00:00.66

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode we will talk to Lowell Feld who runs Blue Virginia, the go-to Democratic blog in Virginia.

00:13.78

Sam Shirazi

I find that Lowell is well regarded on both sides and people on both sides cite his blog, which I think that's usually a sign someone, if someone's more partisan, that they're good if other people on the other side are able to look at their work, because I mean, it means the other side is also interested in what they're doing. So anyways, thanks for joining me, Lowell.

00:36.08

Lowell

All Well, thanks, Sam. I appreciate you having me on. And thanks for the kind words about Blue Virginia. hope they Hope they're accurate.

00:42.90

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, well, you know, I appreciate you. You often allow me to post longer articles on there and you cite my work. So I always like looking at Blue Virginia, specifically on the Democratic side. I mean, you you often have, you know, really good insights and kind of scoops.

00:57.00

Sam Shirazi

And generally, i think you just have good political IQ about what's going on in Virginia. So that's why I wanted to talk to you about that and mainly want to talk about the upcoming Democratic primary. But before that, just kind of want to ask a little bit about like why you started the blog and how do you you think the roles of blogs have changed maybe since you first started Blue Virginia?

01:17.67

Lowell

Yeah, well, this will really date me, of course, and everyone can figure out you know how not young I am. I guess I should retire by this point, but know based on the on the youth movement these days. But yeah, because I started in really the heyday of the rise of the blog, political blogs, was like in the early to mid-2000s. started in 2005 with a blog called Raising Cain, K-A-I-N-E.

01:40.67

Lowell

back then to help elect Tim Kaine governor of Virginia. And were a million political blogs back then because there was no, think about a world with, I mean, it's unimaginable, right? No YouTube, no Twitter, no Facebook, no, no, and that dial up still really. So that was, that was what, you know, I got going.

01:58.86

Lowell

And what happened was, you know, John Kerry lost the, 2004 election to George W. Bush. And i mean, I was just really frustrated and and kind of like trying to figure out what I could do to stay involved.

02:11.34

Lowell

And then I was thinking about i was brainstorming with a friend of mine and we were like, what's going on Maybe something here in Virginia. It's like, wait a minute, there's an election every year in Virginia, pretty much, including the year after the presidential election. There's always an election in Virginia for governor.

02:26.78

Lowell

And so we're like, well, wait, maybe we could try something for that, you know, do a blog or whatever. And so that's how Raising Cane got going. I was working for the federal government at the time still. So I did this in my spare time.

02:38.60

Lowell

But eventually I moved, you know, I left my federal job and I, uh, co-founded the draft James Webb for us Senate movement. And then eventually I just got totally into politics and, you know, pretty much left the federal government and just did this, uh, which is maybe crazy, but, it's been interesting and, and certainly, uh,

02:59.60

Lowell

fun at times, a lot of times and rewarding. Many times there have been like, you know, some years that were terrible for Democrats and some years that were great for Democrats. And it's been, but it yeah, it's been like 20 years.

03:12.94

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, you mentioned there were used to be a lot of political blogs and i remember some of them and most of them have gone away. And and what do you think the role of your blog or blogs are today in the political environment?

03:25.84

Lowell

I mean, i you know, I think that, yeah, a lot of those political blogs, that that's where people went back then to get – if you were a hardcore political junkie, you know, that was – you couldn't go to Facebook. There was no Twitter, like I said. So political blogs were the the really the go-to place, and they they were – Very lively. And there were a bunch of them on the you know Democratic side and Republican side. But I think I think there's still I still have play a role. I mean, i just think, you know, today, like my blog, I mean, i incorporate a lot more video content, audio content, things, you know, I can upload stuff now and.

04:04.42

Lowell

seconds that would have taken me, you know, hours back then if the connection even held together. But I think it's still the hardcore political junkies to a lot of, to a large extent. I mean, the other day I went to the false church Memorial Day parade and I just know, i mean, I think just based on the reactions by people when candidates were coming up and introducing themselves the people at the parade, I don't think most people are like really follow this stuff that closely because they didn't seem to know who the candidates were. And I just think that's how it is. i mean, but so, you know, we get several thousand

04:37.01

Lowell

you know, this views per day or whatever page views per day. And so I think it's mostly people who are really following either active democratic activists or people who are in politics and and Virginia policies are following it very closely. So that's kind of who I think my core audience is for this.

04:58.98

Lowell

For me, it's an outlet to be able to sort of think globally, act locally is the way i call it. And, you know I think you can make somewhat of a difference. I'm not saying a huge difference necessarily, but if you have any chance of making any difference, it's probably more at the local and state level, I feel like, as opposed to trying to change the world.

05:19.76

Lowell

you know so i think you know over the years, we had some success with that. with We helped elect Tim Kaine, helped draft James Webb, helped him win that election, take back the U.S. Senate, whatever. he but yeah Approaching it from the local and state level you know, going that direction instead of top down, sort of more bottom up.

05:39.43

Lowell

And I mean, I've been and but you know involved with local county board races, school board races, House of Delegates races, you know, whatever. And i think at that level in a primary or even in a general election, there might only be a few thousand people voting. So, you know, if you have a a point of view and a voice and you can get that out there, i think you can have some impact. But again, it's hard to measure.

06:04.52

Lowell

and you know, but yeah, so that's, it's kind of what I've been, been up to with, with blue Virginia. I mean, it was raising Cain and I changed it eventually to blue Virginia. I didn't want it to be tied to, it wasn't specifically about Tim Cain. Initially it was, but then once he got elected, it it was more about electing Democrats and, and it was aspirational to turn Virginia blue. It wasn't blue.

06:26.58

Lowell

I still don't think it's dark blue or anything. I think it's, depends on the election year and it depends on the electorate that shows up. but yeah, blue Virginia is more like of an aspiration.

06:37.24

Lowell

Maybe one day it will all be, you know, safe blue.

06:41.33

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, in terms of the last election, so obviously after Democrats lost in 2024, there's been a lot of talk about the media environment and Democrats needing to reach people. And, you know, there's there's been a lot of, you know Democratic self-reflection because that's what Democrats tend to do.

06:57.06

Lowell

Yeah.

06:57.05

Sam Shirazi

i mean What do you think Democrats can do to fix that specific problem of maybe getting their content to more people so that they're getting the Democratic messaging out there?

06:57.18

Lowell

Yeah.

07:07.66

Lowell

I mean, there's been a lot written on this and a lot of discussion on this. I mean, the thing is that a lot of the people who are only marginally paying attention or barely not even paying attention at all, they may only get a snippet of something when they're watching a comedy show or they're watching or they're listening to a sports podcast or whatever.

07:26.100

Lowell

So, yeah, there's there's some talk now about investing money into trying to ah create the Democrats' own version of of Rogan, Joe Rogan whatever. i don't know.

07:37.48

Lowell

good luck. I'll say, I hope it works, but you know, I mean, I, I'm not, I'm not holding my breath on that, but yeah, I think to reach people, you have to go kind of where they are. I mean, I'm not sure you can draw someone who's not interested in politics or doesn't know a ton about, like they're a normal person basically. And they, they're not like us and following this stuff 24 seven. And you know, if you just start rattling off stuff about this, lg primary and ag for whatever it is they're they're not going to really even understand what you're talking about and so i mean i try to write it in an accessible way but it's still you know so i think probably have to democrats are going to have to uh the thing is what happened was over these years republicans spent a lot of money

08:23.93

Lowell

hundreds of millions of dollars probably over the many years in developing their own right-wing information ecosystem, ah whether it's on TV, radio, you know,

08:35.41

Lowell

on and the internet or whatever. And I think it, I think it worked. Um, I think it definitely helps them a lot. And Democrats just assumed that the mainstream media would kind of do the job for us. But the problem is the mainstream media doesn't do our job for us. i mean, it doesn't get out the democratic messaging the way we want it and need it to get out.

08:55.63

Lowell

the The mainstream media tries to do kind of an equivalence as two sides to everything and whatever. So one side says there's a climate crisis. The other side says there isn't.

09:08.13

Lowell

Let's debate the topic. Well, it's not really a debatable topic. But anyway, so so that's the mainstream media. and And they're trying to never offend people. Certainly they're not, they don't want to offend the right.

09:19.64

Lowell

And, and so anyway, that's where we're at with the but Democrats are kind of way behind on this because we allowed the right to spend decades building up.

09:31.26

Lowell

i mean if you go on AM radio, let's say, or FM, any radio, You're not going to get, and you hear talk talk radio, whatever. It's almost all right-leaning.

09:42.40

Lowell

There's almost no liberal content out there. i mean, there was like the famous, era infamous, I guess, Air America. And everyone points to that and says, oh, will never work. We can't have democratic...

09:53.31

Lowell

you know me because that one didn't work well maybe that was a unique case that just didn't work for a variety of specific reasons but but so yeah i mean the democratic democrats right now still kind of rely on the mainstream media and look i mean the washington post you can see what happened in 2024 they backed off even making an endorsement in the presidential race so it shows you kind of where a lot of these a lot of these people who own these media companies or papers are billionaires and they have a lot of interests and there are not they don't want to anger anyone and certainly not the person who could be elected.

10:33.95

Lowell

President and maybe go after them in some way. So, so yeah, I mean, Democrats need to invest in a variety of different approaches, I think, ah ah to reach of people wherever they are, and with different voices. And, and, you know, it's just going to be a long effort, but we got to get going with it.

10:52.58

Sam Shirazi

Well, I think that's all you know helpful background on what's going on nationally. but Obviously, we want to see what's going on in Virginia this year. So first, I wanted to spend a little bit of time just talking about the Democratic primary, because obviously, you know, you have a pretty good sense of how things are going on the Democratic side.

11:11.12

Sam Shirazi

And I guess I'll just start with the lieutenant governor's race, which has the most candidates. There's six candidates running. know, what are you seeing in terms of the lieutenant governor primary? Because that does seem like the one where there's at least a few candidates who have a shot at winning.

11:25.69

Lowell

mean, the thing is with the with both of the primaries, LG, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, there's really, there's been no public polling to speak of. What we have to go on is campaign finance numbers, and the last ones of those are from the first quarter.

11:42.81

Lowell

We'll be getting new ones soon in early June, in about a week or so a little over a week, but have some internal polls, a couple of internal polls from a couple months ago, which I really, at this point, I wouldn't even necessarily even consider anymore. But even at that time, they showed a very close race between Aaron Rouse, who's a state senator from Virginia Beach, state senator Ghazala Hashmi from the Chesterfield, Richmond area, and former Richmond mayor LeVar Stoney. Those seem to be

12:14.85

Lowell

the top three contenders. And, you know, could still be the case. i have But at this point, it's been a couple months. And at that time, almost nobody even knew who the candidates were.

12:25.31

Lowell

It was a huge undecided. and um I presume at this point, some of the, I think those top three candidates, assuming they're still the top three, are on TV. They're their're advertising. Presumably their name ID is higher.

12:38.50

Lowell

And so, we just don't, it's very hard to know, given the absence of any public polling or any, you know, object to any, anything, any poll. So we'll see the campaign finance numbers. You can see who's up on TV.

12:52.88

Lowell

are two other candidates, you know, actually three other candidates, Prince William County School Board Chair, Barbara Lateef, and Alex Bastani, who's a lawyer and labor leader, and then Victor Salgado, who's was a longtime Department of Justice prosecutor and left that job in December.

13:09.40

Lowell

And so, but i think the I think it's still between, you know, Rouse Hashmi and Stoney. And I just, you know, it's it's just very difficult.

13:18.91

Lowell

to know i mean, one thing I'll say about Democratic primaries in Virginia for since Trump was first elected, i think women have done quite well in it was like the year of the woman, quote unquote, almost every year.

13:34.41

Lowell

in the, in the, when Trump in Trump's first term. So I don't know if that's going to continue, the LG race, you do have one woman, because Allah has me running against, you know, all other five men.

13:45.06

Lowell

And so I, and I don't know, I mean, and how much are people going to be considering regional? Do they want someone make sure we get someone from Hampton roads because, or you know, cause Abigail Spanberger a woman obviously from central Virginia. So you could end up with a woman,

14:00.70

Lowell

for LG from central Virginia and also for, we haven't gotten to attorney general yet, but ah you you could we have a woman from central Virginia from, for AG attorney general as well. And so, you know, I don't know how many people are going to be voting strategically thinking we want balance. We want to make sure we have, let's say an African American on the ticket or someone from Hampton Roads.

14:21.52

Lowell

And then turnout, We just don't really know. we have the automatic ballot ballot, you know, ballots are mailed to people now automatically. And so that alone should increase the turnout from because I remember back in 2005, the first time I voted in a primary in Virginia, from it was just only the lieutenant governor and there were only like 175,000 people showed up. I mean, but we've had when they're governor primary, it's much higher. So this time it's lieutenant governor and attorney general.

14:51.29

Lowell

So, and then attorney general, you have two candidates, you know, former delegate Jay Jones from the Norfolk area, and then Henrico Cardinal's attorney, uh, Shannon Taylor. And again, no public polling.

15:01.89

Lowell

We had an internal poll a long time ago from the Taylor campaign. Uh, I wouldn't even go by that anymore. Jones has more money than Taylor, but I heard, i' I'm hearing that Taylor has been doing quite well in fundraising. I don't know. I don't have any, i just heard that.

15:18.83

Lowell

And, uh, from a good source, but whatever, um, don't know for sure. Uh, and so she's on TV, I guess as well. Jones is on TV. So yeah, that's where we're at kind of right now. And we have just till June 17th.

15:32.28

Lowell

I mean, voting is going on now and, but, the elections on June 17th. So, not that much longer, two and a half weeks,

15:39.95

Sam Shirazi

Well, whoever ends up being the nominees for the Democrats will be facing ah the Republicans, obviously, in the November general election. And I think the sense is maybe this is from because of 2017, Democrats seem pretty optimistic. They think because of what's going on in D.C. and how much of an impact that's having on Virginia, that this year is going to be a good year for Democrats in Virginia. And, you know, it it's it's hard to know.

16:06.72

Sam Shirazi

Right now, because we honestly haven't gotten a lot of public polling, and I think it's a little hard to you know jump to conclusions given the election is still like five months away. But what is your sense about how things might be looking in November?

16:19.88

Lowell

Yeah, I mean, you know, I thought Larry Sabato had a good summary of this the other day. I mean, and i mean this is nothing new necessarily, but I think he expressed it well. But of all, Virginia oi almost always, and for like this has been going on for since the early 70s, goes the opposite.

16:39.12

Lowell

and often hard opposite of whatever parties in the white house. So one exception to that was 2013 and that was barely. But other than that, I mean, and we've had some landslides too. I mean, 2009, Bob McDonald won by 18 points.

16:55.20

Lowell

Not sure that can ever happen again, but you know, Ralph Northam won by nine points in 2017. So, you know, but so Democrats are favored. know, especially also, you know, i don't know what the economy is going to look like with the tariffs and everything, but by November, by the fall.

17:12.32

Lowell

And, it's usually, you know, the motivated people who turn out to vote. And that's, I think why this happens. Whoever has their person in the white house is usually, you know, somewhat fairly content or whatever.

17:25.60

Lowell

They're not maybe angry. And angry voters, angry people, the expression goes, turn out and vote. And people who are basically satisfied don't, they tend to more stay home.

17:38.38

Lowell

And so Democrats are favored, but it's definitely not, you know, we we can't take anything for granted. Obviously we all have to do the work, run, run, you know, through the tape and all that. But I think we have a, you know, potentially um very strong ticket. I mean, the top of the ticket Spanberger, she's won some tough elections.

17:56.25

Lowell

in in a purple district when she was you know running for Congress in 2018, 2020, 2022. twenty twenty two So, you know, she knows how to win close elections, tough elections.

18:06.89

Lowell

I honestly am not impressed. I mean, I'm biased. I admit it, but I, I just look at the quality of the Republican ticket right now and the top of their ticket. And I, I'm just not super impressed. I mean, I think they've had, like, I objectively, I think Yunkin,

18:23.74

Lowell

was a strong candidate for a bunch of reasons. He had a ton of money. He didn't have profile. He didn't have a voting record, so he could be all things to all people. He hadn't said a bunch of extreme or crazy stuff in the past.

18:36.85

Lowell

You know, Spam, I mean, Winsome Earl Sears has a there I'm sure the Spamberger people have a very thick opposition research book on Winsome Earl Sears. And as you saw it earlier today, they already started rolling some of it out.

18:52.85

Lowell

on her views about abortion and contraception and other things. And so I think Democrats are in in in good shape. I mean, how big ah ah we win, Democrats win, how large the margin is will make a big difference.

19:06.49

Lowell

Now, as Larry Sabato said when he was, I mentioned Sabato, what he was saying was that the down ballot, the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General and the House of Delegates tend to be mostly just coattails off of the top of the ticket.

19:19.60

Lowell

So assuming that's the case, so however Spanberger does, if she wins by five points, 10 points, more points, whatever she ends up winning by, that's going to kind of pretty much see what he's arguing. And I tend to agree.

19:31.88

Lowell

The Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and House of Delegates candidates will kind of just follow along on those coattails. But you still need candidate quality. And, you know, each race, you know, the they don't run. i mean, they run as a ticket, but in a way they're kind of running by themselves. I mean, it's not a ticket like the president and vice president.

19:52.57

Lowell

you can You could split your ticket. I don't think we're going to see a ton of that. Just don't think that happens anymore. and so, yeah, I think that's where we're at. If Spanberger, you know, wins the election, by a decent margin, I think Democrats should win the Lieutenant governor, attorney general, and then we should pick up seats in the house of delegates as well. And, you know, know, um,

20:13.51

Lowell

Right now, it's it's very close in the House of Delegates. We had had up to 55 to 45 margin for Democrats before Youngkin was elected.

20:23.72

Lowell

Maybe we can get back to that for Democrats or maybe even a little more. I mean, interestingly, the Republican leader in the House of Delegates for a variety of reasons, seems to be moving on. And i mean I tend to think it's because, in part, he's up for a job in you know as as a U.S. attorney, but I also think that he may be reading the writing on the wall here. So I know i don't know what you think, but I think he may be... he may be looking at it and not seeing a very optimistic scenario for house Republicans going into November. So, yeah. And then, you know, I think historically there, there have been a few cases where there's been a widespread between the highest vote getter on the democratic ticket and the lowest, but yeah I just, it's possible, but most likely they'll be within a few points of each other.

21:15.60

Lowell

So, you know, unless there's like a dramatic difference in quality, uh amongst you know maybe let's say the two of the l republican lg candidate and the dem just saying it it could be anything but i i just i think mostly it's just going to be within a few points of of the top of the ticket so so that's where we're at now mostly i mean

21:37.85

Sam Shirazi

Yeah. And, you know, you mentioned that Virginia has elections every year. So let's assume the Democrats get a win this year in Virginia. you know, looking ahead to 2026,

21:48.04

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, the second congressional district going to be a target for Democrats. I mean, it's almost always ah ah battleground district, and it was very narrowly carried by Trump. So obviously, that's going to be a top target for Democrats.

22:00.98

Sam Shirazi

I did want to ask you about, but you know, feel free to talk about that district and or i'm I'm curious about the first district because the Democrats do seem to be making some moves to try to compete there.

22:01.45

Lowell

Yep.

22:13.63

Sam Shirazi

you know, i'm I'm still kind of unsure about how realistic that is given the that Trump won the district by about six points and then Whitman, the incumbent, won the district by double digits like, you know, in the teens, even though, and so overperformed Trump by a decent amount. So I think the November numbers for the governor's race in each of those districts will be helpful to get a little bit of a better sense of how competitive they're going to be in 2026. But what are your some early thoughts on Virginia in 2026?

22:43.39

Lowell

I mean, you know, assuming we have, you know, free and fair elections. I mean, I hate to even say that in a way. It sounds crazy. but But anyway, ah so and and it's hard to know what the state of the country will be. it's hard to know. But traditionally, in a midterm election...

23:00.59

Lowell

Traditionally, the party out of the White House tends to pick up seats. If there's a recession, if there's if people are very unhappy, if Trump's approval rating is, let's say, low 40s or thirty s or whatever it is, Democrats should do well. And if Democrats do pick up seats in you know November 2026 Virginia here,

23:22.99

Lowell

I mean, the two districts that the Democratic national people seem to be targeting are the second, which is in the Hampton Roads area. That's Jen Kiggins is the Republican who, you know, is the Congresswoman there. i mean, she but she ousted the Democratic Congresswoman, Elaine Luria.

23:41.73

Lowell

And so, you know, that's flipped back and forth ah ah in in the second. And then in the first that Whitman's been there a long time. But I guess the National Democrats are seeing like what you're seeing and what you're saying is that the, there's some sign of the first congressional district, maybe slowly, but surely, or I don't know if it's fast, but at least slowly, but surely moving more edging towards maybe a more purplish direction. I don't know. And the other thing is, of course, these, these Congress people are taking votes like Kiggins and Whitman just voted for this Republican budget, this house budget, which would slash Medicaid and,

24:18.55

Lowell

rack up, you know, crank up the deficit. and And mean, this is by the Congressional Budget Office. They can claim whatever they want, but the Congressional Budget Office is the definitive, you know, a referee on that. And so, ah you know, they're going to have to run on that.

24:32.01

Lowell

And that's to be that's going to be kind of tough in districts that depend heavily on ah the the federal government, the military, whatever it is. the Hampton Roads certainly is one of those districts.

24:44.15

Lowell

And the first as well has a lot of federal employees. And, um know. So, and then, I mean, an outside one would be, I guess, the fifth, but that's, that's tougher. I guess that's John McGuire, very hard right. He defeated Bob Good, who was a very hard right.

24:59.09

Lowell

But, you know, so right now I think it's probably the first and and the second. You also have, we also have a U Senate race in Virginia in 2026. Mark Warner will be up and he's definitely sounds like he's running for reelection and, you know, we'll see if there's any primary or anything, but,

25:16.84

Lowell

i you know I don't know of anything right now. but yeah, he would be, i presume, the favorite. We'll see if Yunkin, maybe, i don't think he will, but he could throw his hat in the ring for U.S. Senate in 2026. But I think he's more thinking about president in 2028.

25:35.48

Lowell

So yeah, there's some things to keep an eye on, definitely, in 2026. But a lot you know lot can change between now And 2026, the economy, obviously Trump's approval rating in Virginia and a million other things could happen.

25:50.96

Lowell

it's ah ah It's an eternity. Like, so it's interesting to speculate, but those are the districts, the second and first that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is like, you know, targeting right now, subject to change.

26:04.30

Sam Shirazi

Well, I know you will be covering it all, and i appreciate you coming on the podcast to give people the perspective from your end where you're you're living and breathing this stuff every day on Blue Virginia. And so I definitely recommend people to check out that blog in the run-up to the Democratic primary and obviously all the way up until November because I do think it's a really good source of info, particularly if you're a Democrat. I think...

26:26.19

Sam Shirazi

ah If you're Republican, there's also good stuff there. But some of the things Lowell says might they may might not be what you're looking for. But i I think it's good. yeah There's a lot of good stuff that he's able to to find and put on there. So anyways, thanks again for joining me. And, you know, I'm sure we'll see you on Blue Virginia.

26:45.16

Lowell

right. Thanks a lot, Sam. All right. Take care.

26:47.52

Sam Shirazi

Thanks. And this has been a Federal Fallout. And I'll join you next time.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com

00:00.70

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, i amm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode we will go over the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General Democratic primaries which are heating up right now.

00:14.13

Sam Shirazi

And I will first go over the Lieutenant Governor primary, and then i'll go over the Attorney General primary. So we are less than three weeks away from the primary. Early voting has been going on for a while. So the races are definitely starting to heat up. And I think it's it's a good time to kind of touch base about them.

00:31.15

Sam Shirazi

And probably all the way up till June 17th, this will be the main focus of a lot of what's going on in Virginia, because The nominees will have to get finalized on the Democratic side.

00:42.72

Sam Shirazi

And there's also a lot of House of Delegates races that have primaries. But obviously, those are not getting as much attention. And I did do a preview of the House Delegates primary in one podcast, but I would say most of the attention is definitely on the Democratic side for attorney general and lieutenant governor.

01:00.67

Sam Shirazi

So on the lieutenant governor's side for the Democrats, there was a debate, a televised debate with all six candidates. And I thought it was interesting. you know, you heard a lot of the things, you know, common themes about, you know, opposing what the Trump administration is doing and and things you would expect in the Democratic primary.

01:18.31

Sam Shirazi

I think the one area where the candidates had differences that was highlighted was on the issue of gambling and casinos and specifically a casino in Fairfax. So I would say Aaron Rouse and Ghazal Hashmi were more on the pro-gambling side, if you want to call that.

01:36.21

Sam Shirazi

And then you had Babur Lateef, who came out very strongly against the casino in Fairfax. And I think Victor Salgado has also come out against the casino in Fairfax. So I think that was a little bit of differentiation among the candidates. Often when I hear talk to people...

01:53.32

Sam Shirazi

they They either don't know a lot about the candidates or they're a little unsure about who to support because, know, there there are a lot of different candidates running. And it's not as easy as sometimes where it's just two people running and it's a pretty straightforward decision on who to vote for.

02:10.04

Sam Shirazi

And so I think it'll be interesting to see. I think this is the type of race people will make up their mind. Basically, ah ah not all everyone, but a decent amount of people are going to make up their mind last minute and they might.

02:20.45

Sam Shirazi

be you know getting their ballot and they decide who to vote for at the last minute, which makes it really unpredictable in terms of who's going to be ahead. in the lieutenant governor primary. There hasn't been any sort of public polling.

02:32.40

Sam Shirazi

And it's just unclear right now who would have the advantage when you have six candidates running. So what I'm going to do is go through each candidate, talk a little bit about you know how they might be able to put together a coalition to win. you know This week, I also had Lowell Feld on from Blue Virginia, and he talked about you know, what he's seeing lieutenant governor and attorney general races. And so i wanted to kind of go through what I'm seeing and maybe more so which candidates might be able to put together a coalition to win. Because the reality is when you have six candidates, it's very unlikely that any of them are going to get a majority or 50 percent of the vote. think the winner of this primary is almost certainly going to get less than 50 percent of the vote.

03:12.56

Sam Shirazi

And in that environment, it gets really unpredictable. There's no ranked choice voting in Virginia. So whoever gets the most votes, it doesn't matter if it's 30%, it doesn't matter if it's less than that, will win. i think realistically in a race like this, I'm expecting the winner to get between 30% and 40%, probably like 35% is the number that they'll need to get to to win. And if you think about what happened in 2021 with the Democratic primary Virginia,

03:38.82

Sam Shirazi

Virginia for lieutenant governor, there were a bunch of candidates running just like this race. And in the end, Hala Ayala was able to win with, I think, around 37% of the vote. So I think it's going to be similar this time. And so when you think about, okay, which candidates are able to put together the coalition that they need to hit that number, we can kind of go through the candidates and, you know, think about how they might be able to get there. So First, I want to talk about State Senator Aaron Rouse. So he is from Virginia Beach, and he's the only candidate from Hampton Roads.

04:09.11

Sam Shirazi

So I think right off the bat, he's going to do pretty well in the Hampton Roads area, and he's going to be able to get a good chunk of votes there. I also think he's going to be doing well with the African-American community. So he was endorsed by Congressman Bobby Scott, and I think Congressman Scott's endorsement carries a pretty significant weight in the African-American community.

04:32.10

Sam Shirazi

So I think just on those things, Rouse is going to get a pretty high number, but based on Hampton Roads and part of the support in the African-American community. So I think he has a pretty high floor, if you want to put it that way, in the sense of I think he's going to get a good chunk of votes.

04:48.11

Sam Shirazi

The question for him is, can he get you know up to 35% roughly to to be able to win. and I think a lot of it, and you'll hear it for basically all these candidates, a lot of it is going to come down to Northern Virginia. So,

05:00.41

Sam Shirazi

You know, the Rouse is going to do well in Hampton Roads, but what is his number going to be in Northern Virginia? Because I think for all these candidates, whoever wins, they need to get a decent number in Northern Virginia. I think Rouse can do relatively less well, if you want to put it that way. He doesn't need to get as high of a number in Northern Virginia as maybe some of these other candidates, because I think he will be getting a decent amount of votes out of Hampton Roads.

05:24.65

Sam Shirazi

So in that and that way, you could kind of see Rouse putting together this coalition where he does good enough in and Northern Virginia. He gets African-American voters and then he gets Hampton Roads and that that'll get him to 35 percent.

05:39.33

Sam Shirazi

The next candidate i want to talk about is State Senator Ghazala Hashmi. she is She represents the Richmond suburbs in Chesterfield. And so, again, you think she probably will do decent in the Richmond suburbs. um That'll be kind of part of her base.

05:56.98

Sam Shirazi

And I think the big question mark for Hashmi is her support among women. And I think she's definitely leaning into the women vote. think that's where she really needs to run up the margins. And Northern Virginia, there'll be another place, particularly with women, that she'll need to do well in order to win this primary. I think she knows that. I think that's kind of her strategy. and And it just, you you know, for a lot of these candidates, I'll be a little bit of a broken record. I mean, it really just depends...

06:23.47

Sam Shirazi

Is she the going to be the candidate that's going to win in Northern Virginia? Because I think if she comes in number one in Northern Virginia and she's able to do pretty well in the Richmond suburbs, you could see ah ah her putting a ah ah coalition together where she's going to get like 35 percent of the vote.

06:37.60

Sam Shirazi

Again, I'll talk about that number because I think that's the magic number you need to get the Louisiana governor primary. However, if you're seeing a different scenario where all the candidates kind of pretty much just split Northern Virginia, i don't think she'll be able to get enough out of the Richmond suburbs alone to be able to win if if the candidates are pretty much just splitting Northern Virginia. So that's um that's her strategy. is to she's going to be and and I think she has the advantage of being the only woman in the race. And so that's going to be...

07:05.04

Sam Shirazi

what she's going to be leaning into to, to try to finish the race for her. um The next candidate I want us to talk about is former Richmond mayor, LeVar Stoney.

07:15.14

Sam Shirazi

So he will obviously hope to do well in the city of Richmond and hopefully also in the suburbs of Richmond. Although, as I mentioned, he's going to have to ah ah compete with Hashmi to with, for the votes in the Richmond suburbs.

07:30.31

Sam Shirazi

And I also think he's going to hopefully do well with African-American voters. I think the issue for him is Bobby Scott decided to endorse Aaron Rouse. And so if I had to guess, I'm guessing Rouse is going to be getting more of the vote from the African-American community. It doesn't mean he's going to get 100 percent of the vote.

07:46.92

Sam Shirazi

I do think Stoney will get a decent amount of votes also from the African-American community. I think the the thing LeVar Stoney may be trying to lean into is some of his political connections. So he's been involved in democratic politics in Virginia for a long time.

08:01.43

Sam Shirazi

He was chair of the Democratic Party. He was in the McAuliffe administration. So I think he has a lot of connections. there's a lot of people who know him. He's definitely paid his dues in a sense of working for the party, working for the Democrats.

08:13.68

Sam Shirazi

elect Democrats across Virginia. And I think a decent amount of the Democratic act activists remember that and remember the and effort he's put in the Democratic Party.

08:23.54

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, can he kind of use that in Northern Virginia? Again, he needs to get a decent margin in Northern Virginia. Can that kind of be his springboard to become the Northern Virginia candidate who gets the most votes?

08:35.78

Sam Shirazi

Because I think, you know, realistically, if he's, you know, getting Decent amount of votes in Richmond and and maybe some of the African American community. i don't think that's going to be enough by itself. He'll need to do well in Northern Virginia and kind of lean in towards his years in the Democratic Party.

08:52.88

Sam Shirazi

And I think the challenge with that is that, know, a lot of the you know regular voters who may not be super tuned in to politics, I mean, they might not know his history in Virginia and he might just be the former Richmond mayor and, you know, they'll consider him among many of the other candidates.

09:11.66

Sam Shirazi

And so I do think part of the challenge in this primary is Generally, the voters are not super tuned in. I mean, most people are not living and breathing this stuff and they don't necessarily know the difference between all these candidates and they might have six candidates on a ballot and they have to make a decision.

09:27.70

Sam Shirazi

So I think it's going to be really hard for them to distinguish themselves, particularly when, you know. All the campaigns are trying to reach voters either through mailers or through TV ads or other ways of just reaching and the voters. But often it's just it's it's hard to get your message across.

09:45.12

Sam Shirazi

And you don't often have a lot of time to give your whole bio and all everything you've done. i mean, voters make decisions very quickly based on very limited information. They might just hear you're the former Richmond mayor or you're a state senator. I mean, that might be the entire basis of their decision. So I do think um that's a challenge that all the candidates are going to have as they are trying to figure out how to put together a winning formula.

10:06.34

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so next I want to talk about Prince William County School Board Chair, Barbara Lateef. So he's the main candidate from Northern Virginia, and he's definitely going to be leaning into the Northern Virginia thing. So

10:19.48

Sam Shirazi

Prince William County is the second biggest county in Virginia and has a huge population of over half a million people. So I think that's going to be a decent amount of votes that he's able to get there. And, you know, I think he's made the decision to be the candidate that is most vocally against the Fairfax Casino.

10:37.48

Sam Shirazi

And I think that's going to hopefully get, from his perspective, get him some votes in Fairfax County. Fairfax County is obviously the largest county in Virginia, lot of voters. And I think there's a scenario where if he's able to really break through and be the Northern Virginia candidate,

10:54.49

Sam Shirazi

and lean into that and really just drive up the margins in Northern Virginia and it did the other candidates just aren't able to get those numbers, then i think he's he's going to be able to put together the numbers to get there.

11:08.20

Sam Shirazi

And it's a little bit what I would say happened in 2021, where Sam Razul in the Democratic primary did pretty well in Western Virginia.

11:20.31

Sam Shirazi

where he where he's from in Roanoke, but Halayala did much better in in Northern Virginia. And obviously there's just so many more votes in Northern Virginia and up in a Democratic primary. And so she was able to win that primary pretty easily.

11:32.71

Sam Shirazi

And so we'll see if he's able to do that. I think i think the challenge he's going to have is, you know the all the candidates know that Northern Virginia is maybe the key to success. And so they're all going to be trying to get those votes in Northern Virginia.

11:44.27

Sam Shirazi

And there is a chance that the votes just get split among all the candidates in Northern Virginia. because they're all trying really hard to compete there. So I think that's his strategy is Northern Virginia 100%.

11:55.84

Sam Shirazi

And we'll see if that works for him. And then there is a former DOJ prosecutor, Victor Salgado. i think his strategy is partly going to be to focus on the Hispanic community in Virginia.

12:09.91

Sam Shirazi

which is pretty sizable. You don't always hear about it, but I think there there is a growing Hispanic community and in a Democratic primary that can give you, get you a good chunk of votes. I think the challenge he's going to have is, you know, building a base outside of that. And, you know, the Hispanic community will kind of get you a decent amount of votes in Virginia, but it's a little unclear if you can kind of get up to the numbers you need to win statewide just with that. And, you know, I think with all these candidates running, sometimes it's hard to break through So we'll see if he's able to to do that. And similar story with Bastani, who is a attorney and former labor official. So I think his strategy is to maybe lean into the pro labor side of things. He's very pro repealing right to work.

12:57.03

Sam Shirazi

And he also, I would say, probably ideologically is the most progressive of the candidates. And so he may be able to mobilize some of the progressive community to to to vote for him.

13:08.38

Sam Shirazi

I think he's going to have a challenge of, you know, that's, again, not going to be able to get you up to the numbers you need statewide. And again, there's so many people running and it's hard to break through, particularly if you are not an elected official and are coming at it from a little bit of a different angle So all that's to say is like there's a lot going on in the lieutenant governor's race. There's a lot of different ways people could win.

13:33.84

Sam Shirazi

i think it's still unclear who has the advantage. i could see it shaking out several ways. And I do think in some ways that actually will drive turnout because If it's a competitive race, it's, you know, people who pay attention know that this thing is not decided yet. And so all the candidates are going to be working to get out their supporters. So I do think the lieutenant governor's race is probably the most interesting race on primary night, given all the candidates, given that it's hard to pick the clear front front runner right now.

14:05.62

Sam Shirazi

I do think... you know, there are paths to victory for different candidates and we'll just have to wait and see how it all shakes out. I mean, I do think it's one of those races where I had to guess, you know, the winner is not going to be getting a whole lot of votes, the percentage of the vote.

14:23.62

Sam Shirazi

And, know, when when all the votes come in, it'll be interesting to see who ends up being on top and the coalitions that we're getting able to put together and what are... Certain parts of the state, who are they voting for? i think that'll all be really interesting. It'll be a really interesting map to look at day after the election just to see how things shook up in the lieutenant governor primary. So anyways, all that's to say is definitely pay attention. going to try to do my best to cover it, but I will, you know, not, it's just one of those races. It's very hard for me to kind of give a prediction about who's going to end up on top.

14:55.30

Sam Shirazi

All right. Now let's move on to the attorney general race, which is much simpler because there are only two people running. And I'll talk again a little bit about where each candidate will have some strengths and ah the path to victory that they need to get.

15:07.86

Sam Shirazi

And because there are only two candidates, the winner does need to get to 50%, 50.1% win the primary. and the The first candidate I want to talk about is former delegate Jay Jones.

15:19.41

Sam Shirazi

So he comes from the Norfolk area. So I'm assuming he's going to be doing pretty well in Hampton Roads. He was also endorsed by Congressman Bobby Scott. So I think he's going to, again, be doing well with the African-American community.

15:31.97

Sam Shirazi

And I think that's, again, going to give him a decent amount of votes just right off the bat from Norfolk and Hampton Roads. And the question, again, it's similar to LG primary, you know what is Northern Virginia going to look like? I think the strength that j Jay Jones has is that he doesn't need to win Northern Virginia outright. I think if he can keep Northern Virginia competitive and you know he doesn't need to get an outright win because the margins he's going to be getting from and Hampton Roads and the African-American community and Southside and Richmond area...

16:05.76

Sam Shirazi

that will get him in a lot a bunch of votes. And as long as it's not a huge blowout for Shannon Taylor in Northern Virginia, that should be able to get him enough votes. And so talking about Shannon Taylor's path, so she's the Commonwealth's attorney for Henrico County, which is in the Richmond suburbs.

16:22.03

Sam Shirazi

I do think she'll do relatively well you know in that area where she represents in the Richmond suburbs. I think Honestly, I don't think she's going to get as many votes as as Jones will and from Hampton Roads from Richmond because Richmond area has a decent amount of African American voters. And I do think ah Jones will be doing decent with the African American community in the Richmond area. So I could almost see Richmond being maybe almost a tie.

16:47.36

Sam Shirazi

And you know as I mentioned, Jones will be doing better in Hampton Roads. So that will really bump up his numbers. And it comes down to Northern Virginia. And I think Taylor's strategy would be similar to Hashmi to try to win women in Northern Virginia by really big margins.

17:03.19

Sam Shirazi

I think she would really need like a blowout win in Northern Virginia. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it just seems, you know, hard to get the numbers that she would need to.

17:14.34

Sam Shirazi

So for those reasons, I think Jones has the advantage just because he doesn't need to get a blowout victory in Northern Virginia the way Taylor does. And, you know, the thing with Northern Virginia is people tend to think about it as is all, you know,

17:31.74

Sam Shirazi

wealthier ah suburbs, but, you know, it's a pretty diverse area in its own way. And for example, Prince William County has a different, yeah decent African-American population. So I could see Jones getting a decent amount of votes there.

17:43.10

Sam Shirazi

And so if you think about the margins Taylor would need to get with women voters in Northern Virginia, it's pretty high. You know, conceivably it could happen, but it's not... something that is as easy.

17:56.09

Sam Shirazi

In other words, she doesn't have as easy a path to victory, I think, as Jones, where Jones just has to do well in Hampton Roads, do well with African American voters and keep Northern Virginia close. She'll really need to blow out margins in Northern Virginia.

18:09.97

Sam Shirazi

So we'll see we'll see if she's able to do that. I think Jones definitely has an easier path to victory. And I will say that And regardless of who ends up being on the ticket, i think there'll be some interesting dynamics for the general election.

18:24.15

Sam Shirazi

So i think I think there's a decent chance, given the odds, either in the AG race or the lieutenant governor's race, that... At least one of those nominees will be African-American. It's not i mean, it's conceivable they're not. But I think more likely than not, at least one of the LG or AG nominees will be African-American.

18:43.01

Sam Shirazi

i think that's something that can help the Democrats this year in Virginia, because. realistically at the top of the ticket. Abigail Spanberger, she has a lot of different strengths, and I think she's particularly strong with suburban women.

18:54.04

Sam Shirazi

But there's a little bit of a question mark about the African-American community. I think she's working to to win those voters over. Recently, State Senator Luis Lucas has endorsed Spanberger, so I think that'll help her.

19:05.63

Sam Shirazi

I think you know it it obviously helps if there's another person on the ticket who comes from a different part of Virginia and a different community.

19:15.73

Sam Shirazi

And I think that's also the regional dynamics of maybe having someone from Hampton Roads, which again may happen for a Lieutenant Governor or Attorney General.

19:24.56

Sam Shirazi

So I think that's another interesting dynamic to see how the tickets are split regionally. Okay. And the last thing I should just talk about is, you know, how independent of races in the general election will the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General races be? Because I think there's often talk about, oh, well, maybe Meares will be able to hang on even if the Republicans lose at the top of the ticket because he's an incumbent.

19:47.90

Sam Shirazi

I mean, certainly, I think if you're an incumbent, it helps and it doesn't... you know It should give you a little bit of advantage if you are an incumbent. you My personal theory is that ticket splitting in Virginia is really starting to to go away. And I think it's relatively unlikely that we're going to see a split ticket in terms being elected in November.

20:09.48

Sam Shirazi

I think if Spanberger is winning by at least a few points, then I think she'll just take the rest of the ticket with her. you know Conceivably, if it's a close race, you know either for lieutenant governor or for attorney general, Republicans might be able to win.

20:23.92

Sam Shirazi

the last four Virginia elections, the candidate that's won at the top of the ticket has been able to carry over the lieutenant governor and attorney general spots of the ticket.

20:35.29

Sam Shirazi

So I don't think there's going to be a lot of strategizing about who's the strongest candidate. My sense is most of the Democratic voters are going to just go for who who thinks who they think is going to be the best candidate.

20:46.29

Sam Shirazi

You know, just given the ticket splitting has really gone away in Virginia, it just seems really unlikely. And, you know even if for attorney general in 2021, so we had an incumbent Democratic attorney general with Mark Herring, and he didn't end up winning, even though he was the incumbent.

21:02.46

Sam Shirazi

And the top of the ticket wasn't that big of a victory for Yunkin. He only won by two points, but that was enough where he was able to carry the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General over the line. And I just think something similar would happen.

21:15.72

Sam Shirazi

the margin would have to be a little bit bigger than two points. I can't imagine a scenario where that wouldn't be enough for the rest of the ticket to win. So I do think there's a lot riding on the Lieutenant Governor Attorney General spots on the ticket.

21:28.49

Sam Shirazi

you know, conceivably they could help at the top of the ticket if you get a little bit more diversity ah ah in terms of geography and different communities in Virginia. But I ultimately don't think the those spots are in and of themselves going to be competitive. and And often you see in Virginia, there truly is a ticket. candidates run on shared kind of platforms and they campaigned together. and And so there is more ticket voting in Virginia. And I do think on the Republican side, it's going to be interesting to see if the GOP nominee, Winston Merle Sears, is going to be able to make up with the lieutenant governor nominee, John Reed, because obviously there's been some tension from when he became the nominee.

22:12.31

Sam Shirazi

And do they do joint campaign appearances? They haven't done them yet. And typically, there was one scheduled for when John Reed became the nominee, and that was canceled last minute. And so it's a little bit of an open question, are the Republicans going to have a unified ticket?

22:25.56

Sam Shirazi

I think the Democrats, given these candidates, regardless of who is nominated for the Senate Governor or Attorney General, I think they will be fairly united. So I do think there's just a lot of interesting things going on this year in Virginia.

22:36.60

Sam Shirazi

for the tickets specifically. And and obviously the June 17th primary is coming up soon. So I will but do my best to cover it all. It's going to be a lot of interesting dynamics and I'll try to do my best to keep everyone informed. But for now, this is Federal Fallout and I'll join you next time.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com

00:00.85

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode I will be interviewing Dr. Mark Downey. He is the Democratic candidate in the 69th House of Delegates District in the Yorktown area.

00:17.69

Sam Shirazi

This is a seat Democrats are targeting and was narrowly carried by President Trump by a little over one points in November. The current incumbent is Republican delegate Chad Green, and I would be happy to have him on or any other Republicans on in the future. But today we have Mark. Thank you for joining me.

00:36.80

Mark downey

Thank you for allowing me to come on your podcast. Thank you.

00:41.25

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, so don't you tell me about yourself and what made you want to run?

00:45.80

Mark downey

Yes, so I'm a pediatrician living in Williamsburg, grew up in this area, been here in the community since age two, went to all the local public schools in York County, went undergrad UVA, med school at MCB,

01:04.58

Mark downey

and after residency had an opportunity to come back and practice pediatrics here and in my hometown. Inherited the house I grew up with so grew up in, so I was able to raise my kids in the same house I grew up in, and really have gotten to know my community, taking care of kids, and now taking care of people that I took care of, taking care of their children.

01:29.98

Mark downey

So i think Being a pediatrician, being a medical doctor, that is really is what driven me to run again in this this cycle.

01:40.81

Mark downey

I ran twice in 2019 and 2021. But I think what really prompted me to get back into this election cycle is really wanting to be an advocate for quality health care for all Virginians, not just my patients, but their families, their grandparents, their relatives that are are being affected by all the changes that are coming from the federal level and making sure that Virginia maintains strong and quality access to healthcare.

02:12.67

Sam Shirazi

And I appreciate your perspective as ah ah as a doctor, because you know typically you think of politicians, a lot of lawyers, and you know you have people from that background or maybe small business owners, people who are have the means to do this. And and you know doctors are obviously usually pretty busy and don't always have time to run for office and or serve.

02:32.06

Sam Shirazi

you know What perspective do you think you bring in as a doctor that might be missing from other people who are currently serving in the House of Delegates?

02:41.95

Mark downey

Well, I think just like any field, it's it's good to have people with expertise in that field to provide perspective, provide you know good data, information on on what these policies, what these potential legislation may have an impact in in that particular field.

03:00.85

Mark downey

got off a candidate training with Planned Parenthood, and you know I was able to share a lot of information about you know, access to reproductive care, access to just health care in general for for all folks. And i think that's where my strength is. That's where I feel like I can contribute to the discussion and make sure that policies that are being proposed are are are really going to do what they intend to do and actually benefit the most people.

03:31.69

Sam Shirazi

And I wanted to ask you one question about kind health care in general, because the Republicans currently are trying to pass a bill and there's been a lot of talk about cuts to Medicaid. And can you kind of explain, you know, what Medicaid is, why it's important and and what could potentially happen if there are those cuts?

03:50.92

Mark downey

Yeah, Yeah, um great question. I mean, Medicaid is one of those very foundational safety nets that we have in our country that really primarily looks to help out those that are lower income or disabled or near the end of end of their life when they need elder care.

04:10.44

Mark downey

And it provides that critical safety net where a lot of folks prior to Medicaid being around didn't have access to care. So there was a great disparity and and basically rationing of healthcare where they weren't able to receive the same level care that folks that had yeah employee-based insurance and for Virginia, we were able to expand Medicaid, and Medicaid expansion in 2018, but it came with restrictions on it or a trigger that if the federal funding ever dropped below ah ah current level of 90%, that all those individuals that were added under Medicaid expansion would potentially lose lose their coverage.

04:56.20

Mark downey

So it's critically important as we look to see what the federal government is planning or trying to do, that we have a plan, a backup plan, or a way to protect those individuals that have health care so they don't find themselves without the ability to get the care that they need.

05:15.63

Sam Shirazi

Well, another thing I wanted to ask you about is ah other cuts the federal government and and also potentially the job cuts that have been happening with the federal government. you know as ah ah As I mentioned in other podcasts, that's typically viewed as more of a Northern Virginia story. But I do think down in your area, there there have been impacts.

05:35.49

Sam Shirazi

And i was wondering specifically about your district because you have two large military installations. There's york Yorktown Naval Station. and Fort Eustis.

05:45.39

Sam Shirazi

Have you heard anything or what are you hearing on the ground in terms of the impacts of the federal cuts on the military side?

05:53.68

Mark downey

Well, I think you hit it right on the head. This is a yeah an area that has a tremendous amount of folks that come here for the military, either in active duty as they rotate through, but then a lot of folks end up retiring after they finish their 20 years or 30 years in the military and they retire here and oftentimes take on civilian jobs.

06:17.08

Mark downey

And those are Those options are are not going to be there anymore as the cuts get made and they're not the hiring freezes that are being imposed on civilian contractors for the local military bases.

06:31.36

Mark downey

So that means we're going to lose out on on people that actually want to stay in this area and and really support the area. you know Growing up here, I'd have friends that I would see for two or three years and they would go away you know as their family got PCS to a different location, but then they a lot of them would end up coming back here and and finishing their high school and and settling in this area.

06:53.02

Mark downey

And I think that brings you know brings no opportunity for growth and sustaining our economy in this area. So all that is at risk.

07:02.92

Sam Shirazi

And I should ask a kind of a follow up. You know, I often find doctors when patients come in, they often tell them a lot of the problems they're having and things that they're experiencing.

07:15.04

Sam Shirazi

ah ah You as a doctor, you know, what are you seeing when your patients are coming in? Are they telling you things that maybe aren't covered in the news necessarily? or Or what are some of the things that people are telling you as they they come to visit your office?

07:29.26

Mark downey

Well, lately, it's been a lot of questions, concerns about how federal policy may be changing towards vaccinations and in general, you know, healthcare and education support for their kids.

07:47.33

Mark downey

Obviously, i deal with pediatrics and their families, but it's it's we're seeing more and more questions about Are we gonna continue to make sure that our kids get the vaccinations that they need and required and making sure that our community is safe?

08:05.45

Mark downey

I think that's becoming more front of mind to people, things you Prior to the election cycle, we didn't have to worry about as much. I had a new parent, very first visit, they asked, are we still going to be allowed to get our child vaccinated? I'm like, absolutely.

08:22.10

Mark downey

And I'm planning on running for house of delegates to make sure that Virginia stays a state that really follows the science and data on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines and encouraging folks to keep up to date.

08:35.36

Sam Shirazi

Well, that's interesting to have that perspective and being able to talk to your patients about those issues. I did want to ask, so you mentioned you previously ran for the House of Delegates and you came up short in those races. What did you learn running previously that you're going to try to apply this time and hopefully and for you from your perspective have a different outcome?

08:58.23

Mark downey

Well, i I do this, well, I did in the first two elections. I'm planning on doing it this election. I'd like to share with folks that as a pediatrician, I take care of all walks of life. I take care of families that I know support more Republican candidates, Democratic candidates, independents, low income, medium income, high income.

09:19.81

Mark downey

i treat every individual in front of me every patient, the same, regardless of their background, their income status. And I think that allowed me to overperform in the first first two times I ran because I've earned that trust from individuals and families that may not see me solely as a Democratic candidate, but they see me as their pediatrician that they've trusted with their children and their grandchildren.

09:45.33

Mark downey

and I heard a lot of people on the doors last few times I ran, like saying, I've never voted for a Democrat before, but you've taken care of my kids for the last 15 years.

09:56.48

Mark downey

And I know you and I trust you. And, you know, you have my vote. And I think we we plan on leaning into that again this year, this cycle. And I think people are really...

10:07.62

Mark downey

looking for that, people that are are genuinely wanting to get into office help them, help their families, help their loved ones. And I think that's that's a winning message message. It should be a winning message every election cycle.

10:21.41

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I think that's all helpful background and certainly gives some perspective on why doctors tend to be overperforming because people in the community know them and might like doctors more than they like lawyers who are typically running in elections.

10:35.23

Sam Shirazi

And you touched on this and in your previous answer, but you know I'd like to look at the different districts and this district slightly voted for Trump in November.

10:46.68

Sam Shirazi

But there is a part of the district over the York River in Gloucester, not a huge part of it, but about 10 percent of the district that's much redder. You talked about trying to win over some people. um know, what is your plan to try to convince people who vote who may have voted for President Trump in November vote for you this November?

11:05.100

Mark downey

Well, I think just like we need to compete in every district and ah across the Commonwealth, we need to you know make sure that we get our voice out and our message out to every precinct in our district, and including ones that traditionally haven't haven't favored the Democratic candidate.

11:25.34

Mark downey

But again, i have quite a few families and come across the river that seat that come to our practice. So I have families that I take care of over there as well.

11:35.45

Mark downey

So it's I don't plan on changing my message too much yeah over there, except letting them know that I am running. My opponent last time ran unopposed.

11:46.03

Mark downey

So let them know that there is an option out there if they're not happy with running. the current delegate and they not happy with what's happening at the state level or the federal level that there are, there's an option. And I, you know, I want to present myself as someone who is willing to listen, to understand their concerns and every district, every precinct is different.

12:08.24

Mark downey

And I understand that. And that's, I think ah ah my background as a physician allows me to yeah Take in information, answer questions, listen, and and find common ground. And I think that's what will win over voters, even in the reddest of precincts in my district.

12:25.69

Sam Shirazi

And I did want to ask a little bit about your district general. You know, tell me about the district. I think one thing I found interesting is politically it's it's kind of a 50-50 district. you know You know, why do you think that is? And and what but do you think people who aren't super familiar with that part of Virginia should know about your district?

12:46.31

Mark downey

Yes, actually, we have four separate counties and that are involved in cities in my in my district. I have two precincts in Gloucester County, two precincts in Newport News City, four in lower James City County, and 10 in York County.

13:02.86

Mark downey

And I think what makes it kind of competitive is that they're they are all different. But I think there is a common thread in that it tends to attract a lot of, it's more of a suburban area.

13:17.24

Mark downey

We get a lot of families that live here that work elsewhere, that work in Hampton, work in Newport News and Norfolk, also work up in Richmond. So I think we have a very highly educated, very engaged voting population in our precinct.

13:34.38

Mark downey

We have throughout Presidential elections, governor race, we have oftentimes the highest or some of the highest voter turnout for all of the Commonwealth.

13:46.60

Mark downey

And I think that speaks to the the the strength of our supporting committee, that we have a good established base, that we can reach out to feed people and make sure that each election cycle is emphasized and the importance of it.

14:02.20

Mark downey

And I think that allows us to really reach that you the people that we need to to get out to vote.

14:09.32

Sam Shirazi

Well, I will ask you one other question that's a little bit more fun because I visited your district recently and I actually really like that part of Virginia. I think it's really a beautiful part of Virginia and your district contains Yorktown and I believe it also contains Jamestown.

14:26.18

Sam Shirazi

and Busch Gardens, although I think technically Colonial Williamsburg is in the neighboring 71st District, but you can count it for that this area.

14:32.71

Mark downey

Correct.

14:35.12

Sam Shirazi

you know What's your favorite local attraction and and why do you think it's such a fun spot for people to come visit in terms of taking a vacation?

14:45.29

Mark downey

Well, growing up in York County, spent a lot of my youth along the York River, including Yorktown, but even along the parkway there, going going um going on walks on the beach, crabbing.

14:58.67

Mark downey

I have very fond memories of crabbing off of Yorktown Beach and collecting a bushel of crabs in two hours and going home and cooking them and picking them with my my parents and family.

15:12.53

Mark downey

So I think that image in my mind, that memory, is what really wanted me to come back to this area to allow my kids that experience it It has everything. It has access to the river. It has Columbia Williamsburg, Historic Jamestown, Yorktown.

15:33.08

Mark downey

you know Kids read about that in their kindergarten and elementary school classes, and then they can go and actually see and walk it and and be part of it. So I think that, to me, is one of the fun fondest memories that I have growing up here, and I want to preserve that and make sure that it is a great location for families to raise their kids and also for people to retire here. There's lots of adult education opportunities for the College Wayne Mary.

16:02.07

Mark downey

So I know a lot of people take advantage of that. It's just, it has something for everyone, including the thrill seekers at Busch Gardens and even Water Country. There's also Water Country here. So we have lots of, Great Wolf Lodge in Upper York County. So we have lots of attractions that can entertain people that are looking more for adrenaline.

16:20.10

Mark downey

adrenaline

16:22.43

Sam Shirazi

Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about your campaign and also about your district. Last question, how can people find out more about your campaign?

16:30.74

Mark downey

Well, thanks again for having me on. And i ah ah look forward to reaching out to more and more voters. And one way that they can find out more about my campaign is going to my website at downeyforvirginia.com.

16:44.84

Mark downey

We have opportunities to learn more about my campaign and hopefully join our campaign and volunteer going forward in the election cycle.

16:54.15

Sam Shirazi

All right. Well, thank you so much again. i appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. And this has been Federal Fallout, and I'll join you next time.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com

00:00.70

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over two new Virginia polls, talk about early voting picking up, and finally, we will talk about Elon Musk perhaps exiting the political stage.

00:17.57

Sam Shirazi

But first, I wanted to note the passing of Congressman Jerry Connolly. This is an immense loss for Northern Virginia and all of Virginia. And I know that he will be missed in Fairfax, which he represented for so long.

00:32.81

Sam Shirazi

Everyone knows how much he loved Fairfax and how hard he fought for it. I will always be grateful for his advocacy of the Silver Line, which brought Metro to Dulles Airport and led to the redevelopment of Tysons, Herndon, Reston, and all the way out to Loudoun.

00:49.57

Sam Shirazi

I think this will be an important part of his legacy, and I just wanted to make that note of his passing and send my best wishes to his family, friends, and his colleagues.

01:00.87

Sam Shirazi

Okay, now we will move on to the first Virginia polls we have gotten in a while. The first poll was from Roanoke College, and it had Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger at 43% of the vote, Republican nominee Winsome Earle Sears at 26% of the vote, and Undecided at 28%.

01:22.63

Sam Shirazi

And in terms of Trump's approval rating, it was 31 to 65 disapproving of President Trump's approval. And in terms of Yunkin, he had a 46 to 48 percent disapproval, which I believe this is the first poll I've seen, at least in a long time, where Governor Yunkin actually had a negative approval ratings.

01:42.91

Sam Shirazi

So I wanted to caveat a couple of things about this poll. One is that there's just a lot of undecideds. I mean, it's pretty rare to see a poll where you have the Democratic and Republican candidates listed that has that level of undecideds.

01:57.37

Sam Shirazi

I there probably are a decent amount of undecideds, just given that the election is still a few months away and people aren't really thinking about it. But I think if you put a D and an R next to someone's name, usually, at least in a state like Virginia,

02:09.12

Sam Shirazi

that'll get you up to at least 40% off the bat. And so the fact that there's 28% undecided is a little bit odd in this poll, but you know it shows that Spanberger definitely has maybe higher name ID and or she has higher support among her base in the Democratic Party.

02:27.36

Sam Shirazi

Maybe that's something that Lieutenant Governor Earle Sears needs to work on to get her numbers up. think at a minimum, even on the worst possible night for the Republicans, Winston Earle Sears is going to get at least 40% of the vote. So I just, I would kind of caveat some of these numbers.

02:44.20

Sam Shirazi

And I will say that I think, you know, in my personal opinion, I think this poll is a little bit too good to be true for Democrats. In terms of Trump's approval rating, like I think, you know, I certainly think he's he's negative in Virginia.

02:57.04

Sam Shirazi

I don't know if he's at 31% approval in Virginia. I mean, if you told me he's maybe at 35% or 40%, that seems a little bit more believable. I think 31% is really low, given that, you know, again, Virginia is not a super blue state. I think, you know, on a and any random night, the Republicans are going to get 40% of the vote.

03:16.62

Sam Shirazi

And so not every person that votes for the Republicans is always going to be supporting President Trump. But it's hard for me to believe that he's at 31% approval in Virginia. And then with Governor Youngkin, you know, this is the first poll that I've seen in a while that he's had negative approval ratings.

03:33.78

Sam Shirazi

I imagine his approval probably has come down from some of the highs that you saw earlier because of some of the things that have been going on with the federal fallout and the impact of cuts to the federal government.

03:45.27

Sam Shirazi

But at the same time, you know, it's Virginia governors usually, I mean this is a trend that's gone back, you know, 20 years or so, they almost always have positive approval for whatever reason, people like their Virginia governor, it doesn't matter if they're Democrat, doesn't matter if they're Republican, they almost always have positive approval for whatever reason.

04:02.90

Sam Shirazi

And it's possible that polarization is catching up to that. And now people are starting to maybe not like their governor if they feel like you know, the federal cuts are hitting Virginia. But overall, I would say like, this is certainly a good poll for the Democrats. Sometimes when the polls seem a little bit too good to be true, I tend to be a little bit cautious and take it with a grain of salt. But I think it's the couple things that are kind of indisputable right now is almost certainly Trump has a negative approval in Virginia.

04:32.12

Sam Shirazi

and I think most people would say that the The Democrats with Abigail Spanberger have a little bit of an edge right now in the governor's race. So I think you're kind of seeing that reflected in this poll. Maybe the exact numbers aren't exactly correct, but I think it's kind of in the ballpark of where I'm seeing things.

04:47.54

Sam Shirazi

Okay. And now there was another poll put out the same day. This one was from an organization called Virginia Free, which is, I would say, a more pro-business deregulation type organization. it was led by a former GOP delegate, Chris Saxman.

05:06.57

Sam Shirazi

They put out a poll from Harris X, which is a polling organization. And their poll showed little bit of a different thing than the Romano College poll. So this poll showed Abigail Spanberger at 52%, Winsome Earle Sears at 48%. It had the Trump approval as 44 to 56 disapproval, and it had the Youngkin numbers as 54 to 41% approved.

05:36.47

Sam Shirazi

I think the Trump approval with being negative 12 in Virginia, it's also possible. I think, you know, given his national numbers, you would think it would be a little bit lower than negative 12 approval. Youngkin plus 13 approval in Virginia probably sounds maybe closer to the ballpark.

05:52.01

Sam Shirazi

than the Roanoke College number. So long story short, I mean, you never want to just take one poll and kind of hyper fixate on the numbers in one poll. I think if you have the Roanoke College poll and then you have the Harris X poll and you kind of throw them together and you kind of get a sense of, okay, what's going on.

06:06.38

Sam Shirazi

And I think it both those polls, you know, even if you look at the Harris X poll, like the most favorable you would think for Trump would be negative 12 approval in Virginia. And that's just a very hard number for the Republicans to run on. So

06:19.07

Sam Shirazi

Frankly, I think negative 12 approval in Virginia is a good outcome type night for the Virginia GOP. It's very possible that Trump would have a lower approval in Virginia just given the impact of the federal cuts.

06:30.54

Sam Shirazi

And so if you're looking at that environment and you're looking at, you know, Spanberger being up by four, I mean, that's kind of in the ballpark. I mean, frankly, you know, this is just my personal guess right now.

06:41.80

Sam Shirazi

I think that's kind of the lower end of what the Democrats might be able to get. i think the upper end might be, I don't think Spanberger is going to be winning by the number in the Roanoke College poll, which is 17%. But I do think, you know, double digit, like 10 point lead is not out of the question.

06:59.57

Sam Shirazi

I don't know if that's the number right now, but by November, we might be getting to that point when all the voters tune in. And the campaign issues really start hitting. And so all that's to say is I think these polls are interesting. We haven't had a polls in a long time. I'm glad we got them.

07:15.42

Sam Shirazi

But I wouldn't overthink them. i think the the main takeaway is, you know, and if you ask observers on both sides, they'll say that they think the Democrats right now are up a little bit in Virginia.

07:28.05

Sam Shirazi

And that doesn't mean they're definitely going to win in November. A lot of time still left. But I do think, you know, you have to just kind of get it ah sense of where things are right now and, I think it's reasonable to assume Democrats have a little bit of an edge.

07:41.17

Sam Shirazi

We'll have to wait and see what happens in the summer. Typically in the summer, there's a little bit of a lull. And then after Labor Day, that's kind of the old adage, that's the beginning of the fall campaign. And early voting starts pretty quickly right after Labor Day.

07:54.53

Sam Shirazi

And so we'll have to get another pulse check at the end of summer to see where things are. I think this was helpful to get it at this time the year. I'm sure we'll get some more polls. I'll obviously talk about those polls. And I don't always want to spend all this time talking about polls, but I do think it's important because we haven't gotten them in a while.

08:12.48

Sam Shirazi

think they both roughly show the same thing. Again, not getting hyper fixated on the numbers, but I think both polls show that Trump's approval is negative in Virginia. And I think the political reality is, is if Trump has a negative approval, and if it's hitting double digit negative approval, that means the Democrats are almost certainly going to have an edge in the governor's race right now. And, you know, the exact margin of the governor's race.

08:36.04

Sam Shirazi

matters for down ballot for lieutenant governor, attorney general, House of delegates. So I'm not saying, you know, we'll need more precise information down the line with some more polls when we get closer to the election day to get a sense of where things are going.

08:49.41

Sam Shirazi

But at least at the top of the ticket, think most people are anticipating that the Democrats have a little bit of an edge right now. And we'll just have to wait and see where things shape up as the summer goes on.

09:00.79

Sam Shirazi

All right. Now let's move on to early voting, which is definitely picking up steam. It's hard to believe. We basically had like three weeks of early voting already. And we have more early voting all the way up to the June 17th primary.

09:13.48

Sam Shirazi

The first half of early voting, which we've seen so far, I would say primarily is from the permanent absentee list. So that's a lot of mail ballots coming in. There have been a trickle of in-person early votes, but definitely the bulk of the early vote right now is by mail. So I would say by the time this podcast is released, there's probably going to be almost 75,000 ballots either cast or being sent in through the mail.

09:38.29

Sam Shirazi

And you know the vast majority of that, more than two-thirds of that, are going to be mail votes that have come through the permanent absentee list. And I know I talk about the permanent absentee list a lot, but I just wanted to kind of show you how much it's changed Virginia voting patterns.

09:51.82

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, how many votes are just coming in through the permanent permanent absentee list? I mean, we've already got tens of thousands of votes in the permanent absentee list. And, you know, it's just skyrocketed the number of early votes that we see, particularly early in the process. So I will say, as we get closer to election day or primary day,

10:11.66

Sam Shirazi

There'll be a lot more in-person votes. The mail but ballots will start to slow down because a lot of them, people have already filled it out and sent it in. So I do expect the in-person early vote to really pick up. It's going to pick up a lot when there's two Saturdays of early voting.

10:25.31

Sam Shirazi

That means people are going to be able to go during the weekend when maybe they don't have to work. And so I think those two Saturdays will see a lot more early voting. And I'd be curious where the final early voting number ends. I mean, at this point, it's hard to predict, but I wouldn't be surprised if we hit 150,000 just in the early vote.

10:42.24

Sam Shirazi

And again, a bulk a lot of that is going to come from the permanent absentee list. And that's why we're seeing so much early vote right now in Virginia. And what all this early voting is doing is just turning it. It's really ratcheting up all the turnout in Virginia overall. And I'll talk about a few elections to give you some context. So in 2013, there was a Democratic primary.

11:03.32

Sam Shirazi

for lieutenant governor and attorney general, but there was no governor primary. And that's very similar to what happened right now in Virginia. But in that election, there were just 145,000 total votes in the Democratic primary in 2013.

11:16.44

Sam Shirazi

And remember, I said this year, just in the early vote in Virginia, we're going to get probably close to that, if not more than that. So it just shows you what changes in early voting And also engagement can do when in 2013 we had 145,000 total votes.

11:33.02

Sam Shirazi

And this year in Virginia, we're probably going to have roughly that number in just the early voting. And then obviously we're going to bunch of election day votes as well. So I think and we'll talk about a couple other elections to show you why the turnout has gone up so much in Virginia.

11:47.48

Sam Shirazi

All right. I will talk about the 2017 Democratic primary for governor. And there was also lieutenant governor primary that year. And that year, there was a lot of turnout in Virginia. There was almost 545,000 votes in 2017.

12:04.13

Sam Shirazi

Now, obviously, a governor's race is going to bump up the numbers a lot compared to a lieutenant governor's race. But I also think a lot of that was from the increased engagement that we saw after the 2016 election. And I do think in a lot of these primaries, there's kind of a time period where before the Trump era, where there were some people who voted, but not a whole lot. And then the Trump era just really ratcheted up engagement among Democrats and Republicans.

12:30.97

Sam Shirazi

And so we saw in 2017, even before all the changes to early voting, that there was 545,000 early votes in Virginia. So we went from hundred forty five thousand In 2013, with just the lieutenant governor's race, 2016, Donald Trump's elected.

12:48.07

Sam Shirazi

And that's just four years. So really a huge explosion, over three times the number of people voting from 2013 to 2017 because of the increased engagement that Donald Trump brought into the process.

12:59.99

Sam Shirazi

All right, now let's fast forward to 2021. And remember, in 2021, it was a lot easier to early vote because the Democrats had removed the need to have an excuse to early vote.

13:11.32

Sam Shirazi

And so it was much easier to early vote. The permanent absentee list hadn't been up and running yet, but still, it was a lot easier to early vote in 2021 than was 2017. And yet, in 2021, was only about 495,000 votes in the Democratic primaries.

13:24.07

Sam Shirazi

And if you think about it, that's a drop from 2017 from where we had almost 545,000 votes in the Democratic primary to 495,000. And, you know, I think at the time that should have been a little bit of a red flag because early voting was easier.

13:44.40

Sam Shirazi

So you would think there would be even more people turning out for a governor primary in 2021 compared to However, obviously, 2020, Joe Biden was elected president. And so we didn't have the same level of maybe and engagement or enthusiasm among Democrats in 2021.

14:00.91

Sam Shirazi

And so maybe the numbers in the primary were a little bit of a preview of what happened in November of 2021 when the Democrats lost the governor's race. And if you think about what happened in 2017, the Democrats got a big win in the governor's race because obviously the people who came out in the primary, they were engaged. They kept voting in the in the general election.

14:20.67

Sam Shirazi

And in 2021, we just had a different environment. Democrats were not as fired up, and we saw that eventual outcome in November. So I give you all those numbers to kind of think about 2025 and where we are.

14:33.78

Sam Shirazi

So I'm guessing we're going to get at least 150,000 roughly early votes in Virginia. And typically the rule in Virginia is that a third of the votes come early, and then two-thirds of them come during the actual election day.

14:49.97

Sam Shirazi

I think this year, probably there's going to be a little bit more on the early voting side just because of the permanent absentee list. So the permit absentee list is like bumping up turnout because some people who probably wouldn't have voted in the primary But because they got that a mail ballot in the mail, they realized there was a primary, they started to vote. So the permanent absentee list definitely starts bumping up the turnout. So I think we're going to have a little bit more early vote this year.

15:12.74

Sam Shirazi

But I do think we're going to hit roughly 400,000 total votes this year in Virginia for the Democratic primary. I think on a good night, it can be more than that. And I'm going to be really curious to see if we're going to be able to hit the 2021 number which I think is probably unrealistic. So 2021, remember, there was almost 495,000 votes.

15:34.36

Sam Shirazi

That was a governor primary. So obviously, governor primary, a lot more people are going to pay attention. There's more money in governor pra campaigns. You had more people competing in the governor race. So I think it's unlikely that we're going to hit 495,000 total votes this year in Virginia just with the lieutenant governor's and attorney general's race. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility, but I'm thinking more somewhere around 400,000, you know, and and on a good night, it can be more than that.

16:03.90

Sam Shirazi

But it is important to just kind of think that through. So I think if the if the Democrats get around 400,000 votes in the Democratic primary, I think that's still a very solid number, especially considering the 2013 number.

16:15.88

Sam Shirazi

And given that, you know, realistically, yeah there's not a governor primary. And so it's going to be pretty engaged people who end up voting. So I think getting up to 400,000 is a pretty strong number for the Democratic primary.

16:29.86

Sam Shirazi

We'll see what happens. and And I should say there there are there is also some early voting in the Republican primary. You really can't use it to compare it to the Democratic primary. And the numbers are much less.

16:40.98

Sam Shirazi

And the the numbers on the Republican side generally for the primary are going to be a lot less because realistically, they only have House of Delegates primaries in a handful of districts. And there are some local districts Republican primaries for local offices.

16:55.83

Sam Shirazi

So there's just no really we really way to compare the Democratic and Republican primaries. Some years where they both have governor primaries, it's kind of interesting. You see how many Democrats voted, you see how many Republicans voted, but it's just not possible to do that this year because it really is such an apples to oranges comparison.

17:11.42

Sam Shirazi

And I guess the last thing I should make a point I should make on this this area is that you hear a lot about the importance of primaries, and particularly in 2026, we might see more primaries on the Democratic side and incumbents facing primaries.

17:25.14

Sam Shirazi

and think there's a big debate about are primaries good or bad? you know, one school of thought I would say is more kind of the quote unquote establishment school of thought is that primaries, they take money away from the general election.

17:37.64

Sam Shirazi

And then sometimes because, you know, the people coming out in the primaries are are the most progressive people generally, because they're the ones who are pretty committed Democrats, it causes the candidates to take more left wing positions that will generally be not as popular in the general election. And so you kind of It leads to candidates being less popular in the long run because um have to both spend money on the primary and then they have to take these positions, which might hurt them in the general election.

18:05.54

Sam Shirazi

Now, that's one school of thought. I think the other possibility or the other school of thought is actually primaries are good because. The candidate has to test themselves first in the primary, has to appeal to voters in a primary, win that election, and it gets more people engaged because both candidates are bringing in their people and usually, or there could be multiple candidates running, and usually that engages different parts of the base.

18:26.91

Sam Shirazi

And it's not just the same people who coming out in these elections. And then the the candidate that goes into the general election is much stronger because they've already gone through that process and there's more people engaged in the election.

18:40.66

Sam Shirazi

And I think there's examples of both. So if you you think about 2017, you had a primary for the governor's race on the Democratic side. There was Tom Perriolo, who was challenging Ralph Northam in that primary, and Ralph Northam ended up winning.

18:54.01

Sam Shirazi

I think that was a pretty clean primary between Perriolo being a little bit more progressive, Northam being a little bit more establishment. Both sides really got engaged. Both sides brought out their voters.

19:04.92

Sam Shirazi

Northam won that primary. And I think that kept people engaged in the process. And obviously Northam got a big win in November. So I think that's the example of a primary where it actually was a net positive. I think Northam probably came out of that primary stronger because he had to compete for those votes. And he and after the primary, you you know the progressives that were fired up by Tom Perriello, they kind of continued with the Democrats and they were able to win in November of 2017 with a big victory.

19:30.81

Sam Shirazi

You could talk about 2021 maybe being a little bit of a different example on the Democratic democratic side where you had Terry McAuliffe who was being challenged by three by four different people and there was a sense that it was a bit of a coronation and People got a little bit jaded by the process and and it might have hurt McAuliffe a little bit in the general election.

19:52.43

Sam Shirazi

Now, I don't know if it ultimately was that big of a deal. and And I don't think that's why he lost the election. But it just shows you that primaries can be tricky. Obviously, this year for governor, we don't have a primary for either candidate. So neither of them are going to have a primary. It's an open question about whether, you know, the fact that Democrats have a primary for lieutenant governor, attorney general.

20:41.61

Sam Shirazi

ah

20:42.03

Sam Shirazi

And I think generally that points to Democrats being probably more engaged after the election of Donald Trump. And so we'll just have to wait and see what the final numbers are going look like. Obviously, after the primary, I'll do kind of more of a breakdown once I have the final numbers and kind of give a better sense of what the Democratic primary numbers might mean for November.

21:02.29

Sam Shirazi

All right. One more topic before I sign off for this podcast, and that's about Elon Musk. So this week, Elon Musk said, quote, I think in terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future.

21:15.95

Sam Shirazi

And he added, i think I've done enough. So just for some context, obviously, what Elon Musk got really involved in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April. He spent a lot of money. He went on the campaign trail.

21:29.33

Sam Shirazi

And that didn't exactly work out because Democrats were able to win that Supreme Court race by 10 percent. And I think after that, there was a general sense that Elon Musk was going to be a liability for group Republicans if he was able to continue campaigning in that role.

21:44.16

Sam Shirazi

And I think this news overall, I think the Virginia GOP is probably breathing a sigh of relief. While I'm sure you know they wouldn't necessarily mind having more money, I don't think they would have wanted the money directly from Elon Musk with all the strings attached and also the Democrats being able to run on that issue and basically portray the Republicans as being the party of Elon Musk.

22:07.73

Sam Shirazi

I do think there was a world where if Elon Musk kind of came in like he did in Wisconsin, it was not going to end well for the Virginia GOP.

22:15.03

Sam Shirazi

So overall, I think, and it was an open question. I mean, you know, I think if the Wisconsin Supreme Court race had gone a different way, i think it was very possible that Elon Musk would continue getting involved in these campaigns.

22:26.98

Sam Shirazi

And so I think one question we had for November is a little bit answered. I don't think Elon Musk is going to be directly on the campaign trail like he was in Wisconsin. I think the bigger question is, will Elon Musk and or people associated with him kind of try to find a way to give money to the Republicans in Virginia or set up PACs so that they can spend money on their own in Virginia?

22:48.53

Sam Shirazi

It's hard to tell. I mean, I think that money would eventually appear somewhere in the campaign records. And the thing with Virginia is there's unlimited campaign contributions directly to the campaigns, but you have to disclose that. And while, you know, if you gave a thousand dollars or $2,000 here and there, you know, it's not really going to raise anyone's eyebrows, but if you start seeing checks that are half a million, a million dollars, eventually people are going to figure out, okay, there's money coming from somewhere and they're to try to track it down. So,

23:16.55

Sam Shirazi

While I think it's possible that money still kind of gets the Republicans um from Elon Musk and or his supporters, I do think it's it's somewhat hot hard to hide it. I mean, it's not impossible, but you just have to kind of see what happens as we head into the November election.

23:34.70

Sam Shirazi

And I think for Democrats, I mean, there's still very much going to be running against Elon Musk and or Doge. I think the issue is not going away. Obviously, the cuts the federal the cuts to workers and the the federal spending that's been cut, I mean, that is not going to go away. And regardless of Elon Musk who's on the campaign trail.

23:52.94

Sam Shirazi

or not, Democrats are going to be talking about that issue. And, you know, I think we've seen a little bit of a shift in Democratic mis messaging. They still mention Elon Musk. I think he's still important. But given that he's taken a step back and he's not as public as he was certainly during the first couple months of the Trump administration, I think we'll see him a little bit less even in the Democratic ads. I think the focus will be more on Trump more on the cuts and maybe trying to link that with Trump. And obviously they're going to try to link it with, to governor Youngkin and Lieutenant governor went to Earle Sears.

24:26.12

Sam Shirazi

I think with Elon Musk, everyone kind of knew that was not going to go well for the Virginia GOP. They knew that the Democrats knew that. And I think that's part of the reason Elon Musk has stepped back because I think I didn't hear any Virginia Republicans screaming, I really hope Elon Musk comes campaigns in my district. I think they all kind of knew that was not going to end well for them.

24:46.52

Sam Shirazi

I think the big question mark is Donald Trump, because the Republican Party right now is basically Trump's party.

24:53.51

Sam Shirazi

And the Republican candidates generally are not going to be able to run away from Donald Trump because they they fall in this trap where if they run away from Donald Trump, I mean, there, there's a whole MAGA base that's going to get upset with them and they're going to try to keep them in line and try to keep the Republican candidates this year in Virginia from back. They're going try to make sure that they are backing Donald Trump.

25:15.02

Sam Shirazi

Obviously the Democrats on the other side are going to have the exact opposite strategy where they're going to say, yes, these people are totally with Trump and, and the Republicans in Virginia are totally but back backing Trump.

25:27.45

Sam Shirazi

And, The Republicans running in Virginia aren't going to deny that because they can't do that. And so I do think the Republicans are in a tough place in Virginia with Donald Trump, because realistically, Donald Trump, I mean, almost certainly is going to have a negative approval rating in Virginia. I mean, it's hard for me to imagine a scenario where by November, Trump's approval is going to be positive in Virginia.

25:47.46

Sam Shirazi

And if you think about it. you know November 2024, Donald Trump was probably at his height of popularity in Virginia, and he's still lost by 6%. And what has happened since November 2024, there have been cuts to the federal government. There's been federal employees let go. i mean, I just can't imagine a scenario where he's going to be more popular than he was in November 2024 in Virginia.

26:10.71

Sam Shirazi

I'm not saying that Donald Trump has no base of support in Virginia. He certainly... Still very popular in parts of Southwest Virginia and Shenandoah Valley and Southside Virginia. i mean, there are clearly a lot of people in Virginia who do support Donald Trump, but that almost creates this problem for the Virginia GOP because they need those Trump supporters to come out and vote for the Republicans.

26:31.22

Sam Shirazi

But they also probably need people who don't approve of Donald Trump to vote for the Republicans this year in Virginia. And that's a very hard line to walk. And if you think about 2021, Governor Youngkin was able to walk that line because he was able to not alienate the Trump supporters, but he was able to win enough independent and moderate voters in the suburbs where he was able to win the election.

26:53.18

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, Donald Trump was not president in 2021. We had joe biden There's a lot of different factors in play. i think this year with Donald Trump in the White House, it's just going to be very difficult for the Virginia GOP to keep their arms distanced from Trump, but then to try to appeal to the moderate voters because you risk alienating the Trump people if you are too critical or you're you're not close enough to Donald Trump if you're a Republican this year in Virginia.

27:21.51

Sam Shirazi

And we saw a little bit of this recently where I think there were some articles that came out about Governor Winslow Merrill Sears and one of them was about some photos that she had on her campaign website.

27:33.20

Sam Shirazi

Now they were some pretty bland stock photos that she got and she put on her website. I think one of them, they forgot to remove the serial number of the photo or something like that, which you know in the grand scheme of things is pretty minor, but it's not a great look if you're a campaign.

27:49.10

Sam Shirazi

But what I thought was really interesting was that Chris LaSavita, who was a senior advisor to President Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign, he said that he said that this showed that the winsome Earl Sears campaign was being run by amateurs. And so, you know, he didn't have to say that. Obviously there's a reason he said that. I think maybe it was to send kind of a warning shot to say like, Hey, you guys got to step up your game.

28:18.18

Sam Shirazi

It's also possible. He's trying to show that, um know, he, Trump world may not be super happy with Winston Merle Sears because, there were times in the past where she has kind of distanced herself from Trump.

28:29.40

Sam Shirazi

Currently, she's not necessarily running away from Trump, but she isn't necessarily also talking about him every day. And so I think she's in a tough spot because she she knows that Either way, it's kind of a no-win proposition. If she gets too close to Trump, then the Democrats are going to use that and slam her for being too close to Trump.

28:48.74

Sam Shirazi

I think if she starts dissing herself too much from Trump, then MAGA world is going to get upset. And so all that's to say is like Elon Musk may be out of the picture for now. And maybe the Virginia GOP don't have to worry too much about Elon Musk. But I do think there's this unresolved question about what they do with Donald Trump.

29:06.43

Sam Shirazi

And does Donald Trump come to campaign in Virginia? you know, there's been two examples of that kind of backfiring in Virginia history. So in 2005, very late in the campaign,

29:17.12

Sam Shirazi

George W. Bush came to campaign in Virginia for the Republican nominee for governor. And the general consensus is that that didn't really help the Republicans. And if anything, that helped Tim Kaine win in 2005. And in 2021, we saw a few instances where President Biden came in to campaign for Terry McAuliffe.

29:34.82

Sam Shirazi

And the Republicans were really able to use that against McAuliffe and to help fire up their own base. Now, do I think those two visits by themselves led to the losses those years? No. But I do think it's going to be interesting. does President Trump hold campaign rallies in Virginia.

29:50.28

Sam Shirazi

Maybe he holds them in rural areas that might help drive the turnout for the Republicans, but you got to think that's going that might have hurt the Republicans in other parts of Virginia where Donald Trump's less popular. So I think it's going to be really interesting. I started off this podcast. My first episode was called the Doge election question mark.

30:09.83

Sam Shirazi

I think Doge is very much still going to be a part of this election. I think Elon Musk might be taking backseat in the election a little bit more than he was maybe in the beginning of the year, but certainly he's not out of the picture either.

30:23.29

Sam Shirazi

And I think Donald Trump's going to be the big question mark heading into the November campaign. So all that's to say is there's a lot going on in Virginia. I'm going to cover it all. I think we're getting close to the primary, which will be really interesting. And then once the primary is over, we're going to be heading into the general election. So a lot of stuff going on in Virginia. I hope if you enjoy this podcast,

30:41.88

Sam Shirazi

Please do share it. You know, I think it's it's always good for people to know about what's going on in Virginia. If you know people who are interested in politics, feel free to mention the podcast to them and share it with them.

30:53.24

Sam Shirazi

If you feel like writing a review and giving it positive reviews, feel free to do that. I think that definitely helps people know about the podcast. So I'm going to keep trying to do this all the way through the election, and I hope you will continue to stay with me. And for now, that is Federal Fallout, and I will join you next week.

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

00:00.46

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, I will be checking in on the Federal Fallout because obviously the premise of this show has been that what's been going on in Washington, D.C is going to affect the Virginia elections this year. And I've been covering other topics and they're all very interesting, but I haven't really spent a whole lot on the federal fallout issue in a while. And I wanted to check in because there were two pieces of interesting news that I wanted to talk about.

00:41.59

Sam Shirazi

So at the University of Virginia, they have something called the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. And every once in a while, they will put out different studies and different forecasts.

00:52.60

Sam Shirazi

And so recently they put out a forecast about the job losses in Virginia this year. And according to this forecast, they say that about 32,000 net jobs will be lost in Virginia this year.

01:05.07

Sam Shirazi

That means Virginia won't be creating jobs. That means that 32,000 jobs will be lost. And obviously, main cause of that is the federal fallout in in regards to what's going on with all the federal cuts.

01:16.45

Sam Shirazi

Now, I should say this is a forecast. Things can change. I don't want to take it 100% certain Virginia is going to be losing jobs. It's possible that Virginia gains jobs this year, forecast change. So you know I would take the specific number with a little bit of grain of salt. But I think the broader point is still there that Virginia is seeing job losses, both directly from people getting fired, but also from businesses that are suffering, specifically government contractors. So a lot of government contractors, they technically aren't employees of the federal government.

01:45.36

Sam Shirazi

But they are making money off the federal government through these contracts. And so there have been a lot of contracts that have been cut. And so obviously, if you're a contractor, your contract's been cut. You can't play it pay your employees. You have to let your employees go.

01:56.81

Sam Shirazi

So that's another source of job losses. And I think the other thing I should mention... which I don't think is talked about a lot in the news, is the fact that a lot of federal employees are leaving under either early retirement or through incentives to leave the federal government, such as the original fork in the road that Doge offered where people would be able to leave the federal government, still get paid until September 30th while they were not working.

02:25.26

Sam Shirazi

And a lot of times those people who've left through these voluntary early separations are not necessarily counted as technically being fired. They aren't necessarily eligible for unemployment. So you may not see them in the official statistics, but they are still very much being affected by what's going on in the federal government.

02:45.04

Sam Shirazi

And I guess the the one other thing I should mention along these lines is Obviously, Northern Virginia has a lot of federal employees who work in D.C. who commute into D.C. And so while they may not have been technically jobs located within Virginia, if someone either voluntarily leaves or they are being fired from their job in Washington, D.C., that may be reflected in the Washington, D.C. employment numbers.

03:08.18

Sam Shirazi

But it's going to affect Virginia because obviously people who come come back to Virginia after they work in D.C. They're bringing most of their money and most of their paycheck back to Virginia.

03:18.81

Sam Shirazi

And so we're seeing a lot of these effects from the federal fallout about what's going on in D.C. And The Washington Post recently did a poll of the D.C. area, but they had specific questions about Northern Virginia. So they asked people in Northern Virginia,

03:34.19

Sam Shirazi

About the federal cuts and only 25% of people in Northern Virginia approved of them and 68% disapproved. And then they asked people about whether the federal cuts will help or hurt the DC area economy.

03:47.93

Sam Shirazi

76% said it would hurt the D.C. area economy, while only 12% said it would help the D.C. area economy. Now, obviously, Northern Virginia is known for being a blue area, and obviously, Northern Virginia is very impacted by the cuts in the federal government.

03:59.97

Sam Shirazi

So these numbers are not super surprising, and that's about what you expect to see. And I think some Virginia Republicans, their response would be, well, what do you expect? It's Northern Virginia. Of course, they're not going to like the just the cuts to the federal government.

04:12.74

Sam Shirazi

And these people aren't going to vote for the Republicans anyways. I mean, I think there's certainly some truth in that. I think the problem for the Republicans is they need some people in Northern Virginia to vote for them. And if you look at 2021, part of the secrets to the success of Glenn Youngkin was that he was able to keep the margins in Northern Virginia, particularly the outer suburbs of Loudoun and Prince William, somewhat competitive.

04:36.51

Sam Shirazi

And he wasn't totally blown away in Northern Virginia. And so while he didn't win Northern Virginia, the margins were close enough where combined with some good turnout in the rest of the state, he was able to win in 2021. And he really improved on President Trump's 2020 performance in Virginia. And that's part of the reason why he was able to win.

04:54.76

Sam Shirazi

And so if you think about what happened in 2024, former Vice President Harris was able to win win Virginia by about six points.

05:02.91

Sam Shirazi

So if you think about a Republican this year in Virginia, they have to do better than what President Trump did in 2024, because obviously President Trump didn't win Virginia in 2024.

05:11.82

Sam Shirazi

And so when you look at those dynamics, I mean, i think it's it's getting tricky for the Virginia GOP because I don't know exactly what the plan is in terms of trying to win Northern Virginia voters over or at least not lose as many of them as President Trump did in 2024.

05:30.69

Sam Shirazi

And I guess the other thing I should mention is in the Northern Virginia area, there are four House seats in the House of Delegates that could be competitive this year. So that's House District 22 in middle Prince William County.

05:43.94

Sam Shirazi

There's House District 30 in western Loudoun County. There's House District 64 that is in middle stafford and there is house district 66 which is in spotsylvania county for the most part and all four of those districts are currently held by the republicans the democrats are targeting those four seats and those are basically the last four seats in Northern Virginia that the republicans have been able to hold on to and you know i think traditionally those have been republican districts.

06:13.28

Sam Shirazi

There's an open question about whether some of those people in those districts who have voted for Republicans in the past may be open to voting for Democrats this time, either because they've been directly impacted by what's going on in the federal government or they know people who've been impacted, or even if they aren't really connected the federal government, maybe their businesses have or the place they work has seen a slowdown because of what's going on with the federal government.

06:34.65

Sam Shirazi

And if you think about what happened in 2017 in Virginia, so there were a lot of Republican seats, surprisingly, in places like Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, that had been Republican for a long time. And everyone just assumed, well, yeah, these are kind of traditional Republican seats.

06:49.27

Sam Shirazi

And the Democrats were able to flip some of those seats really easily in some cases because of the backlash to the first Trump administration. And by the end of the Trump administration, there were no Republicans left in Fairfax County at the House of Delegates or state Senate level.

07:06.59

Sam Shirazi

And I think there's a possibility if there's a lot of federal fallout in Northern Virginia that the same thing could happen with these last seats in Prince William, Loudoun and Stafford.

07:17.56

Sam Shirazi

And the other thing I should mention, I mean, I think a lot of the federal fallout has directly hit the civilian side of things with different agencies with different agencies. For example, we've seen a lot about USAID and the Department of Education and Health and Human Services. So those have been the the agencies most directly impacted and where we've seen a lot of news about the changes to those agencies.

07:42.24

Sam Shirazi

But I also think it's an interesting thing to see what happens if, for example, some of the the workers who are in and around military bases, are they seeing the federal fallout? Are they feeling differently about what's going on in D.C.?

07:55.89

Sam Shirazi

And if that's the case, I mean, that affects a lot of people. So there are military bases in the Richmond area and certainly in Hampton Roads. There's a lot of military bases. And I'm not going to go through every single district, but I mean, there are a lot of districts where the Republicans are trying to hold on.

08:09.22

Sam Shirazi

to seats where potentially the changes and the impacts of the federal government could make a difference in November. So again, i think the conventional wisdom is that this is going to help Democrats. Democrats are certainly running on this issue. They are talking about how they are focused on helping Virginia and wanting to help the federal workers who are been losing their jobs.

08:29.86

Sam Shirazi

And they they're attacking the Republicans for not doing that and for basically backing what President Trump is doing. And so, you know, the conventionalism is you would think that would play pretty well, at least in Northern Virginia, if not in other parts of Virginia.

08:42.66

Sam Shirazi

And I did want to step back and kind of maybe Think about that. And is there a scenario where maybe the federal fallout will not be that big? I mean, I think the Republican story or plan is that, well, yeah, there's these impacts to the federal government. Yeah, Virginia is kind of dependent on federal jobs and federal spending.

09:02.86

Sam Shirazi

But again, those people mainly vote for the Democrats anyways. And there's a lot of different parts of Virginia and maybe Southwest Virginia or the Shenandoah Valley or Southside Virginia. I mean, those people are much more supportive of what President Trump is doing.

09:15.83

Sam Shirazi

And if you know they get really fired up because they support President Trump and his agenda and they come out in huge numbers, then the it doesn't really matter what's going on in these other parts of Virginia because the the Republicans are still going to be able to win this year.

09:29.60

Sam Shirazi

I mean, I think the the problem with that thinking and the problem for the Republicans is that those areas have gotten close to maxing out. So maxing out is when you've kind of hit your peak in terms of the votes you can get out of those counties.

09:44.97

Sam Shirazi

And so if you think about Southwest Virginia, there are parts of Southwest Virginia where the Republicans are getting 80 plus percent of the vote. And I mean, at some point, there's really not much else you can get out of those places.

09:55.92

Sam Shirazi

Whereas think part of the reason President Trump did better in 2024 than he did in 2020 is because he really did do better in Northern Virginia to a certain extent. And particularly among, let's say, people from a diverse background, whether it's the Asian community or it's the Hispanic community, I think President Trump in 2024 did a little bit better than what people were expecting. I think the impact was a little less in Virginia as compared to other states. But certainly, I think, know, if you think about 2020, President Trump lost Virginia by 10 points, whereas in 2024, he only lost it by six points.

10:30.50

Sam Shirazi

So that was about a four-point swing towards the Republicans in 2024. And a lot of that was in Northern Virginia and you know, if that gets reversed, there's not a lot of the Republicans can do in terms of driving up the turnout and the margins in rural areas where they think that the President Trump's approval rating and President Trump's plans are more popular among voters.

10:55.86

Sam Shirazi

Now, the other possibility that I think I've mentioned is that DOGE, which kind of wraps up his work, the cuts of the federal government are finalized and everyone kind of moves on. And yeah, some people lost their jobs, but for the most part, the economy in Virginia stabilizes because they're able to find other jobs and everything kind of returns back to normal.

11:15.56

Sam Shirazi

I think that's, that's certainly going to happen probably to a certain extent. I think the challenge with that position or that view is that the reality is that, you know Even the federal workers that stay, I mean, they've gone through a lot in terms of having to deal with Doge and questions about whether they were going to get fired. And and so that that stays with you. And I just don't know if by November there's enough time where they'll just kind of say, yeah, I'm okay. I kept my job, so I'm not going to worry about this anymore.

11:44.32

Sam Shirazi

And anyways, so long story short, I think it's interesting to look at the federal fallout. I don't always talk about it on every podcast because I think there are a lot of other things going on.

11:54.24

Sam Shirazi

But I do think kind of lurking in the background is the issues with the federal government. It hasn't gone away. I think it's still a big issue in Virginia, even if you don't always hear about it in the news. It's something that's constantly impacting the economy one way or another. And so I think we're going We're going to see how much of an impact it eventually has in November.

12:15.69

Sam Shirazi

And I do hope eventually we get a good Virginia poll to kind of give a pulse on where things are right now in Virginia. But I just kind of wanted to do this quick recap and...

12:26.79

Sam Shirazi

touch base on where things are with the federal fallout. And I'm sure there'll be a lot more to discuss in future podcasts, but until then I will leave it to see what happens. And this has been federal fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. I'll see you next week.

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

00:00.47

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia elections. There is now an American Pope and I'm interviewing the Pope of Virginia politics. That's Michael Lee Pope. He is a reporter and host of another great Virginia politics podcast, the Virginia Press Room.

00:19.25

Sam Shirazi

Definitely check that one out too. That's usually comes out Monday mornings. I am listening to it on my Monday morning commute into work. So definitely check out that podcast along with Federal Fallout.

00:31.33

Sam Shirazi

And prior to hosting the Virginia Press Room, he was the host of Pod Virginia, where he was gracious gracious enough to have me as a guest several times. And now I get to be on the other side of the mic. So thank you for joining me today.

00:47.92

Michael Pope

Sam Shirazi, longtime listener, first time guest. I love your podcast. You're really knocking it out of the park here, so keep it up. i so I noticed that when you have guests on, it's more of a forensic audit of their background, so I'm a little bit nervous to be on your podcast, so don't stump me with difficult questions. But yeah,

01:09.74

Michael Pope

You know, I was actually looking at some stats. I think you've done more episodes than the press room so far. So congratulations for knocking it out of the park here and launching Federal Fallout.

01:21.40

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, thanks so much. I'm very appreciative. I mean, I was inspired to do the podcasting thing, partly, you know, my experience on PodVirginia, and I thought it'd be interesting to do one about the 2025 Virginia election. So that's why I started mine. And i I will talk a little bit about podcasting. I do think there's one thing you could probably teach me about podcasting, though.

01:40.60

Sam Shirazi

Can you guess who it is?

01:40.75

Michael Pope

Yeah, yeah, totally. There is, Sam Shirazi. You know this because I've already given you a hard time about it before we hit the record button, and I'm going to continue giving you a hard time about it. What's with the music? There's no music.

01:52.47

Michael Pope

The show just begins with you talking. You need – put some music there, a bumper. Something's got to go there. In fact, I'll tell you what. Your Zencaster account came with some funny stuff like – I think there's a comic rimshot in there.

02:08.49

Michael Pope

there's also a music bed. ah Go ahead and crank up that music bed there on Zencaster.

02:13.03

Sam Shirazi

about this one?

02:15.36

Michael Pope

That's a good one. That's a good one. You could hit that and then talk about how you're going to knock it out of the park, hit a home run in terms of every podcast is a home run when you listen to Federal Fallout. No, I was talking about the music, the button that has the really depressing music.

02:32.52

Sam Shirazi

Oh, yeah, that that could be intro.

02:35.31

Michael Pope

There we go. This is perfect. All right. Welcome, federal follow-up.

02:40.31

Sam Shirazi

All right. i I know. I know. I got to get intro music. I kind of like just starting off getting cutting the chase, but I know everyone wants the podcast intro music. But...

02:49.01

Michael Pope

or Or alternatively, you could have something really newsy. Something like that.

02:57.68

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I like that. That's that's definitely catchy. Well, I mean, I appreciate you teaching me the finer points of podcasting. so I did want to, i guess, my first question start with kind of podcasting in general, both in terms of people getting political news through podcasts, which obviously we've seen an uptick in, and you've been doing this for several years, going back to PodVirginia.

03:21.09

Sam Shirazi

mean, what made you interested in podcasts and how do you think that these these podcasts are starting to influence politics?

03:29.41

Michael Pope

It's essentially radio that's been kind of repackaged and rebranded. You know, I am a big fan of radio. I work in radio as my day job. I'm also kind of interested in the history of radio, the history of broadcasting. So it does kind of feel like we're at a moment right now where we're reinventing radio and it's in the form of a podcast and people love podcasts.

03:52.54

Michael Pope

Sam Shirazi, what podcast do you listen to?

03:54.94

Sam Shirazi

Well, obviously, I listen to the Virginia Press Room. That is my go-to.

03:58.19

Michael Pope

Okay. All right. Of course. All right. Thank you.

04:00.56

Sam Shirazi

I mean, honestly, I like to listen to news podcasts.

04:00.84

Michael Pope

Thank you for listening.

04:04.63

Sam Shirazi

I listen to different ones. I don't want to endorse any specific ones. But, I mean, I do think... I'm more of audio learner. And I do think for people who are more audio oriented, I do think it's a really good way to absorb news. And you mentioned radio. And I think that's a good point, because it used to be that there was talk radio and that was really big. And that kind of led a lot of the political discourse. Do you think podcasts are kind of now doing what talk radio did maybe in the ninety s

04:35.91

Michael Pope

That's a good question. i mean, talk radio was very influential in the 1990s. That's when we saw the rise of Rush Limbaugh as a political force. And it does kind of feel like podcasting is is a modern incarnation of that sort of talk radio thing that happened in the nineteen ninety s Yeah, i could I could buy that.

04:54.13

Michael Pope

I actually, i mean, because of it feels so new as a medium, I feel like the the better analog, the better thing to compare it to would be the original creation of radio in the sort of the early days of of broadcasting in the 1920s when they were trying to figure out how much of this is showbiz and how much of this is news.

05:14.32

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I definitely think there's an entertainment component to to podcasts, which is more hearkening back to the beginning of the radio. So yeah, a lot of interesting things with podcasts. And I think hopefully people have enjoyed my podcast. I know that they enjoy your podcast. And anyways, so I encourage everyone to keep listening.

05:32.30

Sam Shirazi

I did want to kind of ask about being a journalist. You know, you're you're on on the radio, but i i one thing that I appreciate about you is you try to be kind of an old school straight news reporter and and try to be as objective as possible. And I won't name any names, but I do think there are journalists out there today or people claiming to be journalists who definitely have a political agenda.

05:54.23

Sam Shirazi

mean, what is it like being a journalist in the current environment and trying to kind of keep the old school way of doing journalism alive in a world where, you know, a lot of the the current journalists are not necessarily trying to report things accurately?

06:07.97

Michael Pope

In a world where standards are falling apart. Yeah, you actually set it up like it's a horror movie there. Thanks for knocking my industry. I mean, it's difficult. It's difficult being in the journalism industry. I will say that in recent years, we have seen an expansion of the Virginia Price Corps. So, you know, when I first started doing political reporting, the big...

06:28.71

Michael Pope

worry at that time was the shrinking press corps. And there were fewer people covering the statehouse at that time than there had been in previous cycles. You know, like the Richmond Times dispatch used to have five people and, you know, the local television stations would have a team of people. And there were, then there were the wire services and the the big papers of course would send correspondence. And there,

06:53.52

Michael Pope

you know, there was a time when it contracted much smaller than that. But in recent years, we have seen new new positions show up. You know, like I will say for a good example of this is the Virginia Mercury.

07:07.29

Michael Pope

And they have a lot of top-notch reporters there at the Virginia Mercury cranking out great journalism all the time. And for each one of those individual journalists, that's like a new position in the press corps.

07:19.75

Michael Pope

So we have seen in recent years, in addition to the press corps, based based on new media. You know, I mean, this is, i'm I'm a legacy newspaper person, legacy media in terms of NPR being, you know, legacy terrestrial radio.

07:39.24

Michael Pope

But I'm a big fan of this, ah all this new media stuff, like like the podcast that you're doing, Sam Shirazi.

07:44.91

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, no, I mean, that that's good to hear. I mean, I do think there's definitely a lot of pessimism about the journalism industry, but I do think you make a good point that there there were new outlets and also people, I mean, I don't consider myself a journalist. I consider myself more of a political analyst, which is a little bit different.

08:01.43

Sam Shirazi

But I mean, I try to share news. i definitely use the reporters from the different sources in Virginia to kind of base my analysis on. And so I do appreciate that there's still people out there putting out news into the world, whether they're doing it through official journalism organization or just on their own.

08:20.44

Sam Shirazi

mean, what do you think about the the really legacy media outlets? So I will say in Virginia, typically the the ones that had gotten a lot of attention in the past are the Washington Post and Richmond Times-Dispatch. Those have both fallen on hard times, I would say. And do you think you know that has...

08:36.32

Sam Shirazi

led to a change in how politics is covered in Virginia? Or do you just think that's kind of a newer people are coming and and the coverage is still there?

08:45.44

Michael Pope

Well, you mentioned legacy newspapers, ah newspapers, ah two in particular there, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Washington Post. I will point out there is a paper in Virginia that's even older than the Washington Post, even older than the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and that's the Alexandria Gazette packet right here in old town, Alexandria founded in 1784, one of the oldest newspapers in America. And so, you know, because Virginia is as old as it is, legacy media is really legacy.

09:16.97

Michael Pope

and those papers, Still have people. the The Washington Post has a team of great reporters in the statehouse doing statehouse reporting. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a team of reporters in the statehouse and elsewhere doing lots of great reporting. Even now, people talk about, oh, the RTD is falling apart. What's the premise of your question? i dispute the premise of the question because I think they're still cranking out really good journalism right now at this moment.

09:44.88

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I often look at those articles and from The Washington Post, so I'm not trying to to downplay the role. I just think it's it's interesting because, you know, the the profitability of newspapers and and old school journalism has definitely gone gone down. And I think the model is shifting a little bit.

10:02.43

Sam Shirazi

But overall, I mean, i think you make a good point that we should try to still appreciate what's being put out there. There is people working hard, putting out good journalism. And I don't mean to say that things are doom and gloom, but that's often the narrative you hear. So I appreciate you kind of, you know, giving a different perspective, especially as as a current journalist.

10:22.17

Michael Pope

dirt doom Doom and gloom is kind of what it feels like. That is the zeitgeist. However, we are in a golden age of media right now. There is more good reporting going on right now than at any time in human history, right?

10:39.57

Michael Pope

There's also... a record amount of really bad journalism. I mean, horrible, terrible journalism. So, I mean, there's it's just a scale thing. There's a lot of really great reporting that's going on right now. There's also a lot of really terrible, terrible, terrible reporting that's going on right now. that So that's why I say it's the golden age of media. there's There's way more really good reporting going on right now than at any time that than there's ever been since the inventing of the printing press.

11:07.38

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely all very valid points and it's it's good to keep in mind. Well, I did want to ask you about what it's like reporting this year in Virginia and what's specifically on the elections. I mean, what are you seeing and what are you hearing on the ground as a reporter?

11:23.51

Michael Pope

Well, I personally think it's kind of a bummer not having primary elections. You know, I mean, we've got the Democrats and the Republican at the top of the ticket who are running for governor have zero primary opponents. And they're both just, um you know,

11:40.99

Michael Pope

sliding into the general election season without really getting the kind of cross-examination that you typically get in a primary election. i think that's historically been a detriment to candidates. I mean, if you think about the failure of the Kamala Harris campaign, she did not have a primary and she would have been a much stronger candidate in the fall had she gone through but kind of forensic audit that you get on the campaign trail when you are elected in a primary and then go on to a general.

12:10.11

Michael Pope

So think that's, i you know, i I wish there were more of a sense of competition at the top of the ticket instead of just having these two people show up and be their party standard bearers.

12:23.67

Michael Pope

So that's the top of the ticket. And then, gosh, it's all kind of boring after that, right? I mean, the lieutenant governor race, no one ever pays attention to the lieutenant governor. Oh, wait a second. Actually, it sounds like we've been paying a lot of attention to one them.

12:36.62

Michael Pope

What the Lieutenant at Governor raises. In fact, you did like a special emergency extra podcast or two about this topic, right?

12:43.86

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, i I mean, I did want to ask you about the Republican lieutenant governor primary that never happened. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously with John Reed, he became the Republican nominee. I did an emergency podcast when he became the nominee. And then there was an emergency podcast when Governor Youngkin asked him to drop out. And I did have a specific question about that. i mean, what it's like being a journalist when a story like that comes out, because I am trying to cover it as well. And I'm trying to be fair in the sense of, you know, John Reed denied it. and you know, Governor, but at the same time, I mean, you would think there's a ah reason Governor Youngkin would call him. and And so what was it like being a journalist trying to figure out the facts when something like that is breaking really quickly?

13:25.78

Michael Pope

Well, I actually am going to give a shout out to my colleague and friend, be Brad Kuttner at Radio IQ, because he was the one that was actually following the day-to-day events. and In fact, I would even say hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute events of that fast-developing story. So Brad Kuttner of Radio IQ is Was definitely following that in a very detailed way. I will say, you know, standing back and looking at the bigger picture, it's so rare that you see parties turn the gun, or you know, turn the firing squad around and start firing on on their own headquarters.

14:03.71

Michael Pope

being like, don't they want to win in the fall? But instead of coming together to support the this candidate for a lieutenant governor, there was this effort to unseat him and there would then there would be a vacancy and then you could install somebody else as the candidate. And i mean, it just seemed like there was a lot of smoke and daggers, you know what I'm saying?

14:27.24

Michael Pope

it um um a lot of the dark art of politics, that sort of thing. And so at the end of the day, they've got a candidate that is now, you know, facing opposition from their own party. um And I'm kind of curious what the visuals are going to be when you've got...

14:46.55

Michael Pope

the Republican candidate for governor went to Earl Sears on the stage with John Reed and on the stage with Jason Miarez.

14:57.71

Michael Pope

What that's going to look like, what the body language is going to be like, what the sort of interpersonal dialogue between them is going to be. i don't know. It just kind of seems like they short circuited their candidacy even before they got to the summer.

15:12.99

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a crazy week and I'm sure that, you know, the Virginia GOP has kind of accepted the John Ridley nominee and want to move on. But it's going to be kind of awkward as the campaign goes on. And and are they even going to have these?

15:27.16

Sam Shirazi

Typically, you see the the ticket once it's finalized, have these, you know, joint appearances. And it's really unclear if that's going to happen this year in Virginia. So anyways, I'm sure I'm sure you will cover it along with your colleagues. And I think it's going to be an interesting campaign this year.

15:42.59

Sam Shirazi

I did want to ask you a little bit on a different topic because I think one thing I've always appreciated about your work is you bring kind of a historical perspective to things.

15:54.13

Sam Shirazi

And before I ask you a specific question about that, I just kind of wanted you to talk about you know your interest in history and also how you think History intersects with journalism in the sense of, you know, often you don't see a lot of history in journalism, but I do think when journalists include historical analogies or kind of historical background to a story, it it often makes the story much more meaningful.

16:17.96

Michael Pope

Sure, yeah, I definitely tried to do that with a lot of my reporting. i mean, I know that you've one of the things that you are hoping to talk about in this podcast is the right-to-work law in Virginia. So the historical roots of that are, you know, the bird machine, which I've spent a lot of time researching and writing and speaking about.

16:37.45

Michael Pope

And so, I mean, one I guess in response to your question, I would say when I first started doing political journalism, when I first moved to Virginia, I would hear people talk about the bird machine as an explanation for things. Right. So like this is the reason why we do things this way is because of the bird machine. And the reason why we do things that way is because of the bird machine.

16:57.86

Michael Pope

And then after the 11th, 12th, 13th time somebody said that, I said to myself, I probably should know something about the bird machine. And so I kind of wanted to work on that project for a long time before I ended up getting the contract to write the book. And so that's,

17:12.77

Michael Pope

that's A roundabout way of answering your question is that history is always lurking in the background of everything, including news. So this ah ah month, we have seen the right to work law and the news and the candidates either taking a position or not taking a position on it. But the background of how... How it happened and why it's it part of Virginia law is so fascinating. And i love doing stuff like that. Recently, actually, I used some audio of governor bill tech bill ah ah use some audio of Governor Bill Tuck talking about the right to work law in the General Assembly.

17:51.91

Michael Pope

I use that audio um public radio. And I love doing stuff like that when you talk about the history of current events and ah ah really bring some context to it.

18:01.60

Sam Shirazi

you've made me think a lot about the the past in Virginia, and especially the Byrd machine, which, you know, i i wasn't I didn't grow up here. And i like you, I came here and you you would hear things about Byrd and his machine. But, you you know, it's it seems like so long ago, but through your reporting and through your work, I've kind of realized that a lot of that stuff still hangs over Virginia. So, you know, you you mentioned right to work and something that I'm interested in in this campaign because it's it's a big issue.

18:29.67

Sam Shirazi

Could you just kind of explain what it is and the history of it in Virginia and why it's such a big issue on the campaign trail?

18:36.12

Michael Pope

Sure, yeah, well, the big picture is that it harms unions by preventing them from organizing in the way that they do in many other states. And so it allows people to have representation by the union, but not paid dues for the representation that often happens in legal cases and contract negotiations. And you know right now, the federal workers that have unions are faring better than the federal workers that don't have unions. so the history of union politics in the United States,

19:10.34

Michael Pope

the history of union organizing in the United States kind of exploded in the 1940s. And there was a lot of violence associated with union activities and a lot of desire to shut them down and stop them as political forces. And so this actually came to a head in Richmond the nineteen forty s when the major utility, which today we would call Dominion Energy, this was a time when it was called Vepco, the Virginia Electric Power Company. And so the Vepco employees wanted to strike.

19:45.56

Michael Pope

And so the governor at the time, the bird machine governor, Bill um decided that he was going to do like Kobayashi Maru. Sam Shirazi, are you familiar with Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan?

19:59.26

Sam Shirazi

You know, to be honest, I'm more of a political nerd, not a Star Trek nerd. Yeah.

20:03.54

Michael Pope

All right, some of your listeners have probably heard of the Kobayashi Maru, which was in Star Trek. and The Kobayashi Maru, which was in Star Trek II, but then I think it also made one of the reboots as a concept. And the idea is you win the game by changing the rules of the game, right? So like Captain Kirk famously hacked into the computer and changed how the game worked, how the...

20:28.13

Michael Pope

how the the disaster scenario that they were gaming out, he changed how it worked so that he could beat the game, right? So he hacked the game in order to beat it. That's how you beat the Kobayashi Maru was the name of the the the game that they were playing or you know the disaster scenario they were trying to game out. And so the reason I bring all this up with Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan and the Kobayashi Maru is that Here we've got Governor Bill Tuck doing the Kobayashi Maru in Virginia politics to undermine the power of unions because he changed the rules of the game by saying, all you people that work for the utility, I'm going to conscript you into the Virginia militia. And unless you show up for work, you will be court-martialed because you're no longer just an employee of VEPCO. You're no longer just a utility employee now. Yeah.

21:17.69

Michael Pope

you're in the Virginia militia. And if you fail to show up for work ah as part of this union strike, we will court martial you and you will have to deal with that. And so Governor Tuck actually did something really bold, changed the rules of the game, won the day, won the day. So there was no strike. He actually headed off the strike and then followed it up the very next year with the right to work law, which has forever undermined unions in Virginia ever since.

21:43.77

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, i think that's all really helpful background on on this debate. And just to give listeners context about what happened in the last week. So progressives have for a long time been trying to push Virginia to repeal the right to work law and the Democratic nominee, Abigail Spamberger, she said that she would not fully repeal it, which, you know, in theory might leave some wiggle room. And she even she mentioned she, you know, that there could be some reform to it. But she said she would not fully repeal the right to work law.

22:13.82

Sam Shirazi

I mean, i I don't want you to speculate too much. But, you know, why do you think that Certain Democrats in Virginia have this fear of repealing right to work when the unions want it to happen, the progressives want it to happen.

22:25.96

Sam Shirazi

And it just seems like historically just a hesitancy among some Democrats in Virginia to to touch the law or at least to fully repeal the law, as Congress, as Abigail Spamberger said, she said she's not going to do.

22:38.86

Michael Pope

The Democrats are in a tough spot here, no doubt about it. I mean, one thing is you have to remember Governor Bill Tuck was a Democrat, right? And so the creation of the right to work law is the history of the Democratic Party in Virginia. And so this is a bill that was created by a machine that was run by Democrats. So that's the origin of it. And then these days, you got all the business people who say, hey, don't get rid of the right-to-work law or you'll lose that best-in-business status. Hey, you want to be named CNBC's number one state of business, right? Don't you?

23:12.42

Michael Pope

yeah that would be it would That's a really nice ranking you got. It would be a shame to lose it. And so that's... like That's the threat. The business people like the fact that there's ah ah this right to work law and do not want to see the those liberals, so those progressive Democrats get rid of the right to work law. And and, you know, this is.

23:34.05

Michael Pope

created attention in the Democratic Party for some time. If you think about ah Governor Terry McAuliffe's campaign for governor in 2021, he was flummoxed on this issue. He told a a labor group on a Zoom meeting that he was in favor of overturning the right to work law. But then when I asked him the question in the parking lot of Port City Brewing here in Alexandria, he would not commit to overturning the right to work. So he had a shifting position on which indicates this tension inside of the Democratic Party, the sort of pro-labor rah-rah-rah for, you know, the union label. And then on the other side of the issue, the big business folks who want the CNBC ranking um best in business.

24:17.75

Michael Pope

So um saw McAuliffe sort of shifting his positions. And then this year has also been really interesting to watch the politics because we saw all six Democrats running for lieutenant governor.

24:29.26

Michael Pope

to come out in favor of repealing the right to work law in a televised debate that happened in Roanoke a couple weeks ago. I was a little surprised by that, Sam Shirazi. I was not expecting all six of the Democrats running for lieutenant governor to come out in favor of repealing the right to work. And then – Abigail Spanberger didn't really have a position. yeah Actually, after that debate with the lieutenant governor candidate, Saul coming out in favor of repealing the right to work, i tried to get a statement from the Spanberger campaign. And they sent me a written statement, but it didn't really say much. right I mean, it wasn't like she's in favor of repeal or she's in favor of keeping it.

25:06.44

Michael Pope

And that was the position that she eventually took. And so, you know, I think her position currently is a little cloudy. And i i mean, is she so she's not in favor of repeal. i mean, that's clear.

25:20.71

Michael Pope

And i guess she's in favor of keeping it, although modifying it some way that's a little bit unclear at this point. I feel like we need to hear more from Abigail Spamberger. i feel like she needs to talk to me because I've got lots of questions to ask her.

25:32.89

Michael Pope

And you know Her media people don't like – I guess don't like me asking the questions because after they sent me this two-sentence written statement that really did not answer the question, i tried to get an interview with the candidate to talk about her position on the right to work. And you know their campaign just stopped responding to my – to just stopped responding to my emails and text messages. So clearly this is a topic that they're not really comfortable talking about.

26:00.38

Michael Pope

And that fits into a long pattern here that dates back to the McAuliffe having troubles with this in 2021. And it actually being the origin story of it here being that it was created by the Democratic Party.

26:14.39

Sam Shirazi

Well, before I let you go, I did want to ask you one other question about an issue that's coming up on the campaign trail that has a long historical legacy here in Virginia, and that is the issue of felon disenfranchisement. So Virginia is one of a few one of the few states left where if you are convicted convicted of a felony,

26:33.03

Sam Shirazi

you lose your right to vote for the rest of your life unless the governor reinstates that right. Democrats have proposed a constitutional constitutional amendment that would automatically restore the right to vote for people when they are released from prison after serving their felony sentence.

26:50.77

Sam Shirazi

The first round of voting on that law took place this year, and most Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly voted against it. If the Democrats win the House of Delegates this November, they will vote on it again next year, and it will go to the voters in 2026 for a referendum.

27:09.49

Sam Shirazi

And so I wanted to ask you specifically about this issue because, you know, there's been a little bit of polling on it, and generally it polls pretty well. I think if it goes on the ballot, almost certainly it will pass, and it might even pass with about two-thirds of the vote.

27:23.88

Sam Shirazi

So this seems like a pretty popular thing. And, it and you know, the right to vote is obviously important. And in Virginia has had a messy history where African-Americans were denied the right to vote for a long time and and a lot of the legacy of the Jim Crow era.

27:39.35

Sam Shirazi

mean, why do you think the Republicans aren't fully behind this proposed constitutional amendment that would allow people convicted of felonies to regain their right to vote?

27:50.12

Michael Pope

Well, Republicans actually kind of like talking about voter fraud on the campaign trail and it actually gets their base kind of riled up. So, I mean, I'm not really sure.

28:01.22

Michael Pope

i mean, this issue cuts both ways too. I mean, you can talk about the racist history of felon felon disenfranchisement, which, you know, obviously we're about to do on this podcast, but it's important to also remember while we're having this discussion about the that, you that this is an issue that resonates with people today in 2025 on the campaign trail who think that the votes are all rigged and you have all these people who are undocumented people voting and and rigging the elections. And so this is an issue that actually does play on the campaign trail. But the history of voter felon disenfranchisement is really interesting. It's one of those things

28:40.76

Michael Pope

that you would frequently hear people say, well, that's the bird machine. That's the legacy of the bird machine. And I'm here to fact check that. Not true. Felon disenfranchisement dates way earlier than the bird machine.

28:53.51

Michael Pope

and actually is the early 1800s when Virginia constitutions started ah ah disenfranchising felons. And so the bird machine inherited...

29:04.68

Michael Pope

fell in disenfranchisement and ran with it to make sure that they had very small numbers of people voting. This is one of the ways that they maintained power for a long time, but don't let anybody tell you felon disenfranchisement is a legacy of the bird machine because it is not, it is actually much older than that. And it's something that the bird machine inherited. and as a matter of fact,

29:27.66

Michael Pope

Really interesting history here because you mentioned that Black people were denied the right to vote in Jim Crow. But let's remember there was an era before Jim Crow when Black people not just voted, but there were lots of Black elected officials in the General Assembly. And so the history is more complicated than Black people never voting because it was, there was a war, there was Reconstruction, and then after Reconstruction. There was this really interesting period after Reconstruction that it is the era of black power.

30:02.28

Michael Pope

And there was a political machine, the readjuster machine that was created by Senator William Mahone at that time period that actually had black elected officials as part of it. A little bit ironic because Mahone was a former Confederate general, former Confederate general running a political machine that largely depended on political power from black people.

30:25.39

Michael Pope

And then that whole thing fell apart. The machine fell apart. The conservative Democrats reasserted their power and created the era of Jim Crow. So sort of the history of felon disenfranchisement in Virginia is not a straight line. It's ah ah it's a really dramatic story that has ups and downs and ins and outs. And So, you know, I'm positive the Democrats love talking about this on the campaign trail. It is actually a little surprising. And when you talk to people who are not familiar with the history and the the way all of this works, most people would be surprised. Most people are surprised.

31:01.99

Michael Pope

to learn that Virginia is the only state of the country that has the system where the governor has to give people the right to vote back. The only state in the country where the governor has to give people their right to vote back to them.

31:15.70

Michael Pope

And so this is the kind of thing Democrats certainly like talking about on the campaign trail, but I will say, Republicans also like talking about this on the campaign trail and talking about voter fraud and stirring up these fears and concerns that it's all rigged and people who shouldn't be casting ballots are casting ballots. And the election people are hiding votes in suitcases under their desks and shuttling them around in the middle of the night.

31:43.85

Michael Pope

And there's satellites from Italy that are changing the numbers and you know there is definitely a market out there for that kind of stuff and so the i would say you know of that being a campaign issue certainly something that people are going to talk about but the politics cut both ways

32:00.84

Sam Shirazi

Well, I mean, I really appreciate you laying out that history. And, you know, I will also mention your book again. It's called The Bird Machine in Virginia, The Rise and Fall of a Conservative Political Organization.

32:11.86

Sam Shirazi

I did read it. I found it really interesting. I think there's a lot of lessons can be applied today. and And there's a lot of things you hear in Virginia that you you may not think about. And I think your your book does a good job laying out some of the legacy of the bird machine. So Anyways, I thought it was really interesting talking to you. i always appreciate your kind of historical perspective. I appreciate your pulse on Virginia elections and politics. So thank you so much for coming on today.

32:38.64

Michael Pope

Hey, congratulations again on the federal fallout. I look forward to listening to episodes in the future.

32:46.87

Sam Shirazi

thanks so much. And yes, also go listen to the Virginia Press Room and i will join you 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

00:00.72

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over the primaries in the House of Delegates. So to start off, I should note that there are not actually a lot of primaries this year in Virginia.

00:16.98

Sam Shirazi

There are and only nine on the Democratic side and eight on the GOP side. So remember, there are 100 seats in the House of Delegates. So that means theoretically there could have been 200 primaries if you add the Republicans and Democrats.

00:29.48

Sam Shirazi

The reality is most incumbents will not face a primary. And even in ah ah other districts, it's often hard if it's a safe blue or safe red district to find more than one person willing to run.

00:42.28

Sam Shirazi

And you know I mentioned that there aren't many challenges to incumbents this year. There's just two on the Democratic side and one on the GOP side. And that's a little surprising given the talk that we hear, particularly on the Democratic side about potential primaries in the 2026 midterms.

00:57.52

Sam Shirazi

midterm But the reality is it's hard to challenge an incumbent. And also one thing to keep in mind is Democrats have a 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates.

01:08.31

Sam Shirazi

That means they're not going to bring bills unless they know it can pass and they know that everyone's on board. So I think that limits the opportunities for incumbents to vote against bills and maybe have a primary challenger attack their record. So that's just something to keep in mind, part of the reason why there aren't primaries that many primaries on the Democratic side.

01:28.13

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so first I'll go through the Democratic primaries and then I'll do the GOP primaries. I'll try to first go through the incumbents facing a primary. Then I'll talk about some of the targeted districts, the battleground districts.

01:39.80

Sam Shirazi

And then I'll finally end with the less competitive seats that still have primaries. And I should note that I won't be making any formal predictions about who's going to win. I may kind of tip the hand in terms of who I think is maybe more competitive or if one of the candidates has an advantage, but it's a little bit too early given that the primary is still still ah a few weeks off to give a formal prediction.

02:04.58

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so I will go ahead and get started on the Democratic side with the first district. And and I mean that literally, there the incumbent in the first district in the House of Delegates, Patrick Hope, faces a primary from not one, but two different challengers.

02:21.14

Sam Shirazi

And another fun fact for all the listeners, this is actually my district. So I live in North Arlington. I also am just familiar with what's going on, given that this is my district and I can kind of get a sense of how things are on the ground.

02:34.00

Sam Shirazi

And I should note, this is a very blue district, one of the bluest districts in Virginia. So whoever wins the primary almost certainly is going to win the general elections. So ah Patrick Hope, he's the incumbent. He's been in office since 2010.

02:47.86

Sam Shirazi

And obviously when you have an incumbent in office for a while, in theory, it could draw primary challengers after they've been in office. I should say that Delegate Hope is still relatively young, at least as politicians go. He's 53. So this isn't in a situation where someone is getting into their 80s and they're they're facing a primary challenge.

03:09.07

Sam Shirazi

And in terms of the candidates who are are challenging Delegate Hope, so first there is Arjun Sirkot. He is running, i would say, kind of as a traditional younger candidate running against an incumbent, maybe trying to bring a different energy and or try to run on a more progressive platform in some places.

03:31.78

Sam Shirazi

And then the second candidate is Sean Philip Epstein. And I'd say he's running from a little bit of a different angle. He's almost running from the center. And so you have this dynamic where Patrick Hope is kind of in the middle and then he's got someone running maybe from a younger or more progressive lane. And then he has someone challenging challenging him essentially from the middle, which is kind of rare because you don't see a lot of primary challengers from people coming from the center and challenging incumbent Democrat.

04:01.59

Sam Shirazi

So some interesting dynamics in this district. I would say, you know, the one of the advantages that Patrick Hope has is the reality is he has two challengers. And in Virginia, whoever gets the most votes wins the primary.

04:13.78

Sam Shirazi

So typically in that situation, if you are an incumbent, you prefer to have more challengers because that splits the vote. So I think the fact that he has two challengers will make it difficult for either one of them to get enough votes.

04:25.66

Sam Shirazi

Now, in theory, maybe if Arjun is able to bring in younger voters, for example, that live in the Ballston area of Arlington, he might have a chance. Or if Sean Philip Epstein might be able to get people who are maybe more independents who typically don't vote in a Democratic primary, if he's able to bring those people out, maybe he'll have a chance.

04:47.02

Sam Shirazi

But, you know, just the reality is it's very difficult to defeat an incumbent and it's even more difficult to defeat an incumbent if there are two challengers. So that's just something and keep in mind. I'm not saying that it's impossible for this primary to lead to a different delegate at the end of the day. But I do think the reality is it's very difficult to defeat an incumbent when there are two challengers.

05:10.06

Sam Shirazi

Okay, now let's move on to the second Democratic incumbent with a primary, and that's in House District 81 in Eastern Henrico. The incumbent is Dolores McQuinn, who has been in office since 2009. And this is another very blue district. It's majority African American.

05:28.44

Sam Shirazi

Whoever wins the primary almost certainly will be elected in the general election. I should note that ah Dolores McQuinn also faced a primary in 2023, which she easily fended off with 82% of the vote.

05:42.100

Sam Shirazi

So it kind of shows you that she has seen primaries before and she's been able to beat that back. But this year she is facing a primary challenge from Henrico School Board member Alicia Atkins.

05:56.02

Sam Shirazi

Given that she's already an elected official, I don't think you can dismiss this primary challenge out of hand. But at the same time, you have to keep in mind that Delegate McQuinn faced a credible challenger who spent a lot of money in 2023, and she won with over of the vote.

06:13.16

Sam Shirazi

So again, i just think you have to keep that in mind. It's hard to defeat an incumbent, and especially an incumbent that has not really shown a whole lot of vulnerability in a primary two years ago.

06:25.31

Sam Shirazi

So again, you want to keep an eye on it. You want to keep an open mind, given that her opponent is a school board member, has been elected in her own right. But Again, it's difficult to beat incumbents, and that's part of the reason you don't see a lot of challenge to incumbents this year, because people realistically know that it's going to be an uphill climb.

06:44.50

Sam Shirazi

So I think both incumbents on the Democratic side, while you know they have challengers who they have to take seriously, i just don't know if this is the the year where there there's going to be a lot of challenges.

06:58.18

Sam Shirazi

incumbents going down to defeat, at least in the primaries, we can talk about the general election in another podcast. Okay, now let's turn to primaries and districts that Democrats are targeting and that will be battleground districts.

07:11.54

Sam Shirazi

First up is House District 57. It's in the Richmond suburbs. The current incumbent is GOP Delegate David Owen. and As I mentioned, this is one of the most likely seats to flip in November. So definitely a lot riding on the primary because the winner of the primary very well could be the next delegate in this district.

07:31.10

Sam Shirazi

So the first candidate to announce was May Navarre. She's a former chair of the Virginia Asia Advisory Board, and she has gotten the most establishment support, including an endorsement from Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan.

07:45.27

Sam Shirazi

The second ah person to announce is small business owner Andrew Scheer. And i would say that given the the endorsements that Mae Navarra has gone gotten, I would say that she's a front runner.

07:59.80

Sam Shirazi

i don't want to say it's impossible for Scheer to win the primary. I think he would have to bring in maybe independent voters or younger voters or maybe progressive voters if he's trying to run a more progressive campaign to to win the primary. Because the reality is if it's just kind of the Democratic local people who show up, Mae Navarra is probably going to have the inside track given all the endorsements she has.

08:22.06

Sam Shirazi

But in theory, if he's able to bring out a different type of voter and expand the pool of voters, then he might have a chance in this primary. And again, keep in mind, anyone can vote in the Virginia primaries.

08:32.74

Sam Shirazi

There is no party registration. So while typically, obviously, it's going to be people who self-identify as Democrats who vote in these primaries, it doesn't have to be people who are Democrats. And it's possible that people who consider themselves independents vote in these primaries.

08:47.58

Sam Shirazi

And I think sometimes and with challengers in the primaries, part of the strategy might be to bring in independence because maybe the people who are local Democrats who go to all the events, they're typically going to vote for one candidate. But if you're going to be able to expand the pool of voters, might lead to a different outcome.

09:04.84

Sam Shirazi

So just something to keep in mind as we're going through these primaries. Okay. The next district is House District 73. This is in Chesterfield. The incumbent is GOP. Delegate Mark Early, and he is facing a potential challenge from two different Democrats, depending on who wins the primary.

09:23.08

Sam Shirazi

And this is, i would say, a little bit more of a reach district for Democrats, but Vice President Harris did carry it by one point. So definitely a seat that could flip if the Democrats have a good night in November.

09:35.17

Sam Shirazi

And there are two Democrats running in the primary. One of them is Leslie Mehta and the other person running is Justin Woodford. And I would say just for people's awareness, Leslie Mehta was the 2024 nominee in the first congressional district.

09:51.52

Sam Shirazi

So obviously she's got a lot of name ID. A lot of people in this district may have voted for Leslie Mehta in the past, just given that she was the nominee last year. in the congressional district that includes this House of Delegates seat.

10:05.22

Sam Shirazi

And so think the conventional wisdom is Leslie Mehta has an advantage in this primary, just given that she's ran before, she has more of a network from her previous run. So not saying she's definitely going win, but I think if you were going to try to figure out who has more of an advantage right now, I would give that to Leslie Mehta.

10:23.60

Sam Shirazi

All right, let's keep moving to House District 75. The current incumbent is Republican Delegate Kerry Conyer. And again, this is going to be a competitive seat in November.

10:37.12

Sam Shirazi

This ah ah district, Vice President Harris, carried by around six points. So definitely going to be a top target for Democrats. in the November general election. But first they have to decide who their nominee is going to be. And there are three people running on the Democratic side.

10:52.10

Sam Shirazi

There's Lindsey Daughtry. Stephen Miller-Pitts, and Dustin Wade. So Stephen Miller-Pitts was actually the 2023 nominee in this district for the Democrats.

11:03.24

Sam Shirazi

And Lindsey Daughtry, she was a previous nominee, not in this district, but in a similar district before redistricting. So she has also run in this area. So you would think both of them, just given that they ran before, might have some familiarity in the in the area.

11:17.32

Sam Shirazi

And I think sometimes in these districts, you just got to look at the demographic breakdown. So the district is about... third African-American, and you're guessing that that's going to lead to a decent amount of Democratic voters being African-American in the primary.

11:31.07

Sam Shirazi

And I should note that Stephen Miller Pitts is African-American, so I think he would have, obviously, some support from that community, and that's kind of what he's looking to those Get those voters out for the primary.

11:41.54

Sam Shirazi

Lindsey Daughtry, you would think maybe among women voters, she might have more of a natural support base. Dustin Wade, I think he may be trying to engage younger voters. And honestly, of the primaries, this is the one I'm having a hard time trying to figure out who has the advantage, just given the demographics of the district, given the two of the Candidates have already ran before. And so I don't really know who has an advantage right now. And I think it's just going to be one of those things.

12:08.100

Sam Shirazi

We'll find out who the Democratic nominee is in this battleground district once the primary votes are in. All right, I'm gonna talk and about another battleground district that has a Democratic primary. This is House District 89 in the Suffolk area.

12:23.90

Sam Shirazi

And this is a district that Vice President Harris carried by around three points. And there are two Democrats running. One of them, and I will say, I think, We can all agree he has a pretty cool name. It's Blazin Buckshot Bloom.

12:38.53

Sam Shirazi

And then there is Karen Roberts Carnegie, who is running in this district. And again, it just kind of depends on who's coming out in these primaries. I think one of the advantage Karen Carnegie might have is that Primaries, typically the majority of the people voting are women. And so usually you think women have an advantage in primaries. You know, Blazin Buckshot Bloom, if he's able to maybe organize young people and get them to come out to vote in the primary, that might give him a chance. But if I had to guess, I'm guessing Carnegie right now has a little bit of an advantage in this primary.

13:12.79

Sam Shirazi

Okay, let's keep chugging along. So I'm going to go to the next round of of House districts on the Democratic side. There are a couple in what I would call reach districts that were I talked about in my sleeper races podcast.

13:26.03

Sam Shirazi

So these are not necessarily the seats that are the top tier battlegrounds. But in theory, if there's a really good night on the Democratic side, these seats could be competitive. So I will start with House District 49. This is in the Danville area.

13:39.78

Sam Shirazi

And Trump won this district by about eight points. There are two Democrats running, Jasmine Lipscomb and then Gary Miller. i believe Gary Miller is on the Danville City Council. So you might think he might have an advantage being an elected official in the district.

13:57.50

Sam Shirazi

I should note, however, the district has a sizable African-American population. And Jasmine Lipscomb comes from that community and she's also a woman. So you would think maybe she has that advantage in the primary.

14:09.94

Sam Shirazi

So again, it's kind of hard for me to make a prediction about who's ahead right now, but another district where we'll just have to wait and see what happens when the votes come in. Okay, the next district with a Democratic primary is House District 40, and this is in the Roanoke-Salem area. The current incumbent is Joe McNamara, and the district is about a nine-point Trump district, so pretty tough for the Democrats, but in theory on a competitive night could get interesting if the Democrats have a blowout at the top of the ticket.

14:41.57

Sam Shirazi

The two Democratic candidates are Donna Littlepage and Keisha Preston. And, you you know, honestly, it's kind of hard for me to know who would have the advantage sometimes in these seats that aren't necessarily top tier battlegrounds. It's a little bit hard to distinguish the candidates. So we'll just have to wait and see how things shake out during the primary.

15:03.65

Sam Shirazi

And it's somewhat similar in the next district. And this is the final ah House of Delegates District with a Democratic primary. This is House District 72. This is kind of in the outer exurbs of Richmond in parts of Chesterfield and Powhat Town County.

15:23.13

Sam Shirazi

The current incumbent is Republican Lee Ware. This is a district that Trump won by more than 20 points. And there are two Democrats running. There is Randolph Kritzer and

15:35.77

Sam Shirazi

Bilal Reuchuny, And I should note that Ray Chuni was the 2023 nominee in this district, so he's running again. you you might think, okay, because he was previously the nominee, he might have a little bit of an advantage. But again, it's a little bit hard for me to make a prediction right now about some of these seats.

15:53.91

Sam Shirazi

And I should say on the Democratic side, as I noted in my podcast on the sleeper seats, uh democrats got candidates to run in all 100 seats and a lot of those seats the democrats just didn't have a primary because only one person filed and so if obviously there's only one person filed then there won't be a primary uh but in these other seats you will see these primaries and obviously Some of the seats that we discussed are some of the top tier battlegrounds this year in Virginia.

16:23.30

Sam Shirazi

So we will have to wait and see what happens in the Democratic primary for the House of Delegates. And as i I mentioned before, there were obviously statewide primaries for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General on the Democratic side. And so that's really going to be driving turnout. And then people show up and vote and then there might they might realize, oh, there's some House of Delegates seats as well.

16:44.65

Sam Shirazi

So just something keep in mind, not everyone voting is going to be super tuned in to the House of Delegates races, and they might make their mind up at the last minute.

16:54.02

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so let's move over to the Republican House of Delegates primaries. And keep in mind, there is no statewide office on the ballot for Republicans in the primary.

17:05.46

Sam Shirazi

That means the highest office on the ballot in the Republican primary are these House of Delegates races. And to be honest, you have to be a pretty hardcore Republican to realize there's a House of Delegates primary in your district and then to go out and vote.

17:18.83

Sam Shirazi

So it's a little bit of a different dynamic than the Democratic primary. And I do think the the Republican primaries are going to have generally less turnout and it's going to be generally more partisan people who vote in the Republican primaries in these House of Delegates races as compared to the Democratic House of Delegates races.

17:35.43

Sam Shirazi

And the first district we're going to be talking about is House District 37. This is based in western and rural parts of Virginia outside of Roanoke.

17:46.20

Sam Shirazi

The current incumbent is Republican Terry Austin. And he has been in office since 2014.

17:53.94

Sam Shirazi

And one thing to keep in mind with this district, it is a very red district. So whoever wins this primary is is almost 100% guaranteed to win the general election in November.

18:05.99

Sam Shirazi

And so he, the current delegate, Delegate Austin, is facing a primary from Austin Schwendt. I think that's how you pronounce it. um And I will say this. I mean, it's, you know, you never want to say never, but I think it's pretty unlikely that, you the incumbent would lose this primary, just given the amount of money that he has. And also just, he's been in office for a while. And so I don't necessarily think this is the type of seat where the incumbent will lose. However, having said that, particularly on the Republican side, I do think it's really unpredictable because again, as I mentioned, it's going to be pretty hardcore partisan people who going to come out.

18:47.64

Sam Shirazi

And if the challenger is able to kind of portray this as he's running as anti-establishment. I mean, nowadays that appeal on the Republican side is kind of strong. So I could see, in theory, a scenario where he could try to pull up the pull off the upset. And the reason I say that, and not to change topics too much, but I think we all, if you know Virginia elections in 2014,

19:13.28

Sam Shirazi

The House Majority Leader, leader Eric Cantor, lost his U.S. House primary in a stunning upset, which almost no one saw coming, to the eventual Congressman Dave Brat.

19:26.77

Sam Shirazi

And so i I just say that in Republican primaries, crazy things have happened in the past. It doesn't mean that every single Republican primary, the incumbent is going to lose. But I just say that you never know what's going to happen in Republican primaries.

19:40.50

Sam Shirazi

So just something to keep in mind, even though I do think the current delegate in this district is pretty safe. Okay, now let's move on to some battleground districts.

19:51.82

Sam Shirazi

So I will start off with the 21st House of Delegates district. This is in western Prince William County. The current incumbent is Democrat Josh Thomas.

20:02.54

Sam Shirazi

This was roughly a six-point Harris seat in November, and so it would take a pretty good night for the Republicans to be able to flip it. But in theory, if there's the Republicans do better than expected, this is the kind type of seat that could be competitive.

20:17.23

Sam Shirazi

And there are actually three Republicans running. And I will say that for a long time, no one was running in this district. And so I had been kind of pointing that out. It's a little bit odd, given that in theory, this should be a battleground district.

20:30.09

Sam Shirazi

that no one was running. And I don't know if that caused everyone to start to decide that they wanted to run, but eventually the Republicans got three candidates in this district. And so there will be this primary to pick the nominee to go up against Josh Thomas.

20:45.13

Sam Shirazi

And the three people running are Greg Gorham, Sarah Smith,

20:52.44

Sam Shirazi

and Zante Larson. And again, I should say this is the type of primary where it's really kind of hard for me to pick who has an advantage.

21:02.16

Sam Shirazi

You know, Republican primaries, are a little bit more unpredictable, I would say, than the Democratic primaries most of the time. And know none of these candidates seem to have gotten any sort of establishment backing.

21:13.18

Sam Shirazi

I think they were all running their own races without any sort of major outside interference. And so when there's a primary like that, it's just really hard to know who is has the advantage.

21:23.89

Sam Shirazi

So another district where we'll just have to see what happens on the primary day to figure out who the opponent for Josh Thomas will be in the 21st House of Delegates District.

21:34.92

Sam Shirazi

Okay, I'll talk about a couple other potential battleground districts. I will talk about House District 89. And remember that we talked about this district In the Democratic primary, there's also a Republican primary because this is an open seat. So the incumbent Republican decided to retire.

21:51.84

Sam Shirazi

So House District 89, remember, it's in the Suffolk area and roughly a Harris plus three district. So again, Democrats are targeting it. It's going to be a top battleground.

22:02.87

Sam Shirazi

There are two Republicans running, Kirsten Shannon and Mike Lamine.

22:10.91

Sam Shirazi

And I would say Lamine has an advantage in this primary because the incumbent who has decided to retire, his name's Baxter Ennis, he has endorsed him. So I think on the whole, that should give him an advantage. And so we'll see if he ends up being able to win the primary.

22:32.71

Sam Shirazi

but Okay, one more potential battleground district. This is House District 97 in the Virginia Beach area. The current incumbent is Democrat Michael Fegans. This is roughly an eight-point-plus Harris seat. So again, Republicans would need ah ah need a good night to win this seat.

22:50.40

Sam Shirazi

But someone who won an unexpected House of Delegates seat in ah ah Virginia Beach area in 2021 is Tim Anderson. So Tim Anderson was the delegate from a nearby delegate seat in Virginia Beach between 2022 and 2023.

23:08.02

Sam Shirazi

He decided to run for the Virginia State Senate in 2023, and he lost that primary. And now he's attempting to make a comeback by taking on the incumbent Democrat Michael Fegans. However, he first has to get through the primary and there's another Republican running. Her name is Christina Miriam Felder.

23:28.28

Sam Shirazi

I mean, realistically, I think given that he was a previous delegate and he has support among a lot of the establishment in the Republican Party in Virginia Beach, and in Virginia generally, I would say Tim Anderson's a pretty hate a heavy favorite to win this primary. I'd be kind of shocked if he didn't end up being the nominee in this district.

23:47.28

Sam Shirazi

So I think we're going to see an interesting matchup in the general election in this district between Michael Fegans and Tim Anderson. Okay, let's talk about some seats that will have incumbents retiring in very deep red seats. So that means whoever wins the primary ah will almost certainly be the winner of the general election. And I will start with House District 46. This is in Southwest Virginia.

24:13.04

Sam Shirazi

The current incumbent is Republican Jed Arnold, and he has decided to retire. And there are two people running on the Republican side. One of them is Adam Tolbert, and the other one is Mitchell Cornett.

24:26.98

Sam Shirazi

And I would say that Tolbert definitely has a leg up in this primary because Governor Glenn Youngkin has endorsed him, the Virginia GOP House Republican. Delegate leader Todd Gilbert has endorsed him. So definitely seeing the the big guns in the Virginia GOP backing Tolbert in this race. So, you know, you never know. But I think it's pretty likely that Tolbert has a ah pretty big advantage in this race right now. And so I can't imagine that and he wouldn't win. But as I said, crazier things have happened in the Republican primaries. But I would say that definitely Tolbert right now has the leg up.

25:02.81

Sam Shirazi

Okay, let's move over to House of Delegates District 62. This is in the culpert Culpeper area of Central Virginia. The current incumbent Republican is Nick Freitas, and he has decided to retire.

25:18.06

Sam Shirazi

And there are two Republicans running to replace him, Karen Hamilton and Clay Jackson. And I would definitely say that Karen Hamilton has an advantage because Nick Freitas has endorsed her.

25:32.75

Sam Shirazi

Another fun fact is that Karen Hamilton is actually the wife of Cameron Hamilton. And if that name sounds familiar, there's probably two reasons. one He, Cameron Hamilton, ran in the 7th District house U.S. House race in 2024. He came up second in the primary.

25:53.00

Sam Shirazi

And after that, he was appointed to become the acting head of FEMA. But that ended recently because he was dismissed after saying that he did not believe FEMA should be eliminated.

26:05.33

Sam Shirazi

Anyways, going way off track, but just to give you a sense of why ah ah this race for the... primary will not probably be super competitive and why Karen Hamilton has the advantage given that she has these connections and she has the endorsement of the current delegate.

26:22.53

Sam Shirazi

And this is a very red seat, so almost certainly the winner of the primary will win the general election. Okay, one more seat where the current incumbent is retiring, and this one is one we talked to about on the Democratic primary. This is House District 49 in the Danville area.

26:41.28

Sam Shirazi

And so remember, this is on one of the sleeper seats that may be competitive on a good night for Democrats. It was a Trump plus eight district, but you know more likely than not, the Republicans have an advantage in this seat.

26:53.20

Sam Shirazi

And there are two people running. And that the two mim people running are Madison Whittle, who is a member of the Danville City Council.

27:02.36

Sam Shirazi

There's also Vanessa Reynolds-Skierce. And I would say that Whittle definitely has an advantage in this race, just given that he's raised a lot more money. He's an elected official on the Danville City Council.

27:13.90

Sam Shirazi

So again, you know never say never, but if I had to guess, I would say that Whittle has the advantage in this race. And again, whoever goes on to the general election for both the Democrats and Republicans, in theory, this could be a competitive seat in November.

27:28.11

Sam Shirazi

Okay, one more question. House of Delegates primary on the Republican side, and this is the only one that would say that it's in a safe Democratic seat. So this is in the 70th House of Delegates district, which is based in Newport News.

27:44.43

Sam Shirazi

The current incumbent Democrat Democratic delegate is Shelley Simons and this is roughly a 20 plus Harris seat so obviously Democrats are almost certainly going to win it in the general election but there are two Republicans running in this seat two, three. There is Cynthia Saktariko and there is Haley Louise Shoup-Dollar. And i will, again, hard to predict usually when it's a safe seat and the other side has a primary. It's usually hard to predict who's going to win win a winner, pick a winner.

28:18.52

Sam Shirazi

I will say, I don't want to get too much into the weeds of this primary, but Shoop Dollar, there were some stories about her doing modeling and some you know pictures that she had, which I don't think were too scandalous, but that was an issue that was being raised. And again, i don't want to go into the whole ins and outs of that story because I don't think it's that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but just something to keep in mind that could come up in this primary.

28:42.85

Sam Shirazi

Either way, you know i I don't know who's going to win the primary and you know realistically, regardless of the Republican candidate, it's pretty unlikely that they are going to win this seat in the general election.

28:55.02

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so stepping back. I think definitely I would say this year in the House of Delegates, the primaries have gotten a lot less attention that they have in previous years and they that compared to the Democratic primaries for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.

29:09.78

Sam Shirazi

In 2023, there weren't a whole lot of House of Delegates primaries. There were definitely more than this year, but there were a lot of state senate primaries, and there were a lot of state senate primaries on the Democratic side where Democratic incumbents lost in the primary. and you know In theory, we could have had some sort of dynamic like this that this year on the Democratic side, particularly with all the talk about primary incumbents in 2026.

29:33.95

Sam Shirazi

I think for whatever reason, that did not materialize this year in Virginia. So that's just something to keep in mind. And, know, I mentioned some of these battleground districts, the and nominees for the parties will be picked in these primaries. So I think they're important in that sense that some of these races will have to wait and see who the.

29:54.03

Sam Shirazi

incumbent will face in some of these battleground districts where the Democrats are targeting. I will say a lot of the districts already have their nominees in terms of the Democratic challengers.

30:05.66

Sam Shirazi

That's either because no one else filed or because there's a decent amount of repeat candidates from 2023 this time. So all that's to say is, you know, I think this is super interesting. I enjoy looking into these primaries and trying to figure out who has an advantage.

30:21.05

Sam Shirazi

And I've tried to share my wisdom with you. But realistically, I would say for the June 17th primary, the big show will be the lieutenant governor in primaries for the Democrats and the attorney general primary for the Democrats. And that's driving a lot of the turnout.

30:34.84

Sam Shirazi

While all these House Delegates seats are interesting, I just don't know who's actually showing up just for House of Delegates primary. I'm sure there are people who really love their candidates. But again, the majority of people on June 17th will be focusing on the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor and General.

30:51.32

Sam Shirazi

And I will do a subsequent podcast just talking a little bit more about those two primaries because I think they're really interesting. But I do think it's important to talk about the House of Delegates primaries because they don't get a lot of attention. And I just think, you know, these are all important races in their own way. I think obviously who the nominees are going to be important and particularly in the battleground districts and or the ah ah safe districts where whoever wins the primary is almost certainly going to be the next delegate.

31:16.48

Sam Shirazi

I mean, some of these districts we talked about that are very blue or very red. i mean, the primary is essentially the main election because whoever wins the primary is going to be the next delegate. I mean, obviously there still has to be the general election, but it's almost a formality because the primary is the main election. so I hope everyone found this interesting. I know I got into some of the weeds and I jumped around. There were a lot of districts to cover, but honestly, this is a lot less than some years, so it wasn't too challenging. And I hope everyone found it interesting.

31:45.10

Sam Shirazi

I do think as we get closer to the primary day, I will focus more on the attorney general and lieutenant governor's races, but I did want to talk about all the House of Delegates primaries in this podcast, and I hope everyone found it interesting.

31:57.57

Sam Shirazi

And I will join you next time on Federal Fallout.

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

00:00.47

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode I will be interviewing Kevin Holst. He is the Executive Director of the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association. So Kevin, thank you for joining me.

00:16.24

Kevin Holst

Thanks for having me on.

00:18.16

Sam Shirazi

So just to begin, could you please talk about your background and what your organization does?

00:24.68

Kevin Holst

Yeah. So the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association is the official Democratic Party organization which supports and uplifts our Democratic Lieutenant Governors.

00:35.36

Kevin Holst

For your listeners who may not have heard of us before compared to DGA, the DSEC, DTRIP, I won't be offended. We were just reestablished in 2018 and have have had a great amount of growth. We have a record 24 Democratic lieutenant governors right now. And something that people often aren't aware of um is that Democratic lieutenant governors are the most diverse group of elected officials in the country. 85% are women or people of color.

01:06.49

Kevin Holst

And we've seen that our lieutenant governors go on to become Governors, senators, I think Virginia is the obviously best example of this where you have Don Beyer now serving in the House, Doug Wilder, who's the lieutenant governor, then the first elected black governor in the country.

01:23.34

Kevin Holst

Tim Kaine served as lieutenant governor, the governor and senator. So we really like to think of Democratic lieutenant governors as the Democratic Party's bench.

01:31.32

Sam Shirazi

You mentioned some of the other organizations within the Democratic Party. you know How do you coordinate with, let's say, the national Dems at the Democratic National Committee and then the state Democratic parties and then the local Democratic parties?

01:44.08

Kevin Holst

Yeah, by virtue of the position, we have a close working relationship with the Democratic Governors Association. The position of lieutenant governor is elected differently depending on the state. There are a lot like Virginia where it's completely separate elected position and we are responsible for supporting the nominee on our own. But then in the Midwest, there tends to be the selection process where the governor handpicks the lieutenant governor. So we will often work in support of the gubernatorial ticket with the Democratic Governors Association.

02:18.26

Kevin Holst

thing that we've been really excited about with Ken Martin's new chairship is that he intends to help bridge you know lines of communication between the federal and state committees, which hasn't always been the case. you know Federal and state often speaks languages that aren't mutually intelligible. And so it's looking great as we look ahead to 2025, 2026 and beyond to make sure that we are all fully aligned to help Democrats up and down the ballot.

02:49.05

Sam Shirazi

And you you mentioned a little earlier that, you know, the lieutenant governors play an important role and and that often the people who are lieutenant governors make it to a higher office. And one thing that I think in Virginia I've noticed is people, for the most part, if they know there's an election this year, they know there's a governor's race, but they often don't know about anything down ballot.

03:11.42

Sam Shirazi

The lieutenant governor's doesn't get as much attention, obviously, as the governor's race, at least for the general election. How do you get people to care about the down ballot races and in your case, specifically the lieutenant governor's race?

03:23.46

Kevin Holst

I think there's a lot of education with voters, activists, donors on the importance of down ballot. This is something that Republicans have done really well. They focused in the 90s and the 2000s, early 2010s on down ballot because they recognize that down ballot races help build power.

03:44.08

Kevin Holst

And it was really to our detriment in 2010, 2014, where Democrats were wiped out in many states because we had not focused on down ballot enough and really building the party's bench. And so I think since...

04:00.06

Kevin Holst

2016 in the trump era many people have started to wake up to how important down ballot and specifically state races down ballot and the importance of that you know federal elections are always something that are seen as pretty sexy by national observers and there's always going to be people who are wondering about the jockeying for control of the House or Senate. But if we look to things that tangibly change people's lives very quickly, the most personally felt and quick acting change is felt at the state and local level for a transformative piece of legislation to pass Congress.

04:37.11

Kevin Holst

If it can even pass these days, you often see very long implementation times. People don't feel the effects of things that happen on the fur level very quickly.

04:47.59

Kevin Holst

And state government that can change within a matter of weeks. If some states are required to balance their budgets every year, and if you are in a short session like Virginia, where you have 30 to 45 days, depending on the year, to enact new laws, those are felt pretty immediately because that's in statute.

05:06.55

Kevin Holst

The Lt governor in Virginia is a particularly important um elected official in 2025 because, as we know the Virginia Senate is not up for reelection this year. that we It won't be until 2027 for us to expand our majority in the state Senate. And while having one-seat majority, the lieutenant governor is both the presiding officer and tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

05:30.30

Kevin Holst

And we saw how transformative that was with Medicaid expansion in Virginia that was done by the Lt governor's tie-breaking vote. And as we've seen recently with health challenges with different members, you know we are all human. We don't know when there's going to be a sickness, an absence or something unexpected happening.

05:48.84

Kevin Holst

So in order to ensure that future Governor Spanberger is going to be able to help pass her priorities, it's going to be on the Lt governor to make sure that these are sharpened through the legislature and that if there's any contentious votes which end up in a tie because as we know republicans have no incentive to work with the democrat governor in 2025 or 2026 it will be on the 10 governor to be that really key tie-breaking vote and as we think through you know passing the codification of abortion protections as we think through any piece of progressive legislation. It's going to be on the Lt governor to ensure that that gets across the finish line. And that's something that really resonates with people.

06:34.09

Sam Shirazi

And in terms of Virginia this year, you you laid out some of the issues that might come up in the lieutenant governor's race. What is your organization doing in the race itself? I know we have to wait for the nominees on the Democratic side, but what is your plan for this year in Virginia?

06:51.11

Kevin Holst

We are going to make a record-breaking investment in Virginia. The DLGA was actually... Part of the impetus for its beginning was due to the 2017 Lt governor's race in Virginia. We saw the Republican state leadership committee spend a million dollars to try to win the Lt governor's seat. And so in 2018, group of Lt governors seeing that got together and said, we need to ensure that Democrats have that same level of support.

07:20.94

Kevin Holst

We invested so about a million dollars in 2021, but we intend to spend up to $2 million dollars in 2025 to flip the Lt governor's office from red to blue because we know how important it will be to actually pass legislation to affect change in Virginians' lives. and This is an important office that, as we've seen, people go on to higher office. Winsome Sears has been Lt governor for the past four years, and she's now the Republican gubernatorial nominee. And so if we want to ensure that in 2029 Democrats are in the strongest position possible, we need to ensure that Democrats sweep all three statewide offices. And Lt governor is a key office in that.

08:05.08

Sam Shirazi

And right now there's a Democratic primary for lieutenant governor and there are six candidates running on the Democratic side. And I wonder what is your organization's role in the primary?

08:15.74

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, there's there's sometimes talk about, you know, the National Party coming in, picking a favorite. I don't think that's happening this year in Virginia. I think most people both at the state and federal level are letting the lieutenant governor primary play out. What what are you looking for or or are you just kind of waiting to see how the primary shakes out?

08:34.85

Kevin Holst

We are watching the primary closely and we have spoken with and are in regular communication with all the candidates, but it's up to the voters of Virginia to decide who their nominee will be. We know that any of the nominees will be infinitely better than John Reed as lieutenant governor and whomever Virginian voters decide, we are going to be their strongest partner, ally and advocate from day one.

09:01.29

Kevin Holst

So we are in close communication with all the campaigns, but we do not put our finger on the scales at all. We have a strict neutrality policy in this primary.

09:11.47

Sam Shirazi

I'll get to John Reed in a little bit, but I did want to ask about the current lieutenant governor in Virginia, who is Winsome Sears. And I think a lot of people, you know, didn't necessarily pay attention to that race in 2021. And she was swept in when Glenn Youngkin was able to win at the top of the ticket. um How do you think her role specifically as lieutenant governor, the current lieutenant governor in Virginia will play in the governor's race this year?

09:34.03

Kevin Holst

Well, she has certainly taken some ah ah positions which are just completely out of step with Virginians. I mean, we saw in this past week where she's constitutionally required to sign laws that passed the Virginia state legislature. She said that she was morally opposed to marriage equality. She voted against protecting contraception that was tied vote in the state Senate. um She's against abortion protections. She is against worker protections. And so the track record that she's assembled by both being publicly against certain policies and then when she's empowered to vote on the policies, voting the wrong way is going to hurt her in this gubernatorial election. We feel great about

10:19.90

Kevin Holst

Abigail Spanberger and her ability to articulate to Virginians that Winsome Sears is just out of step and too extreme for the state. And I think Winsome Sears' record, once voters learn more about it, is going to be very troubling to them.

10:33.33

Sam Shirazi

And this is kind of a random question before I get to the Republican nominee. But do you know, is there you mentioned that in the past, Republicans have spent for the lieutenant governor's race. Is there a Republican equivalent to your organization or is it just the RNC might be spending money in the race?

10:49.74

Kevin Holst

There is a consolidated down-ballot organization called the RSLC, which has the AG state legislative and lieutenant governors under their umbrella. So they spent heavily in 2017.

11:03.93

Kevin Holst

They spent for Winsome Sears in 2021. We will see what they in 2025.

11:10.61

Sam Shirazi

And well, speaking about 2025 in Virginia, the lieutenant governor's race. So the Republicans already have their nominee. I wanted to just ask a few questions about that. And obviously there's been a lot of things going on on the Republican side.

11:21.97

Sam Shirazi

I guess first, you know, most people, and I don't want to assume for you, but I think most Democrats were thinking, you know, Pat Harity would be the Republican nominee. Obviously he had to drop out due to health reasons. What's it like being on the other side where,

11:37.59

Sam Shirazi

you know you're You're thinking, all right, we're going to be facing this guy in all likelihood, and all of a sudden it shifts to someone else.

11:43.81

Kevin Holst

Yeah, I wasn't convinced that Pat Haredy would necessarily win the nomination. I knew obviously he's a strong contender. He had outraised John Reed. But, you know, Republicans, primary voters in different states have chosen nontraditional candidates. We've seen the rise of media personalities win Republican primaries, especially in very low turnout primaries. Obviously, we don't have a primary for governor on either side. So if you are turning out in a down ballot primary, you're probably a highly informed and a highly motivated voter. And if you had been listening to John Reed on conservative talk radio for years and years, you've

12:23.06

Kevin Holst

as a Republican voter, might be more inclined to vote for him. So we were watching the primary closely. i will never know how it would have turned out. I wasn't convinced that Hardy would have been the nominee. um Obviously, when he dropped out, we were surprised. had heard some rumblings about his health issues. And obviously he made the right decision for himself and his family to focus on that.

12:46.63

Kevin Holst

But it gives us more time to be able to focus on whom we're going to face in November and everything that we have learned about John Reed. We know it's completely out of step with Virginians. He's compared abortion to slavery. He has said that it's time to throw out public education and replace it with a voucher system. So it's It's one where while we do not have a nominee yet, and we are able to focus our attention on educating voters as to why John Reed would be too extreme for Virginia.

13:21.35

Sam Shirazi

And I did want to ask about the the incident that happened or or the the drama. and And I wanted to get to his record and some of the more substantive issues in a second, but kind of similar, what was it like being on the other side? So obviously, just to give the listeners a quick context, after John Reed became the Republican nominee, Governor Glenn Youngkin gave him a phone call saying, could you please drop out because of some you know alleged online pictures he had posted or, you know, on an account that may have been associated with him.

13:54.05

Sam Shirazi

John Reed denied that was him. it was his account. He stayed in the race. It sounds like that incident has kind of ended and and the Republicans have accepted that John Reed will be the lieutenant governor nominee.

14:06.03

Sam Shirazi

What was it like being on the other side where, you know, you're probably hearing the news about Governor Youngkin calling at the same time the rest of us heard about it?

14:13.84

Kevin Holst

It was we had John Reed had been posting about Republicans claiming they had incriminating things on him for about a week and a half prior to Glenn Youngkin's phone call. So we had been poking around and we hadn't found anything.

14:32.06

Kevin Holst

Super problematic. When the Tumblr page was brought to our attention, it had been pulled down, but we were able to go on the Internet archive to see some past pages over the years. And it seems to be just a blatant homophobic attack on him by Governor Yunkin. And he sort of got over his sails here. i think what's interesting is how quickly the MAGA and Republican grassroots rallied around John Reed and Glenn Yunkin basically had to admit defeat and his quest to get John Reed to drop out. And

15:11.56

Kevin Holst

So I think that was more telling than anything. It's always nice as a Democrat to see Glenn Youngkin's 2028 dreams fade even further than the hundreds of miles away that they were from reality. um But it From an operating standpoint, you know, we we have been focused that despite all this, we were going to continue to try to educate people on John Reed's positions, because as it seemed that he would stay in the race. is something where Republicans were united against him and it's our job to.

15:46.58

Kevin Holst

remind Virginia voters that he was cheering the federal layoffs which is affecting northern Virginia and 40 of Virginia's economy that he said abortions like slavery that he wanted to shut down public schools is against any limit on guns and so for us you know it was was a interesting couple of days but we were always very laser focused on how we're going to educate voters on the issues

16:11.30

Sam Shirazi

Well, it it sounds like you have some good message discipline on your side. i mean, the reason I say that is I think oftentimes when something like this happens and you see John Reed doing this because I think he's he's he knows how to worked the media because he's been on radio.

16:26.60

Sam Shirazi

I think he's kind of making this about how he was being targeted and he kind of overcome the establishment Republicans. And and he kind of wants to run on that. and And, you know, maybe he'll he'll change his tune. But how do you get people to focus on the stakes and the substance? Because I think some of the comments that I've heard from a lot of Democrats after 2024 is the media and social media and everything.

16:51.74

Sam Shirazi

They want to focus on you know all this campaign stuff, the drama, that this, that, and and there isn't a lot of focus on the stakes. And it sounds like you're trying to do that. How do you try to break through and and talk about what these elections actually matter for

17:06.53

Kevin Holst

Well, I think it's important for those of us who work in politics and elections to remove ourselves from our own bubbles. I know that for some of us who live and breathe elections and politics, that we are just so vastly different than the average voter who's more concerned with politics.

17:26.11

Kevin Holst

Am I going to get my kids to school on time? What is traffic like? What are the price of groceries? Are we going to be able to take a vacation this year? So while it was a pretty dramatic couple of days and week, it took really a week for it to break through and regional and national media. It tended to be more political blogs, which were focusing on this. And I would be shocked if we were to poll the state right now, if 15% of the state knew that there was all this drama between the governor and the lieutenant governor nominee.

17:59.45

Kevin Holst

So I think the first that people are going to hear about John Reed, unless you are living and breathing politics, is really going to be through paid political communication or when a canvasser knocks on your door, whether that be pro-Reed or a Democratic person communicating to you.

18:19.15

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good point that, you know, we're very aware of these issues. But often when I talk to voters about the Virginia elections, they don't quite know that there is even an election going on or what's on the

18:33.20

Kevin Holst

if you look at early vote right now, it is very low. People in places like Richmond and Hampton Roads, where you have some delegate seats that have contested primaries or where you have down ballot candidates that come from those areas is a bit higher. But we look to Northern Virginia and turnout right now is extremely low because people don't know there's an election right now because candidates haven't been communicating yet.

18:58.14

Sam Shirazi

terms of the thinking about the election, trying to get people engaged, you know what are some of the issues that you want to be talking to voters about and or that you you think voters care about this year in Virginia?

19:11.56

Kevin Holst

Well, the havoc that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are... are causing to Virginia's economy is going to be paramount. I mean, one third of Northern Virginia is a federal government employee or contractor. 40% of the state's GDP comes from the federal government. And when you are a Republican in 2025, running on the same, you know, running as part of Donald Trump's party, when he is trying to, you just inflict chaotic mass layoffs without any strategic goals rather than to inflict pain on people who are a part of the federal government. That is very hard run on. And we have nominees like Winsome Sears who says, oh you lost your job? but Boo Find a new one. You have people like John Reed saying, does it hurt? Yeah, but we got to do it. Trump is the way.

20:09.08

Kevin Holst

And so Democrats even... Outside of the election, you know we have delegates, our congresspeople, who have been holding job fairs and trying to create resources for federal government employees who have been affected by these mass layoffs. and so Democrats are focused on ensuring that Virginians have good paying jobs and are trying to help Virginians navigate the chaos of Donald Trump and Elon Musk's economy. and

20:39.79

Kevin Holst

Winsome Sears and John Reed are going to side with Trump over Virginians, like in every single situation. John Reed being a radio host and a prolific poster on Facebook says he never says these things. Just read his own words, listen to his own words where he's cheering on these layoffs.

20:57.37

Kevin Holst

Winsome Sears cheering on the layoffs saying you should stop complaining if Donald Trump fired you from a job that you've held for 25 years and had provided a great middle class income for you.

21:08.56

Kevin Holst

And so we're going to focus on the economy. We're going to focus on the cost of living. And we're also going to focus on protecting the rights of Virginians in the face of when some serious Donald Trump, John Reed and Elon Musk trying to strip away reproductive freedom, trying to strip away worker protections, trying to make it so that the ultra rich are able to do whatever they want at the expense of the economic livelihoods of the average Virginians. And it's a message that is going to resonate because people are feeling it. You know, when Donald Trump says that you should tell your kids that they're not going to get great Christmas presents and you don't really need a vacation and you have Republicans running on that same message, it's a terrible message for them to run on.

21:54.31

Sam Shirazi

Well, I appreciate you taking the time to kind of explain what what your organization is going to be doing this year in Virginia. I did want to ask, um um if you have a chance to just give a little bit about your background, you know, what made you interested in politics and why you took on this role.

22:09.71

Kevin Holst

i I've been interested in politics and government since I can remember. I've always been a big believer in the ability of government to do good in people's lives. I was raised by a single mom who was able to help provide for us due to her union job. also struggled with and ultimately passed away from addiction. And so knowing that I was always teetering on the brink of just you know collapse and seeing the ability for our country to help provide for people who just need a bit of a boost seeing that government is the most efficient and best way to help make that a reality. i

22:59.45

Kevin Holst

wanted to be a part of the solution to help make people's lives better. I had prior to taking this job at the DLGA, I'd been in the service to politics world where in 2018, I had worked with Congressman Seth Moulton and my old boss, Emily Cherniak.

23:15.21

Kevin Holst

Who was the founder of New Politics, to help create an initiative that we called Serve America, where we helped recruit, advise, and fundraise for some of the rock stars of 2018. Abigail Spanberger, Elaine Loria were some of our 2018 candidates, where we're able to raise about $10 million dollars collectively for 20 veteran candidates running for Congress, and we helped set the narrative of national security Democrats stepping up to fight Trump, which was a big theme in 2018.

23:42.77

Kevin Holst

And these were people that had a demonstrated history of country before party, service before self, and that really resonated with not just voters, but also the caucus. When we think about Trump's first impeachment, it was because of the op-ed that our candidates wrote saying we have dedicated our lives to the security of this country. And this is why we have to now initiate the impeachment of the president.

24:10.69

Kevin Holst

2018 was a very unique cycle. And I knew that you weren't always going to have people like Abigail Spanberger, who were rock stars that could step up and run for Congress without a long political network. And so we focused a lot on down ballot after that. We did state Senate, state rep, city councils, some other ah lower down-ballot statewide elections, and we're pretty successful. We worked throughout the country to help elect a new generation of leadership. And when I saw this opportunity with the DLGA pop up, I saw this as really a natural extension of the work that I had been doing to help build the Democratic Party's bench. Because like I said, you have 85% women or people of color in statewide positions. a lot of them were just entering their second term and needed some

25:00.68

Kevin Holst

Need some help develop their political networks to help them on the comms front, sharpen ah ah some policies for them. So I was excited to take the challenge and we've had a tremendous amount of growth and we're seeing now the success in 2024.

25:17.52

Kevin Holst

We're able to invest $2 million dollars to help flip the North Carolina lieutenant governor's election from red to blue is the first time Democrats had won that seat since 2008. And on the bench argument, if your listeners remember, the past two Republican nominees for governor in North Carolina had been the Republican lieutenant governor. So we are now...

25:37.69

Kevin Holst

Going to have a great time for Josh Stein's reelection in 2028 because Republicans will not have a statewide official with the gravitas that the previous lieutenant governors have had to be able to run against him.

25:49.15

Kevin Holst

Of course, he's still going to run very hard, but it's nice to know that you are going to have someone with lower name ID um against you. And like I said, we're looking at 2025 to make a substantial impact in Virginia to help flip this lieutenant governor seat from red to blue. And then as we look to 26, we have some of our rock star lieutenant governors who are running for governor, running for Senate, and we're going to have their back and you know help in our mission to build the Democratic Party's bench and support them along the way.

26:19.28

Sam Shirazi

Well, thank you for taking the time to come come on and talk to us. I think it's really interesting hearing what it's like to to be in that role and and ah ah try to influence the elections this year in Virginia. If there are Republicans who are in a similar role or want to come on the podcast, feel free to reach out. But I did appreciate getting a Democratic perspective on that. So last question, how can people find out more about your organization?

26:43.73

Kevin Holst

They can go to our website, demlgs.org. We are also on bluesky at demlgs.org. We are on Twitter at Democratic LGs. We are on Instagram at demlgs. And we are prolific in our...

27:03.40

Kevin Holst

promotion of our Lt governors. So check it out. We have some of the most exciting Democrats in the party today. And for all of your listeners who might be thinking, you know, when will the Democratic Party move on from octogenarians in our leadership, you'll be seeing a lot more of our LGs over the next two, four, six, eight years.

27:21.78

Sam Shirazi

Well, that is all very interesting and i appreciate you coming on again. So thanks again. And this is Federal Fallout. I'll see you next time.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com

00:00.51

Sam Shirazi

I'm Sam Shirazi and this is federal fallout the 2025 Virginia elections this episode, we will go over some of the sleeper races in the House of delegates more so on the democratic side. In terms of seats that they are trying to flip and the reason I'm doing this episode is because they have found candidates in all 100 races in the Virginia House of Delegates.

00:20.43

Sam Shirazi

So that means they're contesting every seat. Obviously, they're not going to win every seat, but I do think it shows that there are people willing to run this year in Virginia, even in seats that are very red.

00:35.28

Sam Shirazi

And you know conventional wisdom is that shows enthusiasm that the Democrats are able to find candidates. Now, does it guarantee that they're going to win? No, but I do think it's one thing to look at among many other factors.

00:48.21

Sam Shirazi

And another reason I wanted to do this is earlier I had done a podcast on the top battlegrounds in the Virginia House of Delegates, and I missed a few races I wanted to cover, and I just couldn't because I was covering so many other races.

01:03.86

Sam Shirazi

And one of them, the seat on the list of sleeper races that are most likely to flip, and again, i don't even think this is a sleeper race because the Democrats have said that they are targeting this seat, and I just failed to mention it on the last podcast, is is the 69th House District.

01:19.75

Sam Shirazi

But I think it's really interesting to talk about it on this podcast because in 2023, Democrats didn't even contest this seat. So it shows you that what happens when you don't contest seats is you you potentially miss out on flipping seats. Now, realistically, in 2023, I don't think the Democrats were going to win this seat.

01:37.00

Sam Shirazi

But in 2025, in a different political environment with a candidate, I do think there's a chance this seat flips. So this seat is in the Yorktown area ah ah in Hampton Roads, and it's right next to another district that's competitive that we talked about in the past, which is the 71st district.

01:56.42

Sam Shirazi

And the 69th district voted for Trump by less than one point. And the current incumbent is Chad Green. And as I said, in 2023, won... unopposed.

02:07.38

Sam Shirazi

The Democrats are running a candidate this time, and that is a local pediatrician. His name is Mark Downey. And I should have mentioned this district before because it's a less than one point Trump district. Democrats are targeting it. So I do think this is more of a true battleground district this year as opposed to a sleeper race. But I will talk about it this time just to show you kind of the importance of contesting races and not contesting them.

02:32.78

Sam Shirazi

So the district, I think it's competitive this year for a couple of reasons. One, just the fact that, you know, this year in Virginia is probably going to lean towards the Democrats. At least that's what it's looking like right now. Obviously, nothing's guaranteed, but but that's what it's looking like.

02:47.52

Sam Shirazi

And also the district has big military bases on it. And so if you're seeing some impacts of the federal government changes, this is the type of district lot of military people in the district could be feeling that hit from Washington, DC.

03:01.04

Sam Shirazi

But I should note one thing. And I visited this district recently because I wanted to go to Yorktown Beach and see it for myself. No, I'm kind of kidding. But I did go to Yorktown Beach, which is a beautiful beach. If you're ever in Yorktown or in that area, go see the beach. I think they've done a really good job with that beach.

03:23.84

Sam Shirazi

But if you look across the river, There's the York River. There's a bridge that goes over from Yorktown to Gloucester. And Gloucester is a much redder part of Virginia than across the river in York, and the York County. And York County is roughly kind of a leans a little bit towards the Republicans, but roughly a 50-50 county, as is much of that area. And that's why it's a competitive seat, obviously.

03:48.78

Sam Shirazi

But about 10% of the district are is is across the river in Gloucester, and Gloucester is much redder than the rest of the district. So long story short, I often spend a lot of time thinking about these little nuances in the districts. It's similar to the House District 57 in the Henrico area where Henrico super blue, but it has this red part of Goochland. This is similar where you know most of the district is about 50-50, and then there's this little red part of the district. So It really comes down to, you know, can the Democrats overcome the redness in Gloucester either because of the federal fallout or because it's just such a landslide at the top of the ticket.

04:24.27

Sam Shirazi

Now that's assuming a lot of things. And I should say for this district and the other districts I'm going to be talking about, you know, if it's a close race, I mean, they're not going to flip because these are the types of districts that it really requires a blue wave for there to be a flip in November. And so it's possible that none of these seats flip.

04:41.44

Sam Shirazi

It's possible maybe one flip. It's also possible on a good night that many of them start flipping, especially if we're starting to see a double digit Democratic win at the top of the ticket, which again, I think is you know not out of the realm of possibility. I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just saying theoretically it could happen in November, given historical patterns of how these elections turn turn out and that there's a big swing against the party in the White House.

05:08.07

Sam Shirazi

so I spent a little bit more time on the 69th district because I think it's obviously the one that's most likely the flip of the ones I'm going to be talking about today. I will talk about some other districts. I'll go through them a little bit more quickly because I think, you know, these are pretty reached districts for Democrats. But I wanted to mention them because obviously they are contesting all 100 seats.

05:28.00

Sam Shirazi

And what are the sleeper races that could be flipping this year in Virginia? And I'm going to basically focus on the districts that Trump won by less than 10 percent, because realistically, I think the maximum that Democrats are going to get are the single digit Trump seats.

05:43.57

Sam Shirazi

OK, so I will talk about a pair of districts in the Virginia Beach beach area. The first one is House District 99. The current incumbent is Republican Anne Farrell Tata.

05:56.43

Sam Shirazi

And the Democratic nominee is Kat Porterfield. And this is a district that Trump won by about five points in November. However, in 2023, Tata defeated Porterfield by about 15 points. So we're going to see a rematch. And you saw, obviously, in 2023 that this was not a close race at all, even though in 2024 it was single-digit Trump seat.

06:22.20

Sam Shirazi

And I want to talk about this district and its neighboring district, House District 100 in tandem. So let me just talk about House District 100 right now that the current incumbent Republican is Rob Bloxham.

06:34.42

Sam Shirazi

And the Democrats are still trying to finalize their nominee. There is someone who has filed on the Democratic side. Rocco Debilis, I'm not sure if he'll end up being the nominee because i I've heard maybe someone else will try to also be the nominee. But long story short, I think the Democrats are going to be able to find a nominee in that district.

06:52.41

Sam Shirazi

I would say that the district is, again, one of these ones that would be potentially competitive. it was less than five points Trump win in 2024 in this district.

07:03.43

Sam Shirazi

But in 2023, the incumbent Bloxham won by almost 20 points. And so you're seeing these districts where there's a huge difference between the 2023 number and the 2024 number. Why? Because I think there was a lot of voters in these districts that feel comfortable voting for the Republican Party at the state level, but for whatever reason, they're not comfortable voting for Donald Trump in 2024.

07:27.44

Sam Shirazi

And the reason for that, They have a decent amount of college-educated voters who are traditionally Republicans. We've seen across the country college-educated voters becoming more Democratic.

07:37.93

Sam Shirazi

So you're seeing in these districts, they're starting to trend towards the Democrats because these college-educated voters are moving towards the Democrats and away from the Republicans. And I think, again, if there's a huge backlash either in the suburbs or there's a backlash to all the federal cuts and that's hitting Hampton Roads particularly hard, these are the types of districts on a good night. If there's a huge wave, Democrats might be able to flip because, again, it's single-digit Trump seat.

08:04.19

Sam Shirazi

I think the one challenge Democrats are going to have if they're trying to flip these seats is that there's a this is the type of area where you can see ticket splitting, where maybe someone votes for Spanberger at the top of the ticket, but they like their local delegate. And so the Republican delegates will overperform the top of the ticket.

08:20.57

Sam Shirazi

And so while Democrats might have a shot here, particularly if there's a big swing in Hampton Roads, I wouldn't necessarily count on these seats flipping. Now we will go over towards Southside, Virginia, in a seat that will have an open race because the incumbent has retired. So incumbent Republican Danny Marshall, he has decided to retire.

08:43.80

Sam Shirazi

And this district voted for Trump by about eight points. And again, this was a district that the Democrats didn't oppose in 2023. So we don't really have a sense of how we would have voted in 2023. I think it's pretty likely that yeah even if a Democrat ran in 2023, the incumbent Republican still would have won this district

09:01.17

Sam Shirazi

But this time there will be a Democratic nominee because there are two people filing for this seat on the Democratic side. So there will be a primary and there are two Republicans as well running. So I will talk more about the primary in my episode about the primary, which I promise one day i will get to.

09:18.82

Sam Shirazi

But this is an interesting district. So it is based in Danville. which itself, Danville City, is is somewhat Democratic, but the surrounding rural areas are pretty Republican.

09:31.25

Sam Shirazi

The district is about 40% African American. And so that's a pretty high number for the Democrats to start with. you know They're going to get a pretty high number And so going to talk about the majority district.

09:44.53

Sam Shirazi

the problem for them is that it's a majority white district this part of virginia has a lot of racialized votinging. It's similar to other parts of the South where most African-American voters are Democrats, most white voters are Republicans.

09:58.70

Sam Shirazi

And so you're going need some crossover from the white community for the Democrats to able to flip the seat. Again, perhaps if the environment's right and the Democrats are doing better with white working class voters, this is the type of seat that could flip.

10:11.50

Sam Shirazi

But again, it's it's a pretty tall order. But keep in mind, though, that Democrats didn't compete in it 2023, and this year they will be competing in it.

10:21.14

Sam Shirazi

I did want to talk about another Southside district. This is House District 83. The current incumbent is Republican Otto Wachsman. This is roughly a Trump plus eight district in 2024.

10:34.90

Sam Shirazi

But in 2023, the incumbent Republican, he won by almost 17 points. And so you see, again, a type of district where there was a lot of difference between 2023 and 2024.

10:49.53

Sam Shirazi

I would say the reason for the difference in this district is a little bit different. So again, this is a district with a lot of African-American voters, about 41% African-American. I think in 2024, the Democrats did a better job turning out those voters Obviously, on the Democratic side, at the top top of the ticket, you had an African-American woman on the ticket. And so I think that helped Democrats get more of the African-American vote out in 2024.

11:14.54

Sam Shirazi

I think in 2023, that was something the Democrats could have done better in this seat and across Virginia. And I think it's a little bit of an open question this year in 2025. What does the African-American turnout look like?

11:26.70

Sam Shirazi

You know, there's a possibility that either one or two slots on the Democratic ticket with the lieutenant governor and the attorney general spot, um could be African American nominees for the Democrats.

11:38.62

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, the Republicans have an African American woman at the top of the ticket. And so there's a lot of interesting questions about what the turnout will look like specifically in that community. And a lot of these seats that have and not a majority African American, but a decent amount of African American voters.

11:57.41

Sam Shirazi

I think the question will become can the Democrats turn them out? And in theory, if there's higher turnout than expected among the African-American community, and maybe the working class white vote falls because Trump's not on the ticket, which we've seen in other places where these low propensity Trump voters don't come out in non-presidential elections, the Danville district and then this other Southside district, both of those potentially could flip just depending on the dynamics of turnout And, you know, I think it's still realistically pretty hard for the Democrats to win this seat. But I just wanted to mention some of the dynamic dynamics. And I should say this, you know often in this podcast, I will be focusing on Northern Virginia, Richmond area, Hampton Roads.

12:38.05

Sam Shirazi

You know, you talk about the suburbs and college educated voters and and all this. I think it's important to keep in mind, Virginia has a lot of different parts to it and there are different dynamics. So Southside Virginia,

12:49.20

Sam Shirazi

These two districts, their voting patterns are much more similar to other parts of the South. I think, you know, it's just a different type of district and you have to keep that in mind. And so while I think potentially the numbers are there for the Democrats, I just think, and as you've seen in other parts of the South, it's hard for the Democrats to win seats if it's majority white and most of the white voters there are working class voters who were Trump voters. and And typically it's hard for the Democrats, especially these days, where they're not doing well with white working class voters to flip those types of seats.

13:24.05

Sam Shirazi

All right. So I will talk about a couple other districts that are kind of interesting in that they're all similar. So they're all college towns in their own way. And so I will start off with the 52nd House District.

13:35.94

Sam Shirazi

This is in the Lynchburg area. The current incumbent is Wendell Walker.

13:40.75

Sam Shirazi

This is a district that Trump won roughly by nine points. and However, keep in mind the current incumbent, Walker, only won this district by about nine points in 2023.

13:51.95

Sam Shirazi

And so that's kind of interesting because it tells you that this type of district... you know, so as we saw in some of the other districts, there were huge swings between 2023 and 2024, but this district didn't see much of a swing and it was basically the same.

14:07.07

Sam Shirazi

And I just think there's some interesting dynamics going on. So Lynchburg is kind of a a medium-sized city. So you have more of a professional class in that in that city.

14:17.66

Sam Shirazi

It's also home to Liberty University. I think a lot of the Republican voters, at least among young people in that city, are students at Liberty. It's kind of an open question mark. Do those students show up in a governor's race this year? And I think the incumbent, Walker, needs some of those students to turn out for him.

14:37.84

Sam Shirazi

And so I i just think and it it just has a lot of interesting dynamics for a district like this. And i think, again, On a good night, the Democrats have a chance to to flip this seat, particularly if we're seeing a decent amount of Democratic turnout and then the Republican turnout isn't there.

14:56.21

Sam Shirazi

Okay, let's go to another college district. This is House District 40, and this is in the Salem-Roanoke area. The current incumbent is Republican Joe McNamara.

15:07.74

Sam Shirazi

The district voted again for Trump by about nine points and 2023,

15:14.96

Sam Shirazi

The Republican incumbent won by about 19 points. And the reason I say it's a college town. So Roanoke College technically is not in the city of Roanoke. It is based in the city of Salem, which is right next to Roanoke.

15:30.34

Sam Shirazi

So even though Salem does have this college in it, Salem is generally known to be a little bit more of a red-leaning town as compared to Roanoke. So Roanoke City is a blue city. Salem's known for being more of a red city.

15:43.57

Sam Shirazi

But obviously you have a college town vibe to Salem to a certain extent. And so I think that's keeping this district competitive. And we'll see again, are are the Democrats able to to flip a seat like this in November?

15:58.45

Sam Shirazi

I will go out to one more college town for our tour of the college towns of Virginia, or at least the red-leaning college town districts in Virginia. So this is House District 34 in the Harrisonburg area, which is home to James Madison University.

16:14.37

Sam Shirazi

The current incumbent is Republican Tony Wilt. The district was about a seven-point Trump district in 2024. 2023, in twenty twenty three The current incumbent Republican won by about 13 points.

16:28.45

Sam Shirazi

In this district, it's just straight you know college town versus rural. So if you think about Harrisonburg, where James Madison University is located, ah ah blue college town, lot of students.

16:40.15

Sam Shirazi

The area around it in the Shenandoah Valley is beautiful. It's a red area. And so it's just a matter of which side is able to turn out more of their base. And I think the interesting thing about this district is the Democrats' chances really come down to if they're able to either register students or get students to show up on Election Day and same day register and get the students to vote. Because James Madison University, it's a pretty big university, basically.

17:06.30

Sam Shirazi

You would think that the students there tend to lean towards the Democrats. And so I think if the Democrats are able to mobilize students, this is the seat type of seat that could flip.

17:16.81

Sam Shirazi

And I should note make a note of this So we talked about three of these college towns that could flip in the reach districts for the Democrats and two of the top battleground districts in the 41st district and then the 71st district district ah where Virginia Tech and William & Mary are located. Those are really going to be top top targets for Democrats.

17:38.10

Sam Shirazi

And again, students are going to be really important if they're going to flip those two seats. And I think, you know, in 2024, part of the story was President Trump was able to do better with college students and students and younger people in general than I think most people were expected because generally people think, okay, young people, they tend to be Democrats, but President Trump was able to do better.

18:00.43

Sam Shirazi

And I think a lot of those voters were maybe not super engaged and may not have been paying super close attention and maybe voted on the economy or issues like that. And I think to the extent we're seeing voters move away from Trump,

18:14.10

Sam Shirazi

I think those are the type of voters that are going to move away or voters who are really sensitive on the economy. They might have said, well, let's see what President Trump can do. And now obviously they're seeing maybe some of the effects of the federal cuts and the effects of the tariffs. And so those voters might turn away from the Republicans.

18:32.77

Sam Shirazi

And so if we take a step back and look at all these districts, which I would say are red leaning districts that the Democrats would really need a good night to be able to flip. you you know How would they be able to do that? Who are they going to be able to to either s flip or or how how is it going to be that they're going to be able to flip these red districts? I think there's two possibilities, as I mentioned earlier.

18:53.59

Sam Shirazi

One possibility is that their turnout is really just way through the roof and they get closer to 2024 turnout. And then the Republican turnout is way down for whatever reason. And so You basically just have a bunch of Democrats showing up and the Republicans don't show up. And then so a seat that you don't think was going to flip starts to flip. And I think the other possibility or the thing that could happen in combination with that is that the Democrats are able to.

19:19.63

Sam Shirazi

The Democrats are able to convince some of these Trump voters to switch and vote for the Democrats in this election, not just at the governor's level, but all the way down the ticket. I think relatively that's going to be pretty rare, particularly among, you know, voters that would turn out in a governor but governor's election, because most of the time people these days, it's just hard to get people to switch their votes.

19:43.30

Sam Shirazi

But in some of these districts, if you have a decent Democratic turnout and you flip some of the people who voted for Trump last November, it doesn't take a whole lot to flip the the district. And, you know, again, i think President Trump, among some of his core base, he still has that support.

19:59.36

Sam Shirazi

Where you're seeing his approval rating go down is typically with voters who were sensitive on the economy or maybe relatively less engaged. He President Trump did well with those voters.

20:10.87

Sam Shirazi

And you're seeing those voters turn away from President Trump now that you know some of the economic hits that have been happening recently, and obviously President Trump is taking the blame for that.

20:22.32

Sam Shirazi

So I don't want to belabor the point. I do think there's a ah scenario where the Democrats are able to flip at least one of these sleeper seats. But Now, you may be saying, OK, you're kind of getting everyone's hopes up on the Democratic side. You're saying, oh, the Democrats can flip all these seats. I'm not saying that. I just think that you have to think about the possibility.

20:42.35

Sam Shirazi

And the reason I say that is both 2017 and 2021. So 2017, 2017, the first Trump administration, Democrats were hoping to flip, you know, maybe a few seats here and there. They were already in a deep hole in the House of Delegates.

20:57.05

Sam Shirazi

The formal Democratic Party only focused on a few seats and we were hoping to maybe on a good night flip maybe 10 seats. But the Democrats got a real big blue wave in 2017 and they were able to flip 15 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates. And I think that was a huge surprise to everyone. And I think that was also ah big wake up call for the Republicans that they were struggling in the suburbs. Most of these districts were in the suburbs where the Democrats were able to flip it.

21:23.80

Sam Shirazi

And so I just think you You know, you never know what's going to happen in the House of Delegates, particularly if there are big swings between elections. And the other election I should talk about on the other side is 2021 when the Republicans got a victory. And I think for most of that election, Democrats didn't think that the House of Delegates, which they were in the majority in, was at much risk.

21:44.100

Sam Shirazi

But then all of a sudden at the end, a few seats flipped that the Democrats weren't expecting to flip. And the Republicans were able to get the majority in the Virginia House of Delegates in 2021. So I do think in these potentially wave elections, there are circumstances where the a lot of seats flip.

22:02.01

Sam Shirazi

There are unexpected gains on one side. And i think we have to be open to the possibility of that. Realistically, I don't think that's going to happen on the Republican side. Just the reality is, know, I'm not saying it's impossible for the Republicans to win the governor's race, but Even if the Republicans win the governor's race, I mean, we kind of know which seats are going to flip on the Republican side. I think it's going to really be unlikely that they're going to be able to flip more than maybe on a good night, three seats.

22:30.67

Sam Shirazi

Whereas on the republican on the Democratic side, I mean, the the range is so big. You could see Democrats flipping one or two seats if it's a close election. to potentially flipping up to 10 seats or more if it's a really landslide type election.

22:46.77

Sam Shirazi

And at this stage, we really don't know. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten many Virginia polls. We don't get ah have have as a good sense of where things are going. The Trump approval looks like it's gone negative and it's especially going to be negative in Virginia. So you would think that leads towards Democrats having a good night.

23:04.39

Sam Shirazi

And again, what does a good night mean the Democrats? Does that mean they win by two points? I mean, but they'll take it. A win's a win.

23:11.58

Sam Shirazi

Do they win by five points, which I think is a solid win? Or the Democrats at the top of ticket with Abigail Spamberger get closer to a 10 point win and a 10 point win. I mean, that's the type of territory where these and unexpected seats could flip.

23:25.25

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, it's just so hard to tell right now. And I wanted to use the example of this year. We don't have many examples, you use the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

23:35.42

Sam Shirazi

Wisconsin obviously was very close in 2024. The Republicans with Donald Trump were able to win it at the presidential level by a about one point. But that then again, on the Senate side, the Democrats were able to win it in with Tammy Baldwin. So Wisconsin was very close in 2024, kind of on knife's edge.

23:54.89

Sam Shirazi

But then the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, we all thought, okay, it's going to be close. It seems like the Republicans are spending a lot of money here. and it's getting a lot of attention. And then the Democrats win that Supreme court race by about 10 points.

24:07.33

Sam Shirazi

And so I do think both the Democrats and Republicans have to think about the possibility that this won't necessarily be a super close election. And how do they deal with that? What seats are they going to compete in?

24:18.62

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, if you're a Democrat, you don't want to get your hopes up. You don't want to assume you're to You're going to want to play it like it's going to be close. Cause I think that's the safe way to run a campaign. If you're a Republican, you know you never want to say, oh, we're going to lose. We're to throw in the towel. Now you you still have to kind of have hope that you're going to be able to win and that perhaps you're going to be able to save all these seats that you have in the House of Delegates. But you also have to be realistic and say, look, it's getting kind of dicey. yeah These incumbents, we can't really save them. Let's focus on these other incumbents that have a more realistic shot.

24:52.61

Sam Shirazi

And the favorite word that you know you hear in midterms, more so for the US House of Representatives is triaging, you know, this race is is a lost cause. Let's just kind stop competing there.

25:05.93

Sam Shirazi

I don't know if the Republicans are going to do that. I think it's very hard to tell. I think theyre they have a lot of incumbents. They want to protect them. the The danger is if you start focusing on the incumbents that seem unlikely to win, you're going to potentially leave these other incumbents out in a in in more Republican districts, but the ones that could be competitive, you could leave them out to dry. so It's hard to tell. i think it's way too early. i didn't want to speculate too much. I just wanted to flag some of these other seats that could be competitive on an interesting night for the Democrats.

25:36.72

Sam Shirazi

Again, way too early to tell. I wanted to do this podcast because I probably won't be spending too much time on these districts in the future. So I did want to just mention them right now. And I also but just wanted to talk about how you know the Democrats have fielded 100 candidates in all the seats.

25:52.82

Sam Shirazi

And if you think about 2023, two of the districts I talked about, the Democrats didn't feel the candidate. So it just gives you a sense of, you know, what it can look like in a different cycle. Seats that you didn't think were going to go be competitive can all of a sudden be on the board, particularly if you have a candidate running. So anyways, I think there'll be a lot of interesting things to talk about this year in Virginia. These House of Delegates districts don't always get as much attention as the other ones, but I did want to mention them.

26:18.72

Sam Shirazi

So I hope everyone found that interesting. I will, I promise, do a podcast at some point on the House of Delegate primary. So I did want to wait a little bit closer to the primary date to do that. But that's also in the works. So anyways, I appreciate everyone listening. And this has been Federal Fallout.

26:36.02

Sam Shirazi

And I will join you next time.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com

00:00.95

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. Today, our guest is David Ramadan, a former Republican delegate.

00:12.13

Sam Shirazi

Thank you for joining me.

00:13.80

DR DR

Good to be with you, Sam. Thanks for having me.

00:16.32

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, so I wanted to have you on because you've had the experience of actually being a member of the House of Delegates. And I just wanted to, I guess, first question, ask you why you wanted to run for the House of Delegates and what it was like.

00:32.26

DR DR

It was the highest honor of my life. And it was my way of of public service for the Commonwealth and the country. I am an immigrant, Sam, who came here at the age of 19 with $2,000 in my pocket and a dream.

00:47.68

DR DR

I made it all in, in, in this Commonwealth and in this, in this great country. I did my undergraduate at George Mason, did my master's degree in Mason. I've been teaching in Mason for 20 some years.

01:00.53

DR DR

I was governor of McDonald's first appointee to the board and served two years on the board of the university. And, uh, I went through a presidential, uh, hire and hired a president for the university, did my doctorate Vanderbilt, but that came later after serving in office. So in 2011, after the redistricting of that year, a new seat opened up in the General Assembly.

01:29.08

DR DR

And I honestly had no plans for running. For 20 years prior to that, I was somebody who started with heavy accent, who went and volunteered on the Bush quail campaign and was told, just lick envelopes, don't answer the phone because the accent was heavy. And I said, okay, and did that and grew up to answering the phones, then to going out, putting out small signs and then the four by eight signs, and then started writing checks as I grew up in life and $5 checks and $50 checks, and then starting adding zeros to during the McDonald campaign, going all out and campaigning for

02:05.28

DR DR

You know, A.G. MacDonald at the time and became a policy advisor to him and held lot of events and and went out on the stump. And so grew up in life, 20 years of supporting the Republicans at the time from George Allen's 1993 gubernatorial campaign to the numerous Frank Wolf congressional campaigns, somebody who supported them and from donations to running ground activities to the entire Ramadan family manning it.

02:45.09

DR DR

numerous precincts on election day, and none of it was with the plan of running for office until 2011 when a new seat opened up in my area in eastern Loudoun, and the phone started ringing, and everybody that I had helped over the years said, it's time to run. And I was challenged really into it, because even then, it was a 60-plus percent democratic district.

03:12.26

DR DR

And I think it was Governor McDonald at the time who says, David, it's a 60 plus percent Democratic district. Can you think of anybody else who have the profile of being a successful immigrant who has been lecturing us for years on inclusion and and engagement of of the minority communities who can be competitive in this district who's a Republican besides you? And like, you know, so.

03:39.64

DR DR

It was okay, time to serve. Took five years out of my life, basically a year for the campaign and then two terms where I truly dedicated full-time time, effort and energy to public service.

03:54.54

DR DR

And it was my way of paying back the success that I had. I had brought in four brothers, mom and dad, grandma, uncles, uncles. Everybody living their American dream. Everybody went to to universities. Everybody, most of them to Mason. Everybody got degrees. Everybody got jobs. Everybody got homes.

04:10.25

DR DR

So the entire Ramadan family is indebted to this great system that we have. And it was way of serving. Enjoyed it. Highest honor of my life, as I said. I became the first adult immigrant in history to make Jefferson's house.

04:26.56

DR DR

Jefferson, Madison, Patrick, Henry, and good old me. And I was pretty good at it. I did quite well in and the House, ah passed lot of laws, worked very closely in bipartisan manner.

04:39.88

DR DR

My district re-elected me, even though it was a heavily Democratic district. and I was a very well-known Republican at the time. But after two terms, it became very clear that One, on the personal side, it was not sustainable. I didn't i couldn't work. couldn't I'm a consultant. I do a international.

05:00.56

DR DR

At the time, was doing mostly international consulting work. And if I'm not on a plane with my clients, I'm not billing. And I wasn't billing for an entire five-year period. We spent all the savings.

05:12.78

DR DR

And it was also time of change in in the party. That was when Back then, Donald J. Trump became the nominee of the Republican Party in 2015, and that's when I made the decision not to run for a third term.

05:30.09

Sam Shirazi

Well, that's a lot of interesting details and I want to unpack that a little bit before I turn to Virginia in 2025.

05:33.48

DR DR

Sure. I just want a question.

05:37.72

Sam Shirazi

I guess one question I work, because I think a lot of people, they're worried about running for office, especially in Virginia, because the house a delegate in Virginia only makes

05:38.60

DR DR

I

05:48.70

Sam Shirazi

the the base salary is $17,640 with some expenses. and And obviously most people, they can't make a living off just that. And we have this part-time legislature thing that doesn't seem to work that well.

06:00.98

Sam Shirazi

How do you make it work? and And do you think Virginia should go to a full-time legislature that actually pays the legislature's ah ah living salaries so they can actually have a that as their full-time job?

06:13.98

DR DR

Yeah, I was fortunate enough that I had, you I'd done really well in the years prior to running for office in life. And i had I had enough savings to live off of the savings basically for the four or five years.

06:32.34

DR DR

And I was doing just a little bit of business that had recurring income that came to me that didn't require my time or attention. So it was there was small income coming in from from that those that business that didn't require my time. But my main business of consulting, i wasn't I wasn't doing it and I wasn't billing and to put put all my time and effort and energy into into the the the service.

07:00.96

DR DR

It's not sustainable. yeah So if I hadn't had the the savings that I had, I would not have been able to do it. It is there.

07:10.91

DR DR

The system is broken. It had good intentions that would have worked back during our founding fathers. If it is only the six weeks or eight weeks during session, sure, everybody or not everybody, well most people can manage taking six weeks or eight weeks off, even if it's without pay and doing it.

07:29.29

DR DR

But as You know, today it's no longer just six or eight weeks. One, you get a campaign year round. Two, in Northern Virginia, where I was, i was a Republican in 60 plus Democratic district.

07:41.45

DR DR

That requires a lot of effort and time outside of session. So it was ah ah double full time job, really, not a part time job. that's how it worked out for me. But it's hard. it's it's very That's why you end up with a lot of retirees.

07:56.95

DR DR

That's why you end up with and individually wealthy people or business owners and professionals that their business allows them to take the time off.

08:08.12

DR DR

Lawyers, for example, that that end up serving. um Now, how do you fix that is is a very controversial and long subject to talk about.

08:20.10

DR DR

But I am not in favor of, even though i had to leave because of that, I'm not in favor of full-time legislature. I think it's good to have citizen legislature. I think having the wealth of knowledge from my colleagues in the House and Senate when we were there, people that are farmers and teachers and in business owners and professionals and was very important for for the Commonwealth and for how to legislate versus you know professional politicians that what you end up with.

08:54.78

DR DR

But it certainly needs fixing. And you can fix it in multiple ways. some of the Some of what took a lot of time was Constituent services, obviously, and being able to stay and and connect with your constituents all the time, in addition to fundraising, not just for your campaigns, but you had to fundraise to operate.

09:18.96

DR DR

So let me give you an example. I ask people all the time, said, how many times do you expect to hear from your elected official per year? I'll ask you, Sam, your your your delegate or your senator.

09:32.16

DR DR

How many times a year would you as a citizen would like to receive a mailer from them that explains what they're doing for you or on your behalf?

09:42.16

Sam Shirazi

I would say, you know, I'd like to hear from my state legislature. So maybe once every other month.

09:49.21

DR DR

Very good. So six times a year. Six times a year, on average, let's use even numbers, 40,000 households, Or even households in the average delegate district So 30,000 households, if you were to mail them each a letter, let's say average number as well, though not accurate and I'm underestimating, a dollar per mailing.

10:16.70

DR DR

That's the price of printing it and and putting a postage and mailing it. So that's $30,000 per mailing. um Six times a year is $180,000.

10:28.66

DR DR

What is the budget for mail that each delegate gets? Do you know?

10:35.46

Sam Shirazi

I'm guessing it's not that much.

10:37.84

DR DR

It's $1,300 a year. So $1,300 is not even enough to respond to the letters that are written to you, not even to the students that write ask for stuff from our high schools.

10:51.41

DR DR

So if you wanted to do two or three mailings a year, You got to do $60,000 $90,000 a year, which you had to go out and raise just so that you can operate.

11:02.56

DR DR

At the time when I was there, we had a budget of $40,000 for staff. That's it. Okay, so tell me, please, what who, not just what caliber, who can I hire $40,000 in Northern Virginia?

11:20.90

DR DR

not he You can't get a college graduate. can't even get a high school graduate that will work for you for $40,000 in Northern Virginia because they can't live for $40,000. So you had to add to that from not the government money, not the state money, but you had to raise money or out of pocket put in money so you can hire somebody at about $60,000 or $70,000 year. That's one aid. One. That's it.

11:47.19

DR DR

one that's it During session, you get little more for a couple, a few hundred bucks for, for I think, for, i no, I don't think we even got paid for that. it was it was just you could either put in the money or yourself or get interns for free yeah to do that.

12:02.08

DR DR

But so some of the reforms that we can do for that system is at least put in a decent budget to run a delegate's office and have enough staff that can do some of the work so that the elected official doesn't have to spend all that time away from their full-time jobs.

12:22.54

DR DR

Now, still $17,600 is not enough. Don't make it full-time in my opinion, but make it enough that it could you know substitute the time that they're taking off from their full-time jobs or their businesses and be able to their mortgage.

12:40.36

DR DR

But i'm i'm I'm still in favor of a part-time legislature Maybe longer than six weeks or maybe break it up over yeah multiple weeks, even if it's eight to ten weeks, but break it up versus January through March.

12:54.79

DR DR

You know, the I think the January through March comes from the good old times where they celebrated their they celebrated Christmas with their families and there was nothing to be done at the farm.

13:06.68

DR DR

planting doesn't start till ti March or April. So they got horse and buggy and went to Richmond. Before that, they went to Williamsburg, met, legislated, and then went home to the farms before planting season.

13:18.95

DR DR

You don't need to do that anymore. You can divide the eight to 10 weeks over a period of or over the year and so on. But citizen legislature still makes sense. And it's actually much more effective. I teach as at Mason, as you know, just finished a graduate course ah ah yesterday on federal American government to concentration on on Congress.

13:41.64

DR DR

And I did the comparison that this year, between January and March, the General Assembly had, what was it, I think it was 1,700 or 1,800 bills or so in Virginia, and 700 to 900 of them probably became law. I don't have the exact number. But in comparison, in this last three months, same period of time, even longer, Congress passed five and only five bills.

14:06.89

DR DR

So it's efficient. It is controlled chaos to a certain extent. But it does need some some reform.

14:16.94

DR DR

And the reform needs to come more in little more money for the electives, but more so for their offices to operate versus this stupidity of $40,000 for budget and $17,000 for for budget and and seventeen thousand dollars for a for salary and $1,300 or for mail for the entire year

14:42.99

Sam Shirazi

I did want to ask you about the extra challenge you had as a battleground district delegate. And you you both of your races were really close and you ended up winning.

14:55.36

Sam Shirazi

you know What was it like running in a race that you know is going to be really close and that both parties are really going to be focusing on?

15:02.13

DR DR

Expensive. Back then, I think we broke the records. Now, those numbers have been broken since then and and and du and and multiplied by a number of factors. But at the time, my campaign was $750,000 or so. In the first campaign, I think my opponent overspent me by little bit.

15:22.78

DR DR

In my re-election campaign, i think my campaign was also another $750,000. And then John Bell, who ran against me, spent over a million.

15:33.83

DR DR

John became a friend later. He ran for my seat after I had left and and won it. And we've we've had a great working relationship and friendship. But it was expensive and it was polarized, I think, too.

15:47.25

DR DR

was It was very polarized in the primary to start when I ran the first race. the After 20 years of of service to the party and supporting everybody and their mother and hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and numerous time on on the field and advice and policy work and party work, within a week or 10 days of me announcing, I had a challenger in my party that called out my last name and my heritage, and I became, quote-unquote, a terrorist undercover cell, and it was a nasty, nasty campaign against me in the primary.

16:23.68

DR DR

Accusations of not living in my district, they tried everything, sued me for that. Of course, know I won all that, and I survived it and won it to by about 10%.

16:34.98

DR DR

And then it was the general election, which was also nasty. The the Democrats played at the time – Similar tactics. ae ah ah Didn't call it heritage, but started playing the international role in my international work and attacked me for for doing business in China, which was total lie because I've never done business in China. I've done a lot of business in the Middle East and India, but that had nothing to do with China. never been to China, and never done business in China.

17:03.78

DR DR

So there was a lot of misrepresentation. Then they figured out that that didn't work. So they attacked me for doing business in India. And they miscalculated because that made me near and dear to the Indian American community in my district, which had a majority minority there.

17:20.61

DR DR

So I ended up helping me for for them attacking me for doing business in India. But the point was that it was very expensive. It was very polarized. It was very political.

17:32.63

DR DR

And it included a lot, a lot of attacks, personal and lot of lies from my own party and from the opponent party at the time.

17:41.51

Sam Shirazi

So I would describe you maybe something like a Barbara Comstock Republican. And you mentioned you're an immigrant to this country. You know, why did you become a Republican? And um you know, I'm going to ask you the classic question. Did the Republican Party leave you or did you leave the Republican Party?

18:01.10

DR DR

Oh no, the Republican Party left me, my friend, a long time ago. Republican Party left all of us. So, Barbara is a dear friend, remains to be dear friend. we just left him an event together. we We do business together and and we are like-minded nowadays.

18:15.78

DR DR

a matter of fact, we were not like-minded while we were both still in office in the party. I am more of a libertarian-ish conservative. Barbara is a traditional conservative.

18:27.05

DR DR

but we both are common sense conservatives, if if you want to put it that way. So that's why we that. And when Barbara, we were together in the house and then Frank Wolf decided to announce that he is no longer running for office for another term, surprised us all. The first call I got immediately i was from Barbara and says, well, what do you think? And I said, what do you mean? She's like, are you interested? i don't really want to.

18:56.93

DR DR

fight you in in a primary. said, to you I was considered much more conservative than Barbara at the time. and, I said, oh, hell no. and I have no interest in Congress. I call it a cesspool.

19:09.33

DR DR

So you jump in and I'm all in to help you. And I did, quite a bit and, you know, was, was all in for Barbara. I helped her run to the point that her husband still calls me chip called me then her campaign boyfriend and still is.

19:24.75

DR DR

Uh, so we, we did a lot, lot of campaigning together. It was great, great fun. Uh, but, I became a Republican. There was a personal connection and then there was the traditional immigration story. So back in Lebanon in 1983, after the Marine bombing and the American embassy bombing, which i literally witnessed both of those, I was 13 years old, George Herbert Bush, vice president at the time, flew to Beirut.

19:53.98

DR DR

And I was asking a lot of questions, trying to figure out why they bombed the Marines. I went to an American prep school in Beirut, started asking question. They handed me the constitution at the time, read it, fell in love, didn't understand it all, but read it, fell in love with this idea called America.

20:08.68

DR DR

Then George Herbert Bush flies to Beirut and I lined up the street, carried a little American flag and and and waved for him. So fast forward six years after that, I'm a 19 year old who just landed and now George Herbert Bush is President George Herbert Bush getting ready for his re-election, 1990 re-election Bush-Quel campaign.

20:29.50

DR DR

So there was that connection. And then there was the philosophical connections. Most immigrants are conservatives, people that flee, as I did, you oppressive regimes want freedom, want ah ah less government, want less taxes, want or whether they are Catholic, Jews, Muslims, or or Hindus, they they they are people of faith, family and family values are important to them.

21:02.12

DR DR

And that's what the grand old party used to be. Not this party today, not this party in the last 10 years. my My Republican Party at the time would have never, ever, ever considered, mind you, applied tariffs that are taxes on Americans.

21:19.82

DR DR

So no, yeah, the party left, the party changed. The party became Trump's party, not Reagan's conservative party, the shining city on a hill. And that's why I yeah decided not to run for a third term and not to identify as a Republican after that, but a former and continue to be a conservative.

21:45.28

DR DR

Ramadan, I have a pinned tweet there, and it is Reagan's last speech, which was a love letter to immigrants. That's the Republican Party that would want to, not the party that vilifies immigrants, not the president that calls them criminals and they come from shithole countries. And so, yeah, then our party left us.

22:08.05

Sam Shirazi

And you used to represent Loudoun, which had a lot of immigrants and does have a lot of immigrants. And I think Loudoun often gets a lot of attention.

22:15.24

DR DR

if I ask

22:16.75

Sam Shirazi

It's in the press. It's kind of a it's more democratic now, but used to be more of a swing county. And in 2024, it's It became less democratic. I think President Trump did better than people expected Loudoun.

22:30.23

Sam Shirazi

So why do you think Loudoun is so important? And do you think this year Loudoun will kind of go back and become more democratic as it had been under the the first Trump administration?

22:40.55

DR DR

Yeah, I represented Loudoun and end parts of of Prince William, but I am a Loudoun resident, so I was the delegate from Loudoun. Loudoun was the bellwether for Virginia, just like Virginia was the bellwether for the country.

22:56.95

DR DR

Loudoun is still important because of of the numbers that are here and in the importance of it and and being a majority-minority or minority-majority county pretty much, especially in eastern Loudoun.

23:11.71

DR DR

Trump did better, but he did not win Loudoun. It's still, it had moved to be, it used to be eastern Loudoun where I represented was Democratic, even though I was a Republican and won as a Republican.

23:24.32

DR DR

But the county overall was a swing county. and the The county has changed. The county has become a Democratic county. as evidence on our board of supervisors, which used to be majority Republicans.

23:39.10

DR DR

Now it's a seven to democratic ah board supervisors, all wonderful people, and all are good friends. But yeah so Loudoun is democratic today.

23:50.99

DR DR

The question is to what level is it? A five point or is it a 15 point county? This year, The entire Commonwealth, specifically Northern Virginia and the and and the Eastern Shore and and the Norfolk and Virginia Beach area and so on, are more democratic. But the Commonwealth is is going to go back to voting democratic in my expectation.

24:15.66

DR DR

for multiple reasons. One, where the craziness that's happening across the river in Washington, D.C., the the direct effect on Northern Virginia and the Commonwealth overall, the the cuts in the federal government in money and the firing, and God help us, if they really move departments altogether and relocate federal agencies to the Midwest, that's going to hit the Commonwealth and hit it hard.

24:41.59

DR DR

something that our current administration, current governor is is trying to shield from reality because of, you know, the fealty to the dear leader.

24:54.05

DR DR

And because of, let's face it, everybody knows it now, Glenn Youngkin wants to run for president in four years. So, you know, regardless of what's happening in Washington, he's going to keep singing the Trump song and he's going to get up and claim 250,000 jobs and Virginia is doing great. No, it's not.

25:12.87

DR DR

They're not 250,000 jobs. Just creating one one website is all what he did basically to date is is not solving the problem.

25:25.15

DR DR

And they are simply just trying to to to put lipstick on the pig. And that pig is an ugly pig out of out of Washington today. So Loudoun will go Democratic handedly.

25:37.79

DR DR

And the likelihood of Virginia going Democratic handedly is also. It leans Democratic now. That's what it's looking like for the gubernatorial campaign. But if if this craziness in Washington continues, it's it's not a matter of just Democrats winning. It's a matter of Democrats winning big.

25:55.66

DR DR

And that'll set the tone for the midterm elections in 2026 for the rest of the country.

26:01.25

Sam Shirazi

And what do you think the Republican plan is at this point? Because, you know, I'm trying to figure out as political observer, it seems like, you know, you're just kind of going to do the plan regardless of what the political environment is like.

26:07.60

DR DR

yeah

26:10.17

DR DR

but

26:12.83

DR DR

but yeah

26:15.25

Sam Shirazi

And you're laughing, so I'm sure you have some opinions.

26:18.41

DR DR

Sam, come on. Republican in plan? It's a dumpster fire today, especially what we've seen in the last two or three days in Virginia on the lieutenant governor stuff. There is no plan. There is, there is you know, we claim we claim the win, even though there's no win. i mean,

26:35.83

DR DR

in a hundred days, I'll give him one thing. President Trump was able to secure the border and that's very important. That was one of his promises. now to what level? 90%, 95%, 99% doesn't matter. It's significant.

26:48.52

DR DR

and that is the one thing that he did in the last hundred days. But besides that, he did nothing except claim that he does stuff, wrote a bunch of executive orders and,

27:00.72

DR DR

I'll give him one more thing. He is probably one of the most consequential presidents that we've seen in recent history, except it's consequential to the negative here, consequential for destroying what we knew as a system.

27:15.67

DR DR

for for for destroying the federal services that we have, for for destroying the economy with tariffs, oh my God, God help us. and and And for the costs that's gonna apply to to every citizen. On average, every one of us is gonna spend four or $5,000 more because of the tariff deal.

27:36.10

DR DR

Our standing in the world, the long-term effects that that's gonna take, the rebuilding of what he's destroying, It's not like the federal government wasn't bloated. It was.

27:46.14

DR DR

It was not like there wasn't waste. Of course there is waste. And of course we can cut some money. And of course we can make it better. But not this way. They're not doing that. They are just positioning and and and and you know playing favoritism and cutting where they don't need to cut and doging. And it becomes now a pay-for-play for millionaires and billionaires.

28:13.82

DR DR

I mean, look, nowadays i am i am agreeing with Rand Paul more than anybody else. Just follow what Rand is saying. Tariffs are taxes. And no, we do not live in an emergency. We had an emergency on the border, period.

28:27.100

DR DR

We don't have a trade emergency. for a president to take trade emergency powers and do what he's doing. we We can't and shouldn't live under an emergency.

28:38.95

DR DR

Shame on Congress and shame on all these members of of of of of the House and the Senate that abdicated their role. People elected them to be legislators.

28:51.08

DR DR

did not elect them to be, yes, dear leader and give their power to the executive. and And then he serves or he rules or be a wannabe dictator and rules as a dictator through executive powers.

29:07.54

DR DR

The rule of law is an important basic of our system. That's what makes us different, not only democracy and and our system and our republic, but but ingrained in that is is the due process of law that doesn't exist in most of of of the world that envy us for our due process.

29:28.63

DR DR

Now we're picking people off the streets that have that have legal status and and throwing them out without due process. Now, look, if if if you if if if these individuals are MS-13, throw their asses in jail and do deport them. But after you put them through the system, that's why we have a system. That's why we have courts. That's why we have due process.

29:52.44

DR DR

You don't just pick people off the streets and deport them willy-nilly without the courts. That is just un-American, and that is not conservative, not Republican.

30:02.64

DR DR

That is just Trumpism. That's a different world than the world that the grand old party – I mean, i keep saying, as as you've you've seen on my Twitter all the time, grand old party no more.

30:12.55

DR DR

Yeah.

30:15.12

Sam Shirazi

Well, I did want to ask you one other question before I let you go on the grand old party, at least in Virginia. And that is what has happened the last week with the lieutenant governor spot on the ticket and John Reed. And obviously, you still have a pulse on the Virginia Republican Party. know, what's going on in terms of the dynamics between Governor Youngkin, Lieutenant Governor Sears, and then John Reed? know, the whole thing seems a little bit chaotic. and And what do you make of what's going on?

30:44.77

DR DR

Yeah, it's a dumpster fire. First of all, there's no party in Virginia. John Frederick, who is a friend of mine, even though he's he's now a Trump MAGA world guy, remains to be a friend.

30:57.89

DR DR

John had an old saying many years ago, way before that. He says the party is nothing more than a a ah a mailing address and an answering machine.

31:08.10

DR DR

And that is true. i mean, the party in Virginia, because of the way that that political donations are are unlimited and directly to individuals. The party is simply an address and a mail permit and an answering machine that candidates use because they get cheaper mail rate mailing through the party versus something else. So the party is is not in control of anything.

31:32.04

DR DR

And the chairman of the party is always ah ah figure. and And I love, ah ah Anderson, Rich, is is a colleague, and we served together in the Virginia House and remains to be a personal friend despite all of our political disagreements recently.

31:48.38

DR DR

But the party has no role, really. So it falls on the caucuses in the House and the Senate, and it falls on the administration. When you have a Republican governor, that Republican governor is de facto the leader of Republicans in Virginia.

32:03.38

DR DR

Well, in this administration, you had a Republican governor who has a much higher aspiration, well-known fact that he never wanted to be governor and oops, he became governor. He was always running for something else. It was initially in in the U.S. Senate, which now is no longer a game or on on the, as I understand, on his horizon. He's now just concentrating on 2028 presidential run.

32:29.36

DR DR

and We all know that him and Sears were not close to start. and And if you remember in the last gubernatorial race, he just, she barely was with him anywhere on, i mean, they ran two separate campaigns, but she rode that coattails and got in.

32:45.05

DR DR

And so he didn't have a choice but to endorse her this time. And then the the the dynamic of, of, uh, uh, somebody dropping out of the race in Fairfax and John Reed becoming the only candidate.

33:00.49

DR DR

And then, oops, that's a controversial figure. Now, I don't know Mr. Reed. I never listened to his radio. I'm sure we probably were at the same events, same place. So we may have said hello at a couple places, but I really don't know him. I don't think he knows me.

33:14.25

DR DR

don't know. He can pick me up from Adams. I don't recall ever having an interaction with him, but who knows? so spent 20 years in the party. i understand. He's is ah far-right MAGA conservative.

33:26.82

DR DR

Two things come to mind here, and I'm just reading this from the news. I don't know more than what I'm reading in the news. This Tumblr, and you i somebody had to explain Tumblr to me a couple days ago on Twitter because I didn't know what this is, but this Tumblr account is not a new account.

33:44.60

DR DR

It existed for years before he became a public figure became a or before he was known in politics. So having, it's weird, right?

33:55.88

DR DR

Like my Twitter and my LinkedIn and my Facebook, they're all the same. I don't have more than that. It's weird to have somebody who would have the exact same name for years and never come to the radar or or come on your radar without you knowing, especially when it's it's a an account that on on a gay side and you are gay and he's entitled to his preferences in life.

34:22.66

DR DR

But it's weird and, in you know, it's it's hard and it's indefensible to say that you don't know anything about that. In addition to that, I do know Matt Moran.

34:34.25

DR DR

And even though, you know, Matt, and and you just heard me criticize his boss and the governor, and I have been for years, Matt is a gentleman who I believe, and he is and he is true to his word. Matt served the speaker and and the majority leader when I was in the House. I got to know him well.

34:51.90

DR DR

I believe Matt Moran for everything that he is saying in this debacle. That said, it's still a dumpster fire. That said, that shows you how divided that group is And it shows the inability of them to launch a unified campaign or any kind of a challenge or real challenge when we are in today's atmosphere, when the Democrats are ahead, when historically Virginia voted with the exception of one time for Terry McAuliffe in 2013.

35:26.40

DR DR

Virginia has always voted against whoever is in the White House. And that's without the person in the White House being as crazy and as as detrimental to Virginia as this one is.

35:37.83

DR DR

So when you have all of that together and then add to it an amazing candidate on the Democratic side, I mean, you have a capable kind former congresswoman who served Virginia, who was, who was you know, voted as as the most bipartisan, who had passed legislation under Republican and Democratic presidents, who has a background in law enforcement, who was CIA officer.

36:02.31

DR DR

the the their Their dumpster fire is not going to help. They're at disadvantage anyways against Abigail Spanberger. They will continue to be at a disadvantage anyway.

36:13.94

DR DR

And it's not going to look good for Republicans anytime soon in my in my estimate. a who knows?

36:23.20

DR DR

That's why it's called elections. And hey, Donald Trump became president. So what do I know?

36:28.31

Sam Shirazi

Well, I'm sure I will get to find out in November. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I think it's always interesting to get your perspective as a former delegate. And, you know, I i just appreciate ah ah your time and and thank you for joining me.

36:42.30

DR DR

My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Sam.

36:44.44

Sam Shirazi

Okay, and I will see you next time on Federal Fallout.

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