
I haven't seen any of them really try to distinguish themselves from Trump.
22:08.87
Ben
Yeah, I think you know each person has to kind of look at their own politics on this. you know For example, Jason Merez, who's the attorney general. I think that there's probably a spot in the administration for him if he's not successful.
22:24.23
Ben
So I doubt that he wants to to go blow up his relationships in order to, you know, potentially, let's say hypothetically lose by eight instead of lose by 15. Right.
22:35.81
Ben
So I think he's probably more go down with the ship. I think. somebody like a Pat Herity is probably more likely to see some breakage from Trump if he was to emerge as the Republican nominee for LG.
22:48.67
Ben
And Winston Sears obviously has in the past had some breakage with Trump. So she could always go back towards emphasizing that now that she's through her primary season. But again, like I said a few minutes ago, but you know if if we were sitting in a sports book right now and the the book put up a line of Spanberger minus eight and a half,
23:09.24
Ben
which is about the record of a Democrat in Virginia, I can't imagine that there wouldn't be a lot more votes for Spanberger minus eight and a half than Sears plus eight and a half right now.
23:19.31
Sam Shirazi
it's just kind of the reality the Republicans have to start to grapple with. I did want to ask you about, you know, after 2025, because you mentioned 2017, Democrats learned some lessons that they applied 2018.
23:32.14
Sam Shirazi
ah ah twenty eighteen Do you think after 2025, there are going to be lessons that Democrats can apply in 2026? Obviously, it's still early, but it sounds like, you know, you there might be a playbook that that's being successful in Virginia that could be applied next year in the midterms.
23:49.74
Ben
Yeah, this is the they look, this is the the test case. And I'm having already talking to candidates, you know, when they're running around the country that they want to know what's going on in Virginia. What are we seeing from our polling in Virginia? And they'll all be studying the results that come out of Virginia that give them some idea what they might see and in their areas.
24:10.15
Ben
and and And look, the same way that we look to other states, I think Hampton Roads, for example, which has been an area of Virginia that you know has bounced around and in recent years, that the Northern Virginia and Richmond suburbs have been consistently moving to Democrats, that Hampton Roads suburbs have been oh sometimes moving towards Democrats, but occasionally have bounced back towards Republicans in other cycles.
24:35.91
Ben
It's bounced around a little bit. It's not the straight line that you see in Northern Virginia and the Richmond suburbs. And so you know I look at the special election that happened in Florida last month, and in a Navy town in Pensacola, that county voted Democrat for Congress.
24:55.58
Ben
For the first time since they had voted for Bill Nelson, I think 20 some years ago in a race that he was barely contested in and in the in terms of a serious election, probably 40, 50 years so since they had voted for a Democratic candidate.
25:09.75
Ben
Well. What groups are overrepresented in Pensacola that are less represented in other districts? and And, of course, veterans would go right to the top of your list of you would suspect that is a movement against the Republican Party amongst people in the military or veterans, which wouldn't surprise me at all with some of the things going on with this administration. And so, you know, that would immediately make you in Virginia circle. Well, obviously, Virginia O2 goes right to the top of your list of, okay, if that's happening, that seed is very likely to flip back to us.
25:43.88
Ben
And Virginia 1, you start to look at and say, oh maybe Virginia 1 is in play. And I even start to to think, you know is this a cycle that's big enough that you know a few months from now, we're seeing a strong candidate emerge in Virginia 5?
26:01.44
Ben
That's going to be make it competitive because, you know, the the height of the Democratic wave is when Tom Perriello was successful in Virginia five. And the math does allow you there where you could win it.
26:13.53
Ben
But you would have to be at the very, very top of a wave.
26:16.53
Sam Shirazi
if you just look at 2018, there was a big blue wave and in Virginia. And I think, you know, the way things are going, that's a possibility in 2026. 2025.
26:25.16
Sam Shirazi
I did want to shift gears to one question about an issue that is kind of near and dear to your heart, and and it's a local Northern Virginia issue. It is the Fairfax Casino. So can you explain to everyone why a casino in Fairfax, like Tyson's Corner area, is a good idea and how people would vote for it in a referendum? Because I think there's certainly been a decent amount of opposition to it.
26:49.70
Ben
Yeah, I mean, Sam, I'm the head of a group called the Virginia Players Alliance, which I founded a few years ago that advocates for more gaming in Virginia that is friendly to the consumer.
27:04.16
Ben
And so what we're really focused on from the Players Alliance perspective is making sure that the as Virginia expands its gaming opportunities, that it's done in ways that are fair for the players.
27:15.28
Ben
And that the the payouts are fair for the players and that the the things that come with gambling are an asset to the community. And so we jumped all over the opportunity to help with the Fairfax project because there's so many possibilities that come with that. I think you know talking about a but Fairfax County finally getting for the first time its own sort of tourism industry based here when you have a convention center.
27:45.51
Ben
fairfax The Fairfax board has been asking for this for my entire adult lifetime. And no one's been willing to build this convention center because the economics of a standalone convention center just don't work in Fairfax County.
28:01.16
Ben
But one that was attached to a high-end casino and hotel, the economics would work for it. And we would finally be able to host major conferences in the county.
28:11.85
Ben
The revenue that comes from a casino, especially a high-end one in a place like Tyson's Corner, allows you hundreds of millions of dollars between the state and local government to spend on schools and other public needs.
28:26.56
Ben
And that doesn't even factor in the actual economic boost that the economy gets from the thousands of well-paid union jobs that go into a facility like this. And so, you know, to me, it's a no-brainer.
28:39.86
Ben
We have MGM across the river. Anyone who's been there knows that it's it's a safe place to go. It's what a high-end casino looks and feels like.
28:49.100
Ben
And it generates hundreds of millions of dollars. of for Maryland and for Prince George's County, a big chunk of which comes from Virginians. And so I think there's a lot of people in Northern Virginia that are looking at this saying, you know this isn't a gambling discussion because it's already here.
29:11.18
Ben
The General Assembly's already legalized us to do unlimited sports betting on our phones from home. And so you know when we're talking about gaming, how do we do it in a way that it's attracting people in from outside of the community that are leaving their money here and having a great time doing it instead of just being targeted to people in in our communities, right?
29:36.100
Ben
And I think, you know, the cat's out of the bag on on gaming in Virginia. I mean, I can go on my phone now, log on the Virginia Lottery website, and I don't know, Sam, if you ever go into these things, but you can now, there's slot machines on the Virginia Lottery website.
29:55.09
Ben
and you can go up to $50 a spin on these slot machines. And if you hit the the the little more spins button or the programming thing when you're logged in, first you load up the $50 spins, you can load up to 100 spins per push of the button that's preset. In other words, the button on the $50 machine will light up where you can bet $5,000 per push the button per push of the button on the Virginia Lottery website on the slot machines that they have to order 100 spins of $50 each right off the top.
30:31.64
Ben
The idea that we have that, but we can't have a high-end facility in a place like Tyson's Corner, that could attract in, uh, people that, uh, allows for a social aspect versus people doing this from their home, that's safer for people that brings in tourism.
30:50.25
Ben
to me, it's just asinine. So I think as all these facts kind of get to presented to voters, a lot of the opposition melts away, because it's, it's not really a discussion about, uh,
31:01.84
Ben
gaming, gaming's already here. It's a discussion about whether or not we want to keep some of this revenue in our community and whether we want to have it in in one facility. and And I'll tell you, Sam, from a player perspective, having a casino is a lot safer for players because they have programs to go find problem gamblers, to pull them off of the floor, to make sure that people aren't wagering when they're too drunk or too high or you know exhibiting other problem behaviors, none of those things are available when people are betting from home, when you can't see them and talk to them.
31:40.68
Ben
And so I think we want to encourage, you know from from my perspective, and you know I think this is something that Players Alliance is advocating for, we want gaming more gaming in person in these types of facilities versus things on our phones.
31:56.63
Sam Shirazi
Well, I think you certainly make a strong case for the casinos. I guess the the question I have, you know having looked at the Richmond casino referendum and the fact that you know Fairfax is wealthier community, and as you probably know better than I do, the electorate is going to be older and whiter and wealthier.
32:09.58
Ben
Thank
32:16.92
Sam Shirazi
you know How do you think a referendum would go? Do you you have a sense of Yeah, my sense is the the opposition is going to say this doesn't make sense in Fairfax County. you've You've laid out a good case about why it might make sense.
32:30.53
Sam Shirazi
But is that going to be able to carry the day, particularly when Richmond rejected the casino not too long ago?
32:37.85
Ben
Yeah. You know, Richmond rejected the casino the first time in a year where it was passing everywhere else in Virginia. It was on the ballot. So it seems like there were some unique factors that were going on there.
32:48.67
Ben
And that may have been related to the campaign that they ran. it could be related. I wouldn't necessarily say that there was a, that Richmond is a a canary in the coal mine about Fairfax County.
33:01.52
Ben
You know, Referendums are always touchy things in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County is known for voting no on it's voted no on bonds before, it's voted no on when the Board of Supervisors wanted to institute a meals tax two times, county residents rejected it. even Even in the year in 2016 when Hillary was on the ballot and Democrats were winning overwhelmingly in the county, the meals tax was failing 54 to 46.
33:30.38
Ben
My experience from having run campaigns in Fairfax is nothing is popular in Fairfax until you make a choice with it. And so I think with the casino, what you will see happen is the more that the casino is discussed in terms of you can have the revenue from the casino or you can pay higher real estate taxes.
33:54.58
Ben
You can have the revenue from the casino or we can pay our teachers less. You can have the revenue from a casino or you can have a meals tax or any of the other choices that the county has to make.
34:07.26
Ben
You see people flock to they want the casino. And so I think that the that campaign will be fundamentally about what the choices are that voters have and how how well the campaign is able to educate voters on what that choice is.
34:23.43
Ben
I know the second referendum in Richmond, there was a lot of controversy around. The mayor kind of strong-armed it a little bit to say, i think it was childcare issues. you know We won't have childcare in Richmond. We won't fund these unless unless you pass the casino. And people were, i think, put off by that.
34:42.71
Ben
I don't think this needs to be done in a threatening way. I think it's just done in a factual way. that voters can understand. Like, look, you can either have the hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue from this that the county board can put to your priorities, or you're going to pay it in a different way.
35:00.47
Ben
And we also have to remember that what the electorate looks like in Fairfax County this November, next November, any future November in the Trump era is rapidly changing.
35:13.79
Ben
the county budget is under tremendous pressure right now. All the Northern Virginia counties are facing this enormous budgetary pressure that's being created from the layoffs, from the real estate market, from the commercial real estate market and the residential.
35:32.67
Ben
And they're used to... Gold-plated services. They're used to having, you know, decent-sized class size in schools. They're used to having enough money being paid to teachers that you can recruit and retain quality teachers.
35:48.41
Ben
And I don't think Northern Virginia counties are ever going to get to a place where they're not going to prioritize that first. And if the choice on that is creating a tourism industry that has a casino and a location in Tyson's Corner, or again, raising class size or cutting teacher pay or doing any other number of things that would you know create hundreds of millions of dollars of savings in the county budget, I think that, again, voters are going to flock towards give us the casino.
36:19.92
Sam Shirazi
Well, we'll see what happens next year at the General Assembly. I'm sure it'll be a hot topic next year as well. All right, Ben. Well, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. I did want to just leave with one question about your X account, because i know that it is one of my go-to sources on election night. You're always the first to make the calls, and I think you're always 100% right. So I'm always impressed with that. And i've I've tried to emulate it, but I don't think I'm as ever as good as you and as quick as you. So kudos to your X account.
36:49.26
Sam Shirazi
I did want to say... you know You certainly have a little bit of a different style than me. i I tend to be pretty tame on my ex account. Sometimes you have some spicy takes on there and you also, i would say, air are some personal beef you have with various people.
37:05.72
Sam Shirazi
you know Why do you feel the need to do that? And is that kind of what you think people want to see? Or is it more just kind of, you know you feel like that's where you want to express yourself?
37:17.25
Ben
I just, I've always felt like, you know, I'm in politics to be real about it. And I'm going to tell people what I actually think. In terms of a lot of people will give me the feedback of like, well, you're a consultant. How can you, how can you say these things? Because you might lose a client over it.
37:35.97
Ben
Oftentimes i think it actually helps us pick up clients because we have, we're in primaries and primaries are, heavily competitive, and a lot of times Democrats are afraid to say in primaries what the distinction is between the candidates.
37:50.78
Ben
And I'm not afraid to tell people what the the choices are and why we chose to support a particular candidate because I think they're a better choice. And you know I know that there's a lot of people out there that can sometimes be a little uncomfortable with that, but especially in an area like Northern Virginia,
38:10.47
Ben
where the primaries are the election, we either lay out those choices for people or we continue to win elections and not get anything done. And voters deserve to know, you know, last year, for example, and i guess it's now a year and a half ago, you know, we took on Stella Pekarski's race against George Barker in the primary. And a lot of people said, you can't do that. You know, you won't be able to work for a number of different candidates around the state because you're taking on the the chairman of Senate Finance in a Democratic primary.
38:40.90
Ben
but we really felt that you know Stella was a better representative for that district and put our necks out to tell people about George Barker's voting record and why he should go. And, you know, the same thing, we got involved in the the famous Lucas versus Spruill primary.
38:57.69
Ben
Most of the consultants around the state went into hiding for that primary. yeah
39:02.87
Sam Shirazi
Yeah.
39:03.06
Ben
oh my we we were I was really proud to, you know, I've been working with Senator Lucas for 25 years to tell people why I thought she was the the person we needed at that time.
39:03.12
Sam Shirazi
and
39:11.79
Ben
And I think, you know, you look at what happened with the arena the year after that election and you know i I look back on that and say, boy, did she prove us right? And so you know I'm just not afraid to get in there and mix it up. And and I know that's not everyone's style, but what I have found is a lot of times when people first get involved, they're too nervous to do that stuff. And by the time they've been hanging around the block for 10 years or so,
39:38.43
Ben
they're pretty much all telling me like, yeah, go for it. Like it's time to go send a message. So I get most of my negative feedback on that that stuff from people that are just saying like, well, why can't we just elect Democrats? Well, we don't need to just elect Democrats. We need to elect better Democrats and we have to hold our are Democrats accountable.
39:57.90
Ben
You know, I would, Sam, if you don't mind like me filibustering for a second to say like, you know, the situation we have in Fairfax right now, where you have the school board budget chair being sued for embezzling money from a company.
40:13.98
Ben
This is asinine. The idea that like the school board, which is entirely controlled by Democrats, isn't able to even act.
40:23.83
Ben
theyre not They don't need to remove him from the school board. That's up to him whether he wants to resign or not. But that they're going to keep him in a leadership position overseeing the budget while there's like serious allegations of embezzlement.
40:37.61
Ben
this This is crazy town stuff that just leads to the the the party looking bad. It hurts our statewide candidates. It's the kind of story that easily shows up on Fox News to label the Democrats nationally.
40:51.57
Ben
It's just bad news for us. and And I think the only way you see that stuff change is when you hold them accountable. And I'll tell you last year, you know using that school board as an example, It wasn't until a number of us got involved criticizing them for not having gotten involved with the the the football team that was not following all the rules in Fairfax County that the that the that situation was resolved itself.
41:21.82
Ben
And prior to people sort of raising their voices on it, The school board was going to allow this team to go beat everyone 98 to nothing. That was essentially an all-star team.
41:32.62
Ben
And a bunch of kids were sort of ending their high school athletic career disappointed that they weren't allowed a fair chance to compete. And the school board was not going to do anything until we until we all started speaking about it and then they decided to. So I think oftentimes holding the Democrats accountable, you see it works.
41:54.25
Ben
They're afraid of their next election. And and they don't they want people to think they're doing a good job. And so, you know, again, like this is a new situation now of, you know, the school board members that speak up and say, look, we can't have someone accused of embezzlement that's chairing our budget committee.
42:12.95
Ben
I think they're going to do a lot better in the next election than the ones that say there's nothing we can do and cover up their eyes and pretend ears and pretend like they don't see it happening.
42:22.56
Sam Shirazi
Well, no one can ever accuse you of not speaking your mind. So I know everyone appreciates your hot takes on X, or at least they they take a look, even if they don't always agree with them. But but I do appreciate you always you know giving your opinions on things and being willing to come on here and and share some thoughts. And I think part of the reason I wanted you on was so that people got to know you a little bit. You're not just some random guy on X, you're you're a real human and you actually have, you know, a lot of insights into what's going on in Virginia this year. So Ben, thanks. Thanks again for coming on.
42:52.87
Ben
Yeah, thank you, and congratulations on getting this thing started.
42:56.10
Sam Shirazi
Thanks so much. And see here everyone next week on Federal Fallout.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com
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By Sam Shirazi
4.9
1616 ratings
00:00.77
Sam Shirazi
Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, I will be interviewing Democratic consultant Ben Tribbett. He's the found founder of Pocket Aces Consulting.
00:14.91
Sam Shirazi
And I'm also old enough to remember when Ben had his blog, which was one of the original go-to sources for Virginia politics. And now you can get his talk hot takes on X.
00:28.06
Sam Shirazi
So Ben, what made you want to take the leap from giving hot takes online to starting your own consulting firm?
00:36.63
Ben
I got into politics when I was very young.
00:40.73
Ben
And so when I was in high school, I started doing volunteering for campaigns. And then I got to manage my first campaign when I was still a teenager, but which was for a Fairfax County school board race.
00:54.34
Ben
By the time I was 21, I managed my first winning delegate race where we unseated a Republican incumbent. And from that point, I was kind of off to the races from the consulting side of things.
01:06.01
Ben
And so I actually was there before I started the blog. And when I went to Las Vegas to play poker full time, I decided to start Not Larry Sabato, the blog, as a way to sort of stay in touch with Virginia while I was while i was playing poker.
01:21.88
Ben
So I did that for about a year and a half and got the blog off the ground. And so by the time I got back into political consulting, after I kind of winded down doing the, we'll call it the journalist thing for a few years,
01:35.14
Ben
you know, it was more of a return home for me than it was trying something new.
01:39.97
Sam Shirazi
Got it. Well, I did want to ask you one kind of interesting question about the gambling side of things, because I know Nate Silver and you seem to like gambling. Is there something that maybe attracts people to both politics and gambling?
01:54.21
Ben
Well, first of all, poker is a game of skill, not a game of chance, Sam. So poker players would not consider themselves gamblers. But I do also like to partake in other forms of gambling.
02:04.53
Ben
And I think you know anyone who is doing wagering, especially on stuff like sports, there's certainly a numbers component to it. And that's been the side of politics I've always been on is the looking at precinct numbers, looking at trends, looking at statistics.
02:22.44
Ben
And so I'm trying to figure out what that means and portends for the future. So there's certainly some overlap there.
02:29.24
Sam Shirazi
Got it. Well, I wanted to ask you about being a consultant because after Democrats lost the last election, there was a lot of blame directed at the consultant class. And can you just explain what a consultant does and why they're not all bad?
02:44.15
Ben
Yeah. Well, and I think a lot of that blame was deserved. I mean, the the Democratic consultant class structured very differently than what Republicans do. So when people say, you know, you're a campaign consultant, it means very different things if you're a Democratic consultant or a Republican.
03:03.45
Ben
Democrats tend to be structured in these very rigid sort of a pyramid of a campaign. It's a, you have a staffer on the ground and they have a consultant that deals with each aspect of the spends that they're doing. So they'll have a television consultant, a digital consultant, a male consultant, on larger campaigns, they might bring in an expert that's a field consultant.
03:29.83
Ben
And this is overlaid with your traditional staff. Obviously there's also fundraising consultants. the Republicans tend to do more of a model that is a general consultant. They put bring in one firm that sort of handles all these aspects of your campaign for you.
03:46.73
Ben
And that's the model that Democrats use in California. And that was really what, when we started Pocket Aces, while there's times in which we might do a aspect of a campaign for someone,
03:58.82
Ben
and go into that structure. Generally, our candidates, we're general consultants for, which makes us a very different product than what you see from other democratic firms in Virginia, because we handle everything from the start of a campaign to the finish if we're if we're asked to do that.
04:18.19
Ben
And it I think it makes a campaign People have commented before that they think some of our candidates have had better messaging, for example, like better themes.
04:28.43
Ben
And I think a lot of that revolves around the fact that what they're saying on television, what they're saying on radio, what they're saying in the mailbox, what they're saying on X and social media, it's all the same thing because they have the same people that are working on it instead of having different crews that are getting on a conference call for 10 minutes a week.
04:48.34
Sam Shirazi
I think so sometimes people are a little bit unsure about why the consultants are needed. So kiating can kind of explain the difference between like a campaign manager, or someone working directly on a campaign and why the consultants would need to also be there to kind of come in and help the campaign?
05:04.40
Ben
Yeah, so I think obviously you know each campaign's a little bit different, and I understand in some of the local races why there can be frustration with consultants because if you're running for the county board and in a county and these consultants don't know anything about your local issues, a lot of times people on the ground will say, well, why do we need somebody from DC to come in and tell us how to run for the the county board in Prince William County? Or or you know really, you can insert that anywhere.
05:32.20
Ben
And I think what consultants have is a broader look at the electorate because they're seeing it in so many different areas. So one of the places that we had a large amount of business in 2018 for Pocket Aces was in Orange County, California.
05:52.50
Ben
And it was, if you remember that cycle, sort of Orange County had been a Republican steadily Republican County in California. And in 2016, it flipped to Hillary and everyone realized, wow, there's a ton of stuff that might be in play here.
06:07.03
Ben
And the reason that we did so much work in Orange County, and and there were three Congressional that we worked on there that year, as well as some other races, was it had a lot of overlay with what we had seen in Virginia 2017. And And so as consultants, we were sought after because we had seen kind of the first effects of the Trump presidency, what voters in 2017 were moving against Trump, what voters are being mobilized for primaries, what new people you might expect to come into that primary, and what groups were respondent to different messages. and
06:44.10
Ben
And so, you know, in in Orange County, California, where you have a lot of diversity, know, There's a large Asian population. There's a large population of sort of upper income suburban women that were moving very quickly at that time towards the Democrats.
06:58.74
Ben
These were the exact same thing that had happened in Virginia the year before. And so from a consultant perspective, what a manager that's on the ground there might not be able to do is know exactly what's happening elsewhere and how that might apply to their race.
07:16.36
Ben
We see so much polling data. And look, I know Tip O'Neill said all politics is local, but in this era, all politics is national in terms of how the electorate moves.
07:27.80
Ben
You see very similar moves state to state among demographic groups. I think the reason that Nate Silver became as successful as he was in 08 where people thought he had uncorked this magic formula for 538, was he was really just applying statistics to what he was seeing from how demographic groups were moving and then predicting the outcome of those primaries between Hillary and Obama.
07:53.83
Ben
and And frankly, it was... following a very, very steady pattern state to state among how white working class voters were breaking versus African-American voters versus educated voters.
08:07.60
Ben
And the only place where you saw a real difference in the 08 primaries was Hillary was pulling more of the white vote in southern states.
08:18.54
Ben
There were a little bit more, you know, there was more of sort of African Americans voting for for Barack and white voters voting for Hillary in the south that was evident in those results. Otherwise, basically, it was a direct match group to group around the country in almost every state.
08:37.45
Ben
depending on whether you were looking at a caucus electorate or a primary. And so from a consultant perspective, when we're looking at these campaigns, the movement we see and in one area, if we see polls and in New York and New Jersey, they may very well have application to Virginia. That messaging may have application to Virginia.
08:55.76
Ben
And so that's what we're looking at from consultants is having that broader set of data and understanding what's moving people in this in this time. And you know right now, I would say, Sam, and I know it's a long-winded answer, but you know, as a candidate, you would need a consultant more than ever right now because politics is changing so quickly.
09:20.33
Ben
And so you would you would want to arm yourself with somebody who knew what groups had moved in the 2024 election and what groups were moving now since the 2024 election and whether those groups were over or underrepresented in your district and how you could best speak to them.
09:38.11
Ben
Now's the time you would want to have those kinds of people to be able to help you.
09:42.31
Sam Shirazi
I think it's helpful for people to to hear, you know, the value added that consultants have and not just the negative things you always hear online.
09:50.07
Ben
I would also say, Sam, a lot of people always, when they're saying you know negative things about consultants, and and look, there's plenty of negative things to say, but one of the things that was looking at is look how much money they're making.
10:01.95
Ben
But a lot of times that money that you see on the reports is very misleading. For example, when we do a mail piece for someone, that's the consultant is paying the printing and the postage as part of those payments you see go out. So you might see a check go to a consultant that's for $35,000.
10:20.77
Ben
that that We're probably clearing on something like that $2,000 $3,000. two or three thousand dollars And so while that's not always transparent as transparent as it could be on the finance reports, I think some of the anger that gets put towards campaigns having consultants is they people feel like they are sopping up all the campaign resources when oftentimes that's just not the case.
10:43.90
Sam Shirazi
Before I turn to Virginia, I had one last question because I think these are the people who are the real scam artists. So you've talked a lot about the scam packs and I would call it the grifter industrial complex.
10:54.88
Sam Shirazi
Can you explain the issue and what Democrats can do to address it and maybe why that's more of the real issue as opposed to consultants?
11:01.99
Ben
Yeah. So there's a few pieces of this. Number one is, and I'll make this statement and people are going to hear it and think immediately, well, I think that would ever come out of his mouth. But, the biggest problem facing the democratic party right now is small dollar donors.
11:19.71
Ben
And the reason that the small dollar donors are such a problem is that when large donors came in the party in the, in the past and, you know they might have interests that they were interested in. You might have someone who you know is donating to pro-choice candidates or someone who's donating to candidates who want to see more gun safety or you know go down the list.
11:39.68
Ben
They oftentimes have the the resources to know what's going on in campaigns, to know which candidates are competitive, to know which candidates are just kind of just putting out some b******t.
11:52.93
Ben
These small dollar donors don't have that information and they're set all over the country. So there's nowhere to how to communicate with them. And so they're coming into areas that they don't know anything about and helping to select candidates for those areas that are not necessarily the people who are strongest on the ground.
12:12.90
Ben
I think of that Kentucky Senate race from a few years ago where all the national Democratic donors decided that Amy McGrath was going to be the person who would unseat Mitch McConnell and pumped in tens of millions of dollars to her campaign.
12:27.47
Ben
Yet she barely emerged from a primary against a state rep who she outspent 50 to one because that she wasn't the kind of candidate that Democrats on the ground in Kentucky wanted to field.
12:39.80
Ben
And I think that the small dollar donors come in and they pervert this process. I think small dollar donors in your area, there's nothing more valuable that you can put together, but it's these donors from around the country that just sort of come in because they saw a tweet or they, they heard a name or they're recommended by a scam pack that took three quarters of their donation. And, and they're coming in supporting candidates that they don't know anything about.
13:06.69
Ben
I'm, i think frequently, these donors are supporting people in primaries. They don't even know there's a primary going on, right? They think that they're just seeing a tweet that goes out that says, this is our Democratic candidate, and and they're interfering in primaries that they don't know are are ongoing.
13:23.06
Ben
You know, in the in last cycle, and this is a seat we would never be able to carry, but we spent so much money, millions and millions of dollars against Marjorie Taylor Greene.
13:35.72
Ben
In one of the most Republican seats in the country because people want to donate against her. And look, in the general election, that's going to happen. But I will tell you, that started all the way in the primary. And there were three candidates who were running in that primary, two of which ran digital strategies to raise a lot of money, the third of which was actually an elected official that lived in the district.
13:56.98
Ben
Right. And they got completely overrun by the two candidates who did a bunch of digital spending, neither of whom were even lived in the district. They both moved in to to the district just to run and and and basically gripped off of these donors.
14:16.06
Ben
And you see these scam packs come in and they amplify these candidates. It's, it's, it's never supporting strong candidates. It's always supporting candidates that are, uh, want to partner with them and are going to give them the biggest cut of the donations.
14:32.18
Ben
And it's really become a cancer on the party because it deters stronger candidates from running. Now, in Virginia, we don't face this as badly because we have unlimited campaign contributions.
14:45.76
Ben
And the upside of a limited of unlimited contributions, and I know this is probably big money out VA is not going to like hearing this, right? But the upside of the unlimited contributions is if somebody is getting that kind of support, there's ways to catch up to them.
15:00.98
Ben
In a federal race for Congress, for example, where you have donation limits, if someone comes in and raises millions and millions of dollars from the grassroots from around the country, you never have a chance to even compete with them.
15:15.19
Ben
And so, you know, we saw this in the 7th District last year where, you know, Eugene Vindman, I think, won by 44 points in the early vote and by Election Day was winning by, i think, ballpark 10 points.
15:27.30
Ben
Once the other candidates had done a little bit of communication, it was a competitive race. But early on, the race wasn't competitive because none of the other candidates had the resources to talk to voters publicly.
15:40.33
Ben
early on. And so he he may not have been the candidate that people chose to nominate had national small dollar donors not been interfering in it to allow the voters in that district to figure out who they wanted to be their member of Congress.
15:54.00
Sam Shirazi
I think that's all really helpful for people who are trying to kind understand the mechanics of politics. And I could ask you about this stuff all day, but I know we have to move on to Virginia stuff. So I will ask you generally about Virginia. You know, what are the vibes? You mentioned 2017. Is this kind of 2017 type vibe? What are you thinking is going on this year? you know Obviously, more so at the governor's race, but if you want to talk about any of the other races going on.
16:20.27
Ben
Yeah, so far it feels bigger than 17. the The wave that we're likely to catch this year just feels like it's absolutely massive. I think the 2017 wave was primarily driven from surges in turnout. Yeah.
16:40.65
Ben
And turnout surges are worth one vote each. And so what I mean by that is when you start to persuade voters and you move someone from the other side to your side, it's worth two votes for you in a campaign if youre if that person's a regular voter because they go from being a plus one to a minus one or vice versa, in this case, a minus one to a plus one.
17:04.92
Ben
So it's a two vote swing. When you turn somebody out, who otherwise might not have voted, they're worth one vote to you because they go from a zero to a plus one instead of a minus one to a plus one, if that makes sense.
17:18.59
Ben
And so you get much bigger swings in the electorate when you see people moving away from a party or candidates than you do when it's just some groups are really excited about it.
17:32.53
Ben
And 17 was really the story of excitement You saw the Republicans were more excited than they had been in any cycle in Virginia governor history with Ed Gillespie.
17:46.15
Ben
And they still got completely blown out because the Democratic excitement was that much greater for Ralph Northam, who got, I think, around a half million more votes than Terry McAuliffe had gotten four years earlier.
17:57.60
Ben
That was a turnout surge. What I'm feeling happened this year is not just a turnout surge. I'm feeling a movement away from the Republican Party. There's so many people that voted for Trump that are realizing he was serious about everything he said, and some of some of whom are losing their jobs, some of whom are feeling other impacts of the Trump presidency in real ways to their families.
18:23.44
Ben
that are going to move them from being, you know again, minus one voters to plus one voters. And when you get those kind of movements in the electorate, seats that you never imagined can suddenly come into play very quickly.
18:35.96
Ben
Places that you thought might be competitive for pickups turn into landslides very quickly because the electorate moves so much faster with that. And I just everything I'm seeing on the ground, all the numbers I'm seeing is telling me that this is a year that you're going to see voters switching and surging.
18:55.11
Ben
And that would lead to a historic type of win for the Democrats, who have never, by the way, Sam, in the modern history, won a governor's race in Virginia by double digits.
19:06.24
Ben
But if I was setting a Las Vegas line, I would absolutely put the line and as a starting point in the double digits for this year.
19:14.91
Sam Shirazi
I think most people think the Democrats are favored, but it's certainly, you you make a compelling case that it it could not be that, it might end up being not that close.
19:24.80
Sam Shirazi
And I guess, you know, I'm trying to grapple with, you know, what exactly is going on and and how big of a surge there is. And and and how much vote switching there is, as you mentioned.
19:35.50
Sam Shirazi
And I think the thing that I'm trying to think through is what what is the Republican plan? Because it just seems like they're a little bit deer in the headlights, don't really have a lot of plans to counter what's going on.
19:48.02
Sam Shirazi
And so do you think there's a way the Republicans can kind of right the ship to maybe... You know, realistically, it might be hard for them to win, but maybe they'll kind of get get a competitive and maybe the House of Delegates, they don't lose that many seats.
20:01.57
Sam Shirazi
You know, you do you think that's possible or kind of the the train's already left the station?
20:05.99
Ben
Well, the train's leaving the station. i think what the Republicans are likely to to do when they get their numbers back this fall is to, when you're having both a surge against you in terms of turnout and voters are leaving you, the first problem you've to deal with is the voters leaving you.
20:23.95
Ben
I mean, I think you're already seeing the Republicans picking up on this. You saw that the purple caucus got formed from the House Republicans this week where they're calling themselves the the purple district or the purple Republicans. that I don't know.
20:38.25
Ben
I saw the list of them. i couldn't really differentiate from any of them, you know, like what made them purple other than they had a marginal district. I don't think all their voting records are all that purple is purple.
20:50.37
Ben
my point, but I think they're going to be looking at how do we hold some of these voters that are fleeing the Republican party? Because you're not going to be able to solve this just with a surge of going to the base and getting more base turnout.
21:07.70
Ben
And so, you know, that's probably going to be for them breaking with Trump is going to be the only pathway that they have to trying to hold some of those voters. And that, of course, is dangerous and double-edged and you know creates all sorts of perils for the campaign.
21:25.16
Ben
But I think they're going to have to look at that kind of strategy as a as a way to try to deal with the people leaving, because turnout just ain't going to cut it this year.
21:35.94
Ben
It's just not, it's, you can't, you can't turn, there aren't enough voters to turn out in a state that the Republicans already lost to go win it just by turning out the base.
21:46.06
Sam Shirazi
you might see some individual delegates maybe trying to distance themselves from Trump. Do you really think the Republicans, you know, statewide are going to do anything to try to distance themselves from Trump? Because it seems like the mentality is we're just going down with the ship. if And if if Trump takes us down, you know, it is what it is.
22:03.77
Sam Shirazi
I haven't seen any of them really try to distinguish themselves from Trump.
22:08.87
Ben
Yeah, I think you know each person has to kind of look at their own politics on this. you know For example, Jason Merez, who's the attorney general. I think that there's probably a spot in the administration for him if he's not successful.
22:24.23
Ben
So I doubt that he wants to to go blow up his relationships in order to, you know, potentially, let's say hypothetically lose by eight instead of lose by 15. Right.
22:35.81
Ben
So I think he's probably more go down with the ship. I think. somebody like a Pat Herity is probably more likely to see some breakage from Trump if he was to emerge as the Republican nominee for LG.
22:48.67
Ben
And Winston Sears obviously has in the past had some breakage with Trump. So she could always go back towards emphasizing that now that she's through her primary season. But again, like I said a few minutes ago, but you know if if we were sitting in a sports book right now and the the book put up a line of Spanberger minus eight and a half,
23:09.24
Ben
which is about the record of a Democrat in Virginia, I can't imagine that there wouldn't be a lot more votes for Spanberger minus eight and a half than Sears plus eight and a half right now.
23:19.31
Sam Shirazi
it's just kind of the reality the Republicans have to start to grapple with. I did want to ask you about, you know, after 2025, because you mentioned 2017, Democrats learned some lessons that they applied 2018.
23:32.14
Sam Shirazi
ah ah twenty eighteen Do you think after 2025, there are going to be lessons that Democrats can apply in 2026? Obviously, it's still early, but it sounds like, you know, you there might be a playbook that that's being successful in Virginia that could be applied next year in the midterms.
23:49.74
Ben
Yeah, this is the they look, this is the the test case. And I'm having already talking to candidates, you know, when they're running around the country that they want to know what's going on in Virginia. What are we seeing from our polling in Virginia? And they'll all be studying the results that come out of Virginia that give them some idea what they might see and in their areas.
24:10.15
Ben
and and And look, the same way that we look to other states, I think Hampton Roads, for example, which has been an area of Virginia that you know has bounced around and in recent years, that the Northern Virginia and Richmond suburbs have been consistently moving to Democrats, that Hampton Roads suburbs have been oh sometimes moving towards Democrats, but occasionally have bounced back towards Republicans in other cycles.
24:35.91
Ben
It's bounced around a little bit. It's not the straight line that you see in Northern Virginia and the Richmond suburbs. And so you know I look at the special election that happened in Florida last month, and in a Navy town in Pensacola, that county voted Democrat for Congress.
24:55.58
Ben
For the first time since they had voted for Bill Nelson, I think 20 some years ago in a race that he was barely contested in and in the in terms of a serious election, probably 40, 50 years so since they had voted for a Democratic candidate.
25:09.75
Ben
Well. What groups are overrepresented in Pensacola that are less represented in other districts? and And, of course, veterans would go right to the top of your list of you would suspect that is a movement against the Republican Party amongst people in the military or veterans, which wouldn't surprise me at all with some of the things going on with this administration. And so, you know, that would immediately make you in Virginia circle. Well, obviously, Virginia O2 goes right to the top of your list of, okay, if that's happening, that seed is very likely to flip back to us.
25:43.88
Ben
And Virginia 1, you start to look at and say, oh maybe Virginia 1 is in play. And I even start to to think, you know is this a cycle that's big enough that you know a few months from now, we're seeing a strong candidate emerge in Virginia 5?
26:01.44
Ben
That's going to be make it competitive because, you know, the the height of the Democratic wave is when Tom Perriello was successful in Virginia five. And the math does allow you there where you could win it.
26:13.53
Ben
But you would have to be at the very, very top of a wave.
26:16.53
Sam Shirazi
if you just look at 2018, there was a big blue wave and in Virginia. And I think, you know, the way things are going, that's a possibility in 2026. 2025.
26:25.16
Sam Shirazi
I did want to shift gears to one question about an issue that is kind of near and dear to your heart, and and it's a local Northern Virginia issue. It is the Fairfax Casino. So can you explain to everyone why a casino in Fairfax, like Tyson's Corner area, is a good idea and how people would vote for it in a referendum? Because I think there's certainly been a decent amount of opposition to it.
26:49.70
Ben
Yeah, I mean, Sam, I'm the head of a group called the Virginia Players Alliance, which I founded a few years ago that advocates for more gaming in Virginia that is friendly to the consumer.
27:04.16
Ben
And so what we're really focused on from the Players Alliance perspective is making sure that the as Virginia expands its gaming opportunities, that it's done in ways that are fair for the players.
27:15.28
Ben
And that the the payouts are fair for the players and that the the things that come with gambling are an asset to the community. And so we jumped all over the opportunity to help with the Fairfax project because there's so many possibilities that come with that. I think you know talking about a but Fairfax County finally getting for the first time its own sort of tourism industry based here when you have a convention center.
27:45.51
Ben
fairfax The Fairfax board has been asking for this for my entire adult lifetime. And no one's been willing to build this convention center because the economics of a standalone convention center just don't work in Fairfax County.
28:01.16
Ben
But one that was attached to a high-end casino and hotel, the economics would work for it. And we would finally be able to host major conferences in the county.
28:11.85
Ben
The revenue that comes from a casino, especially a high-end one in a place like Tyson's Corner, allows you hundreds of millions of dollars between the state and local government to spend on schools and other public needs.
28:26.56
Ben
And that doesn't even factor in the actual economic boost that the economy gets from the thousands of well-paid union jobs that go into a facility like this. And so, you know, to me, it's a no-brainer.
28:39.86
Ben
We have MGM across the river. Anyone who's been there knows that it's it's a safe place to go. It's what a high-end casino looks and feels like.
28:49.100
Ben
And it generates hundreds of millions of dollars. of for Maryland and for Prince George's County, a big chunk of which comes from Virginians. And so I think there's a lot of people in Northern Virginia that are looking at this saying, you know this isn't a gambling discussion because it's already here.
29:11.18
Ben
The General Assembly's already legalized us to do unlimited sports betting on our phones from home. And so you know when we're talking about gaming, how do we do it in a way that it's attracting people in from outside of the community that are leaving their money here and having a great time doing it instead of just being targeted to people in in our communities, right?
29:36.100
Ben
And I think, you know, the cat's out of the bag on on gaming in Virginia. I mean, I can go on my phone now, log on the Virginia Lottery website, and I don't know, Sam, if you ever go into these things, but you can now, there's slot machines on the Virginia Lottery website.
29:55.09
Ben
and you can go up to $50 a spin on these slot machines. And if you hit the the the little more spins button or the programming thing when you're logged in, first you load up the $50 spins, you can load up to 100 spins per push of the button that's preset. In other words, the button on the $50 machine will light up where you can bet $5,000 per push the button per push of the button on the Virginia Lottery website on the slot machines that they have to order 100 spins of $50 each right off the top.
30:31.64
Ben
The idea that we have that, but we can't have a high-end facility in a place like Tyson's Corner, that could attract in, uh, people that, uh, allows for a social aspect versus people doing this from their home, that's safer for people that brings in tourism.
30:50.25
Ben
to me, it's just asinine. So I think as all these facts kind of get to presented to voters, a lot of the opposition melts away, because it's, it's not really a discussion about, uh,
31:01.84
Ben
gaming, gaming's already here. It's a discussion about whether or not we want to keep some of this revenue in our community and whether we want to have it in in one facility. and And I'll tell you, Sam, from a player perspective, having a casino is a lot safer for players because they have programs to go find problem gamblers, to pull them off of the floor, to make sure that people aren't wagering when they're too drunk or too high or you know exhibiting other problem behaviors, none of those things are available when people are betting from home, when you can't see them and talk to them.
31:40.68
Ben
And so I think we want to encourage, you know from from my perspective, and you know I think this is something that Players Alliance is advocating for, we want gaming more gaming in person in these types of facilities versus things on our phones.
31:56.63
Sam Shirazi
Well, I think you certainly make a strong case for the casinos. I guess the the question I have, you know having looked at the Richmond casino referendum and the fact that you know Fairfax is wealthier community, and as you probably know better than I do, the electorate is going to be older and whiter and wealthier.
32:09.58
Ben
Thank
32:16.92
Sam Shirazi
you know How do you think a referendum would go? Do you you have a sense of Yeah, my sense is the the opposition is going to say this doesn't make sense in Fairfax County. you've You've laid out a good case about why it might make sense.
32:30.53
Sam Shirazi
But is that going to be able to carry the day, particularly when Richmond rejected the casino not too long ago?
32:37.85
Ben
Yeah. You know, Richmond rejected the casino the first time in a year where it was passing everywhere else in Virginia. It was on the ballot. So it seems like there were some unique factors that were going on there.
32:48.67
Ben
And that may have been related to the campaign that they ran. it could be related. I wouldn't necessarily say that there was a, that Richmond is a a canary in the coal mine about Fairfax County.
33:01.52
Ben
You know, Referendums are always touchy things in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County is known for voting no on it's voted no on bonds before, it's voted no on when the Board of Supervisors wanted to institute a meals tax two times, county residents rejected it. even Even in the year in 2016 when Hillary was on the ballot and Democrats were winning overwhelmingly in the county, the meals tax was failing 54 to 46.
33:30.38
Ben
My experience from having run campaigns in Fairfax is nothing is popular in Fairfax until you make a choice with it. And so I think with the casino, what you will see happen is the more that the casino is discussed in terms of you can have the revenue from the casino or you can pay higher real estate taxes.
33:54.58
Ben
You can have the revenue from the casino or we can pay our teachers less. You can have the revenue from a casino or you can have a meals tax or any of the other choices that the county has to make.
34:07.26
Ben
You see people flock to they want the casino. And so I think that the that campaign will be fundamentally about what the choices are that voters have and how how well the campaign is able to educate voters on what that choice is.
34:23.43
Ben
I know the second referendum in Richmond, there was a lot of controversy around. The mayor kind of strong-armed it a little bit to say, i think it was childcare issues. you know We won't have childcare in Richmond. We won't fund these unless unless you pass the casino. And people were, i think, put off by that.
34:42.71
Ben
I don't think this needs to be done in a threatening way. I think it's just done in a factual way. that voters can understand. Like, look, you can either have the hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue from this that the county board can put to your priorities, or you're going to pay it in a different way.
35:00.47
Ben
And we also have to remember that what the electorate looks like in Fairfax County this November, next November, any future November in the Trump era is rapidly changing.
35:13.79
Ben
the county budget is under tremendous pressure right now. All the Northern Virginia counties are facing this enormous budgetary pressure that's being created from the layoffs, from the real estate market, from the commercial real estate market and the residential.
35:32.67
Ben
And they're used to... Gold-plated services. They're used to having, you know, decent-sized class size in schools. They're used to having enough money being paid to teachers that you can recruit and retain quality teachers.
35:48.41
Ben
And I don't think Northern Virginia counties are ever going to get to a place where they're not going to prioritize that first. And if the choice on that is creating a tourism industry that has a casino and a location in Tyson's Corner, or again, raising class size or cutting teacher pay or doing any other number of things that would you know create hundreds of millions of dollars of savings in the county budget, I think that, again, voters are going to flock towards give us the casino.
36:19.92
Sam Shirazi
Well, we'll see what happens next year at the General Assembly. I'm sure it'll be a hot topic next year as well. All right, Ben. Well, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. I did want to just leave with one question about your X account, because i know that it is one of my go-to sources on election night. You're always the first to make the calls, and I think you're always 100% right. So I'm always impressed with that. And i've I've tried to emulate it, but I don't think I'm as ever as good as you and as quick as you. So kudos to your X account.
36:49.26
Sam Shirazi
I did want to say... you know You certainly have a little bit of a different style than me. i I tend to be pretty tame on my ex account. Sometimes you have some spicy takes on there and you also, i would say, air are some personal beef you have with various people.
37:05.72
Sam Shirazi
you know Why do you feel the need to do that? And is that kind of what you think people want to see? Or is it more just kind of, you know you feel like that's where you want to express yourself?
37:17.25
Ben
I just, I've always felt like, you know, I'm in politics to be real about it. And I'm going to tell people what I actually think. In terms of a lot of people will give me the feedback of like, well, you're a consultant. How can you, how can you say these things? Because you might lose a client over it.
37:35.97
Ben
Oftentimes i think it actually helps us pick up clients because we have, we're in primaries and primaries are, heavily competitive, and a lot of times Democrats are afraid to say in primaries what the distinction is between the candidates.
37:50.78
Ben
And I'm not afraid to tell people what the the choices are and why we chose to support a particular candidate because I think they're a better choice. And you know I know that there's a lot of people out there that can sometimes be a little uncomfortable with that, but especially in an area like Northern Virginia,
38:10.47
Ben
where the primaries are the election, we either lay out those choices for people or we continue to win elections and not get anything done. And voters deserve to know, you know, last year, for example, and i guess it's now a year and a half ago, you know, we took on Stella Pekarski's race against George Barker in the primary. And a lot of people said, you can't do that. You know, you won't be able to work for a number of different candidates around the state because you're taking on the the chairman of Senate Finance in a Democratic primary.
38:40.90
Ben
but we really felt that you know Stella was a better representative for that district and put our necks out to tell people about George Barker's voting record and why he should go. And, you know, the same thing, we got involved in the the famous Lucas versus Spruill primary.
38:57.69
Ben
Most of the consultants around the state went into hiding for that primary. yeah
39:02.87
Sam Shirazi
Yeah.
39:03.06
Ben
oh my we we were I was really proud to, you know, I've been working with Senator Lucas for 25 years to tell people why I thought she was the the person we needed at that time.
39:03.12
Sam Shirazi
and
39:11.79
Ben
And I think, you know, you look at what happened with the arena the year after that election and you know i I look back on that and say, boy, did she prove us right? And so you know I'm just not afraid to get in there and mix it up. And and I know that's not everyone's style, but what I have found is a lot of times when people first get involved, they're too nervous to do that stuff. And by the time they've been hanging around the block for 10 years or so,
39:38.43
Ben
they're pretty much all telling me like, yeah, go for it. Like it's time to go send a message. So I get most of my negative feedback on that that stuff from people that are just saying like, well, why can't we just elect Democrats? Well, we don't need to just elect Democrats. We need to elect better Democrats and we have to hold our are Democrats accountable.
39:57.90
Ben
You know, I would, Sam, if you don't mind like me filibustering for a second to say like, you know, the situation we have in Fairfax right now, where you have the school board budget chair being sued for embezzling money from a company.
40:13.98
Ben
This is asinine. The idea that like the school board, which is entirely controlled by Democrats, isn't able to even act.
40:23.83
Ben
theyre not They don't need to remove him from the school board. That's up to him whether he wants to resign or not. But that they're going to keep him in a leadership position overseeing the budget while there's like serious allegations of embezzlement.
40:37.61
Ben
this This is crazy town stuff that just leads to the the the party looking bad. It hurts our statewide candidates. It's the kind of story that easily shows up on Fox News to label the Democrats nationally.
40:51.57
Ben
It's just bad news for us. and And I think the only way you see that stuff change is when you hold them accountable. And I'll tell you last year, you know using that school board as an example, It wasn't until a number of us got involved criticizing them for not having gotten involved with the the the football team that was not following all the rules in Fairfax County that the that the that situation was resolved itself.
41:21.82
Ben
And prior to people sort of raising their voices on it, The school board was going to allow this team to go beat everyone 98 to nothing. That was essentially an all-star team.
41:32.62
Ben
And a bunch of kids were sort of ending their high school athletic career disappointed that they weren't allowed a fair chance to compete. And the school board was not going to do anything until we until we all started speaking about it and then they decided to. So I think oftentimes holding the Democrats accountable, you see it works.
41:54.25
Ben
They're afraid of their next election. And and they don't they want people to think they're doing a good job. And so, you know, again, like this is a new situation now of, you know, the school board members that speak up and say, look, we can't have someone accused of embezzlement that's chairing our budget committee.
42:12.95
Ben
I think they're going to do a lot better in the next election than the ones that say there's nothing we can do and cover up their eyes and pretend ears and pretend like they don't see it happening.
42:22.56
Sam Shirazi
Well, no one can ever accuse you of not speaking your mind. So I know everyone appreciates your hot takes on X, or at least they they take a look, even if they don't always agree with them. But but I do appreciate you always you know giving your opinions on things and being willing to come on here and and share some thoughts. And I think part of the reason I wanted you on was so that people got to know you a little bit. You're not just some random guy on X, you're you're a real human and you actually have, you know, a lot of insights into what's going on in Virginia this year. So Ben, thanks. Thanks again for coming on.
42:52.87
Ben
Yeah, thank you, and congratulations on getting this thing started.
42:56.10
Sam Shirazi
Thanks so much. And see here everyone next week on Federal Fallout.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com
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