Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This is a special bonus episode where I'm going to quickly go over some of the things that happened on the in the Virginia primary. I will do a longer episode during my regular podcast which will come out Saturday morning, but I did want to just kind of do this quick podcast.

00:19.54

Sam Shirazi

As you can probably tell, I'm a little bit tired. I'm recording this Tuesday evening. Definitely a lot happened during the primary and I want to talk about it quickly. Again, i want to put this out just give a quick update. I'm mainly going to be talking about the statewide offices for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General for the Democrats. I will talk about the House of Delegates on the podcast on Saturday, but did want to just kind of quickly update you on what happened in Virginia on Tuesday night during the Democratic primary, and then also just give you my hot, hot take, and i will give you another take on Saturday once I have a little bit more time to process all the data. So,

00:59.87

Sam Shirazi

Let's talk about the lieutenant governor's race. So it was super close. I was frankly surprised that it was a three-way race. I think former Richmond mayor LeVar s Stoney did better than I expected, and i think better than most people expected. However, it looks like the winner is going to be she declared victory, and I think Abigail Spamberger, her top-of-the-ticket running mate, has said that Ghazala Hashemi will be the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor.

01:28.52

Sam Shirazi

She is a state senator from the Richmond suburbs, and she will become the first South Asian person to be on a statewide ticket in Virginia. And I think that's pretty notable because that's a growing community in Virginia. it has growing political influence.

01:44.67

Sam Shirazi

There's already a member of Congress from the 10th district, Suhasu Abramiam, who is South Asian. So I think it's kind of important and interesting to note that she will be on the ticket.

01:55.97

Sam Shirazi

All right. So like, how did she win? You know, why was she the one that was able to put together that coalition that was able to get to the magic number? I I had said the magic number was going to be 35%. The magic number was actually much less than 35%.

02:07.94

Sam Shirazi

It looks like the magic number to win for the lieutenant governor primary was about 27 and a half percent, which is just crazy. It's crazy to think how fractured the field was. It's crazy to think there was no ranked choice voting. So the winner was able to get less than 30% of the vote, but Ghazal Hashmi was able to win.

02:24.75

Sam Shirazi

So, you know, I want to kind of just go over how she was able to do it. I think it was pretty straightforward. She did what she needed to do in the Richmond suburbs where she's from. She won Henrico, she won Chesterfield, and then she did pretty well in Northern Virginia. She won Fairfax, she won Arlington pretty narrowly, but she won them.

02:42.01

Sam Shirazi

She actually did surprisingly well, I would say, in Western Virginia, which I don't think a lot of people anticipated. But that also, frankly, ah given how close it was, I mean, that gave her a decent margin out of Western Virginia.

02:55.05

Sam Shirazi

And so it wasn't a huge surprise that Aaron Rouse did well in Hampton roads. I think the reason he did, he wasn't able to win is he just didn't get the margins he needed in Northern Virginia and with black voters in South side, uh, Richmond mayor, LeVar Stoney. I think he did really well in Northern Virginia, a lot better than I expected.

03:15.12

Sam Shirazi

And he did well with black voters in South side of Virginia. I think the issue really for him, which was a killer was he just didn't get the numbers he needed from the Richmond area. Obviously Richmond is his base. Um,

03:26.15

Sam Shirazi

Ghazal Hashmi actually won Richmond City, which is just crazy to think about because Levar Stoney was the mayor of Richmond. I think if he was able to get a better margin out of Richmond, he probably would have won. But at the end of the day, Ghazal Hashmi was able to put together that coalition that was able to win.

03:43.29

Sam Shirazi

So I think it'll be interesting to see her on the ticket with Abigail Spanberger. And we'll talk about the third spot on the ticket with Jay Jones for Attorney General.

03:54.66

Sam Shirazi

And I think given the numbers, he pretty much did what he needed to do in Northern Virginia. That was really the story of the Attorney General race. I think, frankly, he did better than I was expecting in Northern Virginia.

04:08.64

Sam Shirazi

He won Arlington, which I didn't necessarily think he'd do. he got He kept it pretty close in Fairfax, a lot in Prince William. And given the margins he was able to get out of Hampton Roads, and that was enough where it kind of, it was enough for him to overcome the margins that Taylor was able to get in the Richmond suburbs of Henrico. And, you know, it was surprising that J. Jones actually won Chesterfield and Richmond City. And I think so it's kind of the story of J. Jones did well in,

04:39.73

Sam Shirazi

Hampton Roads, he kept Richmond area close and he kept Northern Virginia close and just the margins he was able to get out of Hampton Roads, he was able to win. I will say that I think relative to where she started, Shannon Taylor did pretty well and obviously came up short by just a little bit. And I think, you know, at the end of the day, like that was a very competitive primary and J. Jones was able to pull it out.

05:04.77

Sam Shirazi

So a lot of stuff going on. i did want to talk about two things for November and actually for next year. So for November, the Democratic ticket is set. so you get Abigail Spamberg at the top of the ticket.

05:15.49

Sam Shirazi

You have Ghazal Hashmi in the middle spot. And then you got Jay Jones in the attorney general role. And I think the fact that there is going to be one black person on the ticket,

05:26.99

Sam Shirazi

that will help with turnout of the Black community. And there is also a person from Hampton Roads. So you do see some regional diversity, even though Abigail Spanberger and Ghazal Hashmi are both from the Richmond area.

05:42.68

Sam Shirazi

Jay Jones is also relatively young, certainly for a politician. He is 36 years old and obviously there's been a lot of talk about how the Democratic Party needs to start nominating perhaps more younger candidates and Jay Jones certainly is that and I think will add a little bit of ah youth to the ticket, although even even though Abigail Spanberger, governor nominee, is also relatively young as well for a politician. so I think that's kind an interesting dynamic. I think you'll see an interesting matchup with Lieutenant Governor Winston Mayweather Sears, the Lieutenant Governor candidate for the Republicans, John Reed, and the current Attorney General, Jason Meares. And I think obviously the Republicans also have a diverse ticket. So it's kind of interesting. Both sides have these diverse tickets. They all bring their strengths and it'll be a really interesting general election.

06:29.86

Sam Shirazi

I did want to note one thing that's more online speculation. I frankly don't even know if these people are interested in it. But obviously, Aaron Ross came up short in lieutenant governor's race and Shannon Taylor came up short in the attorney general's race. And happens to be that both of those people live in areas and districts where the Democrats are targeting next year.

06:51.89

Sam Shirazi

with the second congressional district in Hampton Roads, specifically the Virginia Beach area. And then you have the first district, which is Richmond suburbs and goes into the Chesapeake area of Virginia, but that includes Western Henrico, where Shannon Taylor is from. So if either of those people are interested potentially in a congressional run, I do think they both you know obviously came up short, but ran strength, strong campaigns, came up short by just a little bit. And so I think they do have a big name ID, obviously they have a political organization behind them.

07:25.72

Sam Shirazi

And so if they decide to run next year, i think that'll be really interesting to see some of the effects of that. Again, I have no idea if they want to do that. It's very possible they don't run. I don't want to like speculate for them. I'm just saying that's been thrown out there by people online, including you know some national observers of politics and congressional races.

07:45.20

Sam Shirazi

All right. You know, as you can tell, I'm a little bit tired at this point. Election nights are always fun, but they they often go a little bit too long. And it's probably time for me to log off. And, you know, you'll hear this on Wednesday morning. I did want to just kind of give you my initial thoughts. Hopefully they are somewhat coherent. I will try to do one for Saturday morning that is more of a comprehensive look at everything.

08:11.11

Sam Shirazi

probably repeat some of the things I've already said, but also just kind of give some more detail. I did want to go over the House of Delegates because I think there were some important races, both for the battleground districts in November and also some safe seats where the winner is almost certainly going to win the general election. So lot of stuff going on in Virginia.

08:29.23

Sam Shirazi

and think tomorrow when this podcast comes out, this is going to be like the beginning the general election. There's going to strength in November. lot of stuff going on. Really interesting. i I'm glad people are uh, listening to the podcast. I've gotten good pee feedback. hopefully I will continue to be able to do this all the through November and give people my latest updates on what's going on in Virginia.

08:51.37

Sam Shirazi

Really interesting Virginia primary. I think, uh, as the results came in, we were all in suspense for a little bit, trying to figure out who's going to end up on top. And I frankly thought the lieutenant governor's race was going to take a while to call, but it looks like Zahal Hashmi going to be able to pull it out. So anyways, the Virginia elections are always a wild ride. And that's why i made this podcast. There's always something to talk about. It's always super interesting. So I appreciate everyone listening.

09:17.60

Sam Shirazi

This has been Federal Fallout. Please listen to the longer version of the primary recap on Saturday morning and feel free to share this with anyone. this podcast with anyone who's interested in Virginia politics.

09:29.84

Sam Shirazi

But for now, that 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

Hi Everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is a special bonus episode to give you some of my primary predictions before the virginia primary and i wanted to do this because people asked me and i thought it'd be interesting to kind of give you my take on what's going to happen and Now, honestly, I'm not a huge fan of predictions for various reasons. One, and think it's inherently very difficult to make predictions, especially in a primary.

00:26.65

Sam Shirazi

And two, we're going to find out who's going to win on Tuesday night. So there isn't too much left before we find out who the actual nominees will be. But I do think it's interesting to talk about what might happen on Tuesday and give you a little bit of a rundown about what I think is going to happen.

00:43.17

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, full disclosure, these are just my educated guesses. I don't have some magical ability to to see what's going to happen in the future. There have been times in the past where I've got predictions right and there's been times in the past where I've got predictions wrong.

00:54.95

Sam Shirazi

So definitely take what I have to say with a grain of salt. I will try to kind of share what I'm seeing. My goal is not to discourage anyone from voting for a certain candidate if they want to vote for that candidate. I encourage everyone to vote for who they think is the best candidate, not necessarily who they think is going to win.

01:12.01

Sam Shirazi

i do just want to kind of give you my rundown, but obviously I could be wrong. I'm not trying to say that what I'm about to lay out is going to happen on Tuesday night. It's just what I'm seeing as perhaps the most likely scenarios.

01:26.95

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, before I get into the meat of it, I did want to kind of lay out the different regions in Virginia in a Democratic primary. I'm going to focus on the statewide op offices on the Democratic side for lieutenant governor and attorney general.

01:39.97

Sam Shirazi

Generally, there's three different major regions for a Democratic primary. You have northern Virginia, which is obviously the largest region in Virginia and has the largest population and the largest amount of Democrats.

01:50.65

Sam Shirazi

Then you have a Richmond area, which again has a good chunk of Democrats. And then you have Hampton Roads, which also has a decent amount of Democrats, although

02:01.04

Sam Shirazi

And I don't want to ignore Western Virginia, places like Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Roanoke, certainly a good chunk of Democratic votes there. But the reality is, unless it's very close, I don't think Western Virginia is going to be deciding the Democratic primary.

02:14.95

Sam Shirazi

And as you'll see, there's a lot of regional dynamics based on where the candidates are from. And I think a lot of what's going to be happening on Tuesday night are going to be the regional dynamics. So keep that as in mind as the results start coming in.

02:25.97

Sam Shirazi

So you might see one result coming in from Hampton Roads and one candidate doing really well. That doesn't necessarily mean the candidate's going to win the entire election because They might be the Hampton Roads candidate and you have to wait for Northern Virginia to come in before making a final call on the race. And I'm going to try to be pretty conservative when I do make my call on Tuesday night, unless it's really close and otherwise it will take even longer. But I suspect if it's not super, super close, we'll probably know Tuesday night.

02:53.99

Sam Shirazi

So all that's to say is there's like a lot going on. There's a lot of regional dynamics. I'll talk about some of those regional dynamics and then we can go on and talk about, you know, What might end up happening and who might end up on top. And again, i would say with these primaries, it's very hard for anyone to know for certain who's going to win. So take everything I have to say with a grain of salt. But if you're interested, know keep listening.

03:15.49

Sam Shirazi

All right. So first, we will start with the lieutenant governor's race where there are six Democrats running. It's very competitive. It's hard to know who has the edge right now. but I'm going to lay out what I think I'm seeing and what might happen.

03:27.46

Sam Shirazi

And I did this a couple weeks ago, so I don't want to just repeat what I said on the previous podcast. So i'm going to say a little bit different things that I said than the last time to give you a sense of what's going on, because this podcast is right at the end.

03:38.84

Sam Shirazi

So first we will start off with state Senator Aaron Rouse. He is from Virginia beach. So right off the bat, I think he is going to be doing pretty well in Hampton roads. Now, One thing that I'm looking for on Election Day and as the results are coming in is where is there going to be a turnout surge and is there going to be a turnout surge in Hampton Roads? And the reason I say that is for a couple of reasons. One, I would say so far, African-American areas, including Hampton Roads, have had relatively strong turnout in the early vote.

04:08.67

Sam Shirazi

And then the other thing that I think is interesting, really in the weeds dynamic is Virginia Beach. So obviously, Aaron Rouse is from Virginia Beach. And one thing that I noticed is this time Virginia Beach only had one early voting location and it didn't have any satellite voting locations.

04:23.72

Sam Shirazi

And I imagine the reason for that was they just didn't see the need to have satellite voting locations because ah ah it wasn't going to be like presidential election turnout. But that means that there's only been one place to vote in Virginia Beach in person this entire election early voting cycle.

04:40.52

Sam Shirazi

And if you think about Virginia Beach has a big population, has is big geographically. So if you live on the other end of Virginia Beach, you may not be driving over to vote at your early voting location. and And that means that you're more likely to come out on Election Day. So I do think there's a scenario where there's maybe a bit of a surge in Virginia Beach, particularly if Rouse is able to bring out his supporters.

04:59.95

Sam Shirazi

And that's one of the things I'm going to be looking at. And I think one of the reasons a little bit inherently unpredictable what's going to be happening Tuesday night as the results start coming in. All right, now let's move over to the next candidate who is state senator Ghazala Hashmi.

05:13.89

Sam Shirazi

She comes from the Richmond suburbs, and I imagine she's going to be doing pretty well in the Richmond suburbs. But you cannot win as a statewide candidate just with the Richmond suburbs, and I think she knows that. And that's why she's also been focusing a lot on Northern Virginia and the Northern Virginia suburbs, and particularly among women voters in Northern Virginia. I think there's a path for her.

05:33.19

Sam Shirazi

And again, I'll talk a little bit about the early voting nuance and in the weed details. So I would say inner Northern Virginia, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax has really picked up recently in the early vote at the end.

05:45.06

Sam Shirazi

And there's been a decent turnout surge, which is pretty expected because those parts of Northern Virginia have a lot of politically engaged people. And usually you see pretty high turnout in Arlington, Alexandria, of Fairfax.

05:56.63

Sam Shirazi

I think one thing that's been interesting is Loudoun and Prince William, which I i call more outer Northern Virginia, has had relatively less turnout, I would say. Even compared to other parts of Virginia.

06:08.12

Sam Shirazi

And I don't know why that is I mean, it's possible people are just waiting for election day. And one thing to keep in mind with those areas, in terms of for Hashmi specifically, those areas, Loudoun in particular, has a decent South Asian community.

06:21.77

Sam Shirazi

And so if she's able to connect with South south Asian voters, that's another block of voters that she might be able to to have on her side as the election results start coming in. So again, there might be this turnout surge in outer Northern Virginia and Loudoun and Prince William. For whatever reason, people might not have wanted to go early vote because maybe the early voting locations were not super close to them because those are big counties.

06:44.50

Sam Shirazi

All right. So the next candidate is former Richmond mayor, LeVar Stoney.

06:48.92

Sam Shirazi

I think he's going to be expecting to do pretty well in Richmond city. The wild card again is Northern Virginia. And if you think about it, you know, who is competing for the Northern Virginia votes?

06:59.86

Sam Shirazi

All the candidates. But I do think Stoney, his angle is he has the backing of former Governor Terry McAuliffe. And if you see some of those more moderate suburban voters,

07:12.24

Sam Shirazi

who are looking for their candidate, who they're going to back. And if they end up choosing Stoney because of the McAuliffe endorsement or because of you know his time with the Democratic Party, then it's possible that Stoney starts to break through in Northern Virginia, particularly somewhere like Fairfax, where Terry McAuliffe is from and has you know been campaigning for Stoney. If he's able to break through in Fairfax, a lot of votes in Fairfax, and if he becomes kind of the Northern Virginia candidate, you can kind of see him putting this together, this coalition of know black voters, Richmond voters, ah voters from Northern Virginia, and then he might be able to to break through and and kind of get enough votes where he's going to end up on top.

07:50.10

Sam Shirazi

All right. Next candidate is Prince William County School Board Chair Barbara Lateef. As I mentioned, Prince William County has not necessarily turned out as much as other parts of Virginia yet. But again, if that changes on Election Day, there's a huge surge of turnout in Prince William County.

08:04.48

Sam Shirazi

That should help Lateef. He's also come out really strongly against the Fairfax Casino. And if a lot of voters in Fairfax, if their number one issue is the Fairfax Casino, I think, again, you'll be seeing him doing well. And that could get him a lot of votes because Obviously, Fairfax County is the biggest county in Virginia.

08:22.29

Sam Shirazi

mean, I think the challenge for him is the rest of his statewide numbers are a little bit unknown. And i don't know how much support he's going to get in in Richmond area or Hampton Roads. But in theory, if he can really run up the score in Northern Virginia, then there could be this path for Lateef in Northern Virginia. Then there could be this path where Lateef gets enough votes out of Northern Virginia.

08:44.98

Sam Shirazi

Okay. And finally, the last two candidates. Again, i think I've talked about this in the past podcast. I think they just have a harder time breaking through when you have these other candidates running. There's former DOJ prosecutor, Victor Salgado. I think he'll do relatively well in Northern Virginia, relatively well with Hispanic voters. But again, I don't know if that's enough to get the votes he needs.

09:04.63

Sam Shirazi

And then you have former labor official, Alex Bastani. I think he will be doing... you know, he'll relatively well with more progressive voters. Again, I don't know how many of them are actually going to come out and what percentage of the primary that's going to be. So I just, it's, it's hard to see the him putting together the coalition he needs.

09:21.29

Sam Shirazi

All right. So as you can see, a lot of different candidates, a lot of different paths to winning It's really and impossible to know which one is going to put together that coalition that's going to be able to get them to the number they need to win. i think it really depends who shows up on election day. And I can't model that. I can't predict that, particularly in a primary, there's really no way of knowing.

09:42.22

Sam Shirazi

I did want to lay out two scenarios. And I will say I've kind of copped out of giving a final prediction with one candidate winning this primary. I'll give you my overall thoughts on what's going to be happening.

09:53.43

Sam Shirazi

I think there's one scenario where there's this turnout surge in Hampton Roads and specifically Virginia Beach because of the satellite voting location issue. And then you see Rouse doing better with black voters and then he gets what he needs in Northern Virginia. And then you can see a scenario where Rouse ends up on top. He puts together that coalition.

10:12.19

Sam Shirazi

that he's able to get to kind of the magic number of 35%. So I would say if there's kind of a surge in turnout in Hampton Roads, then I would rate the race basically tilt-rouse. All right, but let's talk about a different scenario. And that's where we see a Northern Virginia surge.

10:27.10

Sam Shirazi

And for example, if Loudon and Prince William really start coming out in big numbers, and then have

10:32.72

Sam Shirazi

And then Hashmi is able to break through in Northern Virginia, for example, with women voters or with South Asian voters. And she's just really doing better with that demographic and is able to kind of become the Northern Virginia candidate. And then she has the Richmond suburbs.

10:47.22

Sam Shirazi

You would think, okay, that should... give her a path where she might be able to win. And, you know, there's kind of maybe this scenario where Rouse and Stoney are maybe splitting some of the black vote and she's connecting more with the suburban voters, then you could see a scenario where she ends up on top. And so i would say if there is this Northern Virginia surge and if it if it benefits Hashmi, then I would rate the race as maybe Tilt Hashmi.

11:14.88

Sam Shirazi

You know, I would say s Stoney's path is somewhat similar in that it he could be if he becomes a Northern Virginia candidate and then maybe if he does better with black voters, then he would have a path. I think the challenge he has is he doesn't have the natural you know connection where Hashmi has a base with women voters that, you know you know, a certain amount of the voters are just going to back Hashmi because.

11:36.52

Sam Shirazi

She's the only woman in the race, and that tends to help women candidates. think the issue Stoney has is he's competing with both Hashmi and Rouse. And so with Rouse, he's competing for the black voters. And then with Hashmi, he's competing for suburban voters.

11:51.51

Sam Shirazi

And there's a scenario where he just doesn't necessarily get the numbers he needs with either community. And then he ends up not winning the race. So I'm not saying that's going to happen. I think that's one of the scenarios that could happen. Now, in theory, if he again, if he does better with black voters, he does better with suburban voters, then you can see him putting together this coalition where he ends up on top.

12:10.57

Sam Shirazi

But I would say if I had to pick, gun to my head, the top two, Right now competing on Tuesday night are going to be between Rouse and Hashmi. Again, I could be wrong about that.

12:21.35

Sam Shirazi

I think Stoney definitely has a chance, but I'm just you know trying to lay out what i'm I'm seeing. And that's not to say that I don't think Stoney can win. It's just if I had to pick, that's kind of what I'm seeing right now.

12:34.10

Sam Shirazi

And for Lateef, it's kind of a ah ah similar story where, um know, in theory, I could see him getting the margins he needs in Northern Virginia to pull it off. I just think, you know, the question mark is what are his votes going to look like in Richmond and Hampton Roads? And I just don't know if he's able to get those numbers in the other parts of Virginia. But obviously, if he does get really high margins in Northern Virginia, then that could be enough for him.

12:55.94

Sam Shirazi

And then the other two candidates, you know, Salgado and Bastani, as I talked about, I think it's harder for them to put together a coalition to win. So all that's to say is like, I typically don't like to do these cop out type predictions. I typically like to pick someone.

13:10.47

Sam Shirazi

If I could, I probably would. i would just say this race is just really, really close. And we just don't know who's going to show up on election day. And for that reason, I actually think that's going to drive turnout. And there's going to be probably more turnout on election day because...

13:23.97

Sam Shirazi

all the candidates are working out to to get their voters. They're all voting, focusing on their different voting bases. And I think it's going to be really interesting. I'm really curious what overall turnout is going to be. I think that's going to be one of the stories after the primary. And obviously I'll talk about that once we have the final turnout number, but really interesting LG race. I think it's going to be really fascinating to see what the results are going to be.

14:03.31

Sam Shirazi

All right, now let's move on to attorney general, which in some ways is very is much simpler because we only have two candidates. However, I do think there's a similar Hampton Roads versus Northern Virginia dynamic.

14:14.42

Sam Shirazi

So in terms of the attorney general race, I've talked about this in the past. think the thing that changed recently in the last two weeks or so has been the big donations that Shannon Taylor has been getting from Dominion.

14:27.72

Sam Shirazi

Last I checked, the total number that Shannon Taylor has gotten from Dominion this entire primary cycle has been $800,000, I think that any that any primary that Dominion's gotten into.

14:40.08

Sam Shirazi

I will say Jay Jones has been getting support from Clean Virginia. So he's getting the Clean Virginia money and Shannon Taylor is getting the Dominion Energy money. That's leading to a lot of ads on both sides, a lot of focus on Northern Virginia, because I think that's where the race is going to be decided.

14:54.01

Sam Shirazi

And again, I think it's a similar dynamic. Is there going to be a surge in Hampton Roads and or is there going to be a surge in Northern Virginia? So if there's a surge in Hampton Roads, I think that definitely benefits Jay Jones.

15:05.26

Sam Shirazi

His base is in Norfolk. I think he's going to a good margin out of Norfolk. I think he's going to do well generally in Hampton Roads. And so if if we're seeing more voters turning out in Hampton Roads, you know, it's going to be pretty easy for Jay Jones to put together a coalition where he gets good margin from Hampton Roads, he gets a good margin with black voters, and then he keeps it pretty competitive in Northern Virginia, and then he's able to win.

15:28.14

Sam Shirazi

And I think the advantage that Jay Jones has compared to the lieutenant governor race is he's the only black candidate in the race. And so it it isn't going to be split like it is in the LG race between Rouse and Stoney. And so I think for all those reasons, I think he has the easier path to victory. And I do think if there is this more Hampton Roads surge scenario, then I would rate Jones as a favorite in that scenario.

15:52.41

Sam Shirazi

However, i think there's a similar dynamic if there is this surge of voters in Northern Virginia, particularly if there's a lot of women coming out in Northern Virginia and Shannon Taylor is able to break through with the women voters and she's able to use the money that she's been able to get from Dominion to reach those voters, you can see a scenario where she kind of breaks through, she becomes the Northern Virginia candidate and she's able to win.

16:14.100

Sam Shirazi

It's a little bit what happened, I would say, in 2021 where Mark Herring got really big margins in Northern Virginia. I think the challenge for Shannon Taylor is like, i don't know if she's going to be able to match the Mark Herring margins in Northern Virginia or even really get close to them because Mark Herring was from Northern Virginia.

16:31.96

Sam Shirazi

Shannon Taylor is from Richmond. I think she'll do well in the Richmond suburbs, but I just don't know if she'll be able to be getting the numbers she needs in Northern Virginia, given the fact that Jay Jones is going to get a good amount of vote votes out of Hampton Roads. So, you know,

16:46.68

Sam Shirazi

Because this is a one-on-one race, I feel like I have to pick a candidate and I can't do some sort of cop-out thing like I did in the LG race. So you know my gut is telling me just given the the easier path that Jay Jones has, he even if there is some sort of Northern Virginia surge, I still think he would be the favorite, although it'd be kind of slight at that point.

17:07.45

Sam Shirazi

I do think there is a scenario where Shannon Taylor can win, so I don't want to discount that possibility. But I did want to kind of pick. And if if there's kind of a, if I had to pick, I would say Jay Jones should win the attorney general race.

17:19.98

Sam Shirazi

And again, I felt like a one-on-one race, I have to pick someone. I think in the LG race, because there were six candidates, I felt a little bit more comfortable copping out and not giving one prediction because I think it's just very difficult to make a prediction when there's a six way race.

17:36.15

Sam Shirazi

All right, now let's move on to the House of Delegates. And i don't want to go through race by race because I think House of Delegates races just inherently are very hard to predict what's going to happen, especially if it's not a super high profile House of Delegates race. So I don't know I'll give you my whole list of predictions for the House of Delegates.

17:55.15

Sam Shirazi

I will say, you know, there are three incumbents facing primaries, two on the Democratic side, one on the Republican side. you know I could be wrong, but in my opinion, I don't see any of the incumbents this year who are facing primaries lose in the Virginia House of Delegates.

18:10.03

Sam Shirazi

Just because I think it's going to be interesting to talk about the battleground districts, I will go through each battleground district that faces a primary and talk about who I think will end up on top. So first, I will start with off with the Democrats, and I will start off with House District 57 in the Richmond suburbs.

18:25.94

Sam Shirazi

I've talked about this district before. This is the one that I think is most likely to flip. So there are two Democrats running. And in my opinion, given just the endorsements and the money she's been able to raise, I think May Navar is likely to be the Democratic nominee in this district, which will set up a competitive race with the Republican David Owen.

18:44.29

Sam Shirazi

And I think if the Democrats are having a good night, this is probably going to be the first seat that will flip for the Democrats in November. So we'll see how that race shapes up. I will move over to House District 73, also in the Richmond suburbs. And this is another one where I feel pretty comfortable that I think the Democratic nominee is going to be Leslie Mehta.

19:03.48

Sam Shirazi

And the reason I say that is she's gotten a lot of the endorsements. She was the and Democratic nominee in the first House District in 2020. So I just think there's a lot of dynamics where it makes sense that she would be able to win that primary.

19:15.92

Sam Shirazi

And while this one is a was only a plus one Harris district in 2024. I do think the Democrats, if they're having a good night in the suburbs in November, this is a type of seat that could flip.

19:27.26

Sam Shirazi

So we'll see an interesting race between, likely we'll see it between Leslie Mehta and the Republican incumbent Mark Early. All right, one more seat in the Richmond suburbs, and that's House District 75, where the current incumbent is Republican Kerry Conyer.

19:43.65

Sam Shirazi

I think this is kind of an interesting primary because there's three three people running. um I had to pick, I would say there's a slight advantage to Lindsey Daughtry just because she's raised more money.

19:54.77

Sam Shirazi

i will say I think there's a chance that Stephen Miller Pitts might also be able to win because the district has a decent black population. And I think if he's able to bring out those voters, he might be able to be the nominee.

20:05.55

Sam Shirazi

But if I had to pick, I'd say right now, maybe Lindsey Daughtry is a little bit favored, just given the fundraising she was able to do. So that's where I'm seeing that race. And I think, again, very competitive race in November because Harris won that seat by six points.

20:20.47

Sam Shirazi

All right. One more Democratic primary in a battleground district. And this is in House District 89 in the Suffolk-Chesapeake area. The incumbent Republican has retired.

20:31.41

Sam Shirazi

And this is roughly a plus three Harris seat from 2024. And I think there's a decent chance that Karen Carnegie will be the Democratic nominee in this district, just given the amount of money that she's been able to raise. So that'll be interesting to see if she's able to flip this seat now that it's open.

20:48.49

Sam Shirazi

All right, might as well talk about the 89th district on the Republican side because this is an open district. So there will also be a Republican primary on election night. And I would say that in this district,

21:03.62

Sam Shirazi

Mike Lamine would be the favorite to be the Republican nominee, just given the amount of money he's raised. And I think he has the endorsement of the current delegate, Baxter Ennis. So if I had to guess, I'm guessing we are going to be seeing a Lamine versus Carnegie matchup in November in this district.

21:20.10

Sam Shirazi

All right. Two more battleground districts with Republican primaries. So first, I will talk about the 21st House district. This is in western Prince William County. Current incumbent is Democrat Josh Thomas.

21:31.40

Sam Shirazi

There are three Republicans running to face him. Honestly, this is probably one of the hardest primaries to pick because, frankly, none of the campaigns has raised a lot of money. None of them have really decided. distinguished themselves.

21:42.63

Sam Shirazi

So I really don't know who's going to pick. If I had to pick a name out of a hat, basically, I am going to go with Gregory Lee Gorham. I, that's basically just I think he might be a little bit more well-known in the district, but honestly, it's really hard to know who's going to win that seat, uh, for the primary.

22:01.26

Sam Shirazi

Whoever wins will end up facing Josh Thomas. I think the Republicans have their work cut out for them because Josh Thomas has a big, war chest right now and none of the Republicans have raised much money, although obviously that can change after the primary. So another race to look out for in November.

22:35.92

Sam Shirazi

All right. And actually, I'll do two more primaries and then I'll wrap it up. And these are in open seats that are safe Republican seats. So I think it's important to talk about the primary and who I think might win because the winner is likely going to be the next delegate because these are very red seats.

22:52.37

Sam Shirazi

All right. And my pick for who's going to win is Adam Tolbert. And that's mainly because he has raised more money and he's gotten the endorsement of Governor Glenn Youngkin, which you would think in a Republican primary should help him. So I'm going to go without Adam Tolbert for winning this nomination. And if he does win the nomination, he's almost certainly going to be the next delegate from this district.

23:12.12

Sam Shirazi

All right, one more Republican district, this is House District 62 current incumbent Nick Friedus is retiring and my pick for winning the primary. is going to be Karen Hamilton, the main reason I picked her is because she gets the endorsement from Nick Friedus so you would think that that would help, although.

23:29.22

Sam Shirazi

I also think it's possible that Clay Jackson might pull off the upset, but I'm going to go with Karen Hamilton. And again, take all this with a super grain of salt because House of Delegates primaries are even more difficult to predict in some some cases. Some cases they're pretty easy to predict, but I think in some other instances, it's very hard to predict House of Delegates primaries. So I just did that more to kind of talk about the fact that there are House of Delegates primaries and Hopefully people find it interesting to when I also talk about the House Delegates primaries.

23:57.76

Sam Shirazi

However, as I mentioned, I think the vast majority attention on primary day will be on the statewide races for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General. i hope ah ah you found this interesting to go over some certain scenarios and what might be happening on the Democratic primary.

24:13.26

Sam Shirazi

Again, i want to caveat everything, like take everything I say with a grain of salt. I could be wrong. I do think one thing I find annoying about pundits is that they typically only highlight the times they are right and they don't highlight the times they are wrong.

24:27.38

Sam Shirazi

And i will give you some full disclosure. i think I've had ah more success predicting Virginia stuff than federal stuff. So I'll give you my history or my recent history. So in 2023, I was able to predict that the Democrats were going to win the state Senate and that were at least going to tie in the House of Delegates, if not get a majority. And that's what ended up happening.

24:48.44

Sam Shirazi

Now, I will give a shout out to Chaz Nuttycomb. He actually predicted every single House race in that in the House of Delegates and in the state Senate. So he got all 140 seats right. I did not go that far and make predictions in individual races. I made kind of chamber predictions.

25:04.55

Sam Shirazi

So definitely Chaz Nadecombe gets a shout out for 2023 because he was correct in the predictions. 2024, I was correct in the Virginia primaries for the congressional seats. I got all the congressional primaries correct in 2024.

25:18.66

Sam Shirazi

However, in full disclosure, I did get the 2024 general election wrong. Nationally, I did get the congressional races and the Senate seat in Virginia correct in 2024. in terms of those races.

25:30.51

Sam Shirazi

However, I did get the 2024 national predictions wrong. And that kind of taught me that maybe I should say that national politics um and my predictions are maybe a little bit better in Virginia elections as opposed to national politics.

25:42.74

Sam Shirazi

However, i so I lay all that out there to say that I've had a mixed record. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong. I think it's important for pundits to be honest and transparent about when they get things right, they get things wrong.

25:53.74

Sam Shirazi

These races very much I could get wrong. I think especially with the statewide Democratic primaries, there's a level of volatility that's really inherently unpredictable. Who's going to show up on election day is very unpredictable.

26:06.58

Sam Shirazi

There is no way for me to make any sort of prediction with any sort of sense of confidence about who's going to be winning. But I did want to lay out different scenarios and different paths people have to victory.

26:17.48

Sam Shirazi

And, know, hopefully people found it interesting instead of bugging me about who who they think, who who I think is going to and win. They can listen to this podcast. And I appreciate everyone.

26:28.61

Sam Shirazi

joining and listening. um I'll obviously have more coverage of the primary once the results come in. And then once we get through the primary, I mean, that's really general election. So we've been focused on the primary a lot.

26:39.53

Sam Shirazi

Then we will get to the general election and it's going to be a sprint to the general election, a little over four months until we get till November. And there's going to be a lot going on. and I will cover it all. And I think it's going to be super interesting. So appreciate everyone listening to this podcast. Hopefully if you enjoy it, feel free to write a review it it helps people learn about the podcast. And obviously if you think people are interested in what's going on this Tuesday in Virginia, feel free to share this podcast with anyone who you think is interested, but otherwise I will be seeing you Tuesday night as I post the results as they come in. And then I will probably do a another podcast for you.

27:18.53

Sam Shirazi

for Wednesday morning just to kind of give everyone an update on how everything turned out. So should be an exciting night and make sure you you vote if you haven't already and you are able to vote in Virginia. And I will join you next time for a 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

Hi everyone, I am Sam Shirazi and this is federal fallout the 2025 Virginia elections, this is a special bonus episode looking at potential foreign policy fallout in the Virginia elections and i'm going to be talking more so about the historical fallout and three Virginia elections in 2001. Sam Shirazi, 2005 2021 and obviously the reason i'm bringing this up is because of the conflict right now between Israel and Iran.

00:24.59

Sam Shirazi

And I just wanted to kind of touch base about that and why it might influence the Virginia elections. I did want to note that obviously Tuesday is the Democratic primary. you got to hear from Chaz about some of his insights about what's going to be happening on Tuesday. I'm hoping Monday morning I will be releasing my final predictions for the Tuesday primary. thanks.

00:44.78

Sam Shirazi

ah You'll have to wait a little bit longer to get my input on that. But I did want to talk about this issue right now that's going on ah in the Middle East because obviously it's possible things die down and it doesn't end up being that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things and no one will really remember in November. It's also possible that it becomes a prolonged conflict that ah perhaps drags in the United States. Obviously, the immediate impact has been a spike in oil prices. So there's also a risk of long term rises in oil prices.

01:16.67

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, one of the things that hurt President Biden during his term was the spike in oil prices and the rise in in gas prices because of the Ukraine war. And it's possible that would happen again ah with this current conflict.

01:30.25

Sam Shirazi

And I did want to note that there are um people in Virginia who have family and friends both in Iran and Israel, and obviously it's a difficult time for those individuals. um And I just wanted to talk about this issue because i think a lot of times with the Virginia elections, we think of them as you know state elections, just domestic policy. But I do think there have been those three instances where foreign policy has gotten into the Virginia elections. And I wanted to kind of talk about that from a historical perspective.

01:56.10

Sam Shirazi

And then talk about, you know, perhaps what would happen this year. So in terms of the historical perspective, I think the first really in modern history, big election where foreign policy influenced the Virginia elections was in 2001. And it's pretty crazy to think about it now. But obviously, there was the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks, which were Awful. And, you know, most people think of the Twin Towers in New York, but the Pentagon was also hit in Arlington, Virginia, and that is in Virginia.

02:25.64

Sam Shirazi

a lot of people don't think of Virginia as being attacked on 9-11, but ah there was a... terrorist attack in Virginia on 9-11 and tragic tragically people lost their lives.

02:36.20

Sam Shirazi

So, you know, there was a direct big impact to Virginia from those terrorist attacks. And then obviously the next month, the the U.S. began ah military operations in Afghanistan against the Taliban.

02:47.92

Sam Shirazi

And that was all going on while the Virginia elections were going to happen in early November 2001. And, you know, it was a little bit before my time. I don't quite remember everything related to the Virginia elections. I remember 9-11, but I don't remember um its impact on the Virginia elections.

03:03.79

Sam Shirazi

And I looked at some old articles and basically it seemed like the campaign was paused for a while because obviously the country was going through a lot and people were processing it and they weren't really super tuned into a Virginia state election. And I do think it kind of Lowered the temperature of the election. um It's a little bit hard to imagine now, but there was a time after nine eleven immediately after 9-11, where Americans really came together and there wasn't this huge partisanship that we see today.

03:29.77

Sam Shirazi

And Americans were a lot more united. So I think there was a sense that neither campaign really wanted to attack each other. And, you know, i think while all that was going on in the background, it's kind of amazing that it didn't have a bigger impact on the election. And I think both sides just kind of wanted to focus on more of the domestic issues and not really bring nine eleven into the Virginia elections, even though it had happened, you know, and it was just fresh in everyone's mind. And if you were around after 9-11, obviously that was basically the only thing people were thinking about.

04:02.56

Sam Shirazi

And so, yeah. It was kind of an amazing thing that, you know less than two months after that, ah Virginia had an election. It's also kind of amazing that Mark Warner was able to win that election, considering ah how popular The Republican president, George W. Bush, was at the time because of the aftermath of 9-11 and a rally around the flag kind of feeling in the country. So that was the first Virginia elections where I think there was a big impact by foreign policy. But it's kind of ironic that it mainly just kind of slowed things down and made the campaign a little less intense and and kind of put it in the back burner, which.

04:35.73

Sam Shirazi

I guess ultimately helped Mark Warner because it was more focused on some of these domestic issues and he was able to win, even though the Republican president at that time was very popular. And so that's kind of interesting because usually you think the the president is not popular and that's why the party out of the White House does well in Virginia elections. But there you had a Virginia election where the party in the White House at the time was very popular and yet Mark Warner was still able to win.

05:01.11

Sam Shirazi

All right. Now let's move on four years to 2005 when George W. Bush was no longer popular, even though he was reelected. I talked about this in a previous episode.

05:11.30

Sam Shirazi

pause. In 2005, the impacts of the Iraq war were really starting to be felt, both in terms of the cost of the war, the number of troops that were dying. And it was one of those things where people were seeing the images every night, troops dying in Iraq, and it wasn't going well. And obviously, Virginia is very impacted by

05:31.29

Sam Shirazi

The military, it's a military dependent state. People knew people their friends and family were being sent over to Iraq, and sometimes they were being sent on multiple tours and it was creating a strain on the military. And while I think initially the war was supported by most Americans, I think by the time 2005,

05:50.07

Sam Shirazi

started to um happen, the war was a lot less popular. And I think ah Americans felt that they were being trapped in you know a civil war in Iraq, where a lot of people weren't even sure why we were there anymore.

06:03.63

Sam Shirazi

And so I think all of that was in the backdrop. I don't think explicitly the election was necessarily about the Iraq war because it was a Virginia local state election. But I think it, one, energizes a lot of Democrats and Democratic activists to get involved in that election.

06:17.52

Sam Shirazi

And certainly it really dragged down George W. Bush's approval ratings to the point that um he came and campaigned late in that election and it didn't really help the Republicans. And if anything, it backfired on the Republicans. So I thought it was interesting that you had this election where it wasn't.

06:33.86

Sam Shirazi

purely a referendum on Iraq, but it it was in the background. And I think that helped the Democrats and that helped him came win in 2005 with that election and being able to ah follow more corner into the governor's mansion.

06:47.09

Sam Shirazi

All right, so um I would say the next few Virginia elections weren't really heavily influenced by foreign policy, but we can fast forward to 2021 where there was the withdrawal from Afghanistan that happened in the summer of 2021.

07:00.61

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, while I feel like most Americans probably supported leaving Afghanistan, The way that it happened and the chaotic nature of it and the fact that um some U.S. troops were killed and there were images that were difficult to watch of Afghans trying to cling on to the U.S. planes while they were leaving. I think that all created a obviously a negative impression on the American people about the way President Biden was handling the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

07:26.76

Sam Shirazi

um I think Virginia being a military heavy state, a lot of people may have served in Afghanistan. I think seeing the way that it ended was difficult for many people. And, you know, at the end of the day, President Biden was in office, and I think he took the blame for the way it it was handled, even though, as I mentioned, I think most people wanted to leave Afghanistan. They didn't want to necessarily see it end like that. And the fact that Taliban were able to take over Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrew.

07:54.38

Sam Shirazi

And, i you know, kind of reading between the lines, you you hear from some of the McAuliffe campaign people that, you know, it was pretty competitive ah before the withdrawal from Afghanistan. But then after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, I think that's when things really went south for the McAuliffe campaign. And not to say that that was everything and that's the reason they lost. I mean, there were other issues. There was COVID, there was a schools issue. um But I think in the background, there was that ah withdrawal from Afghanistan that led to kind of a pretty sharp decline in President Biden's approval ratings. And it never really approved, his approval never really rebounded after it went down after the um withdrawal from Afghanistan. So I think all that's to say is, ah you know, it was one of the many factors, maybe one of the straws that broke the camel's back in 2021, where most people had thought at the beginning year, the Democrats were going to win Virginia because President Biden had won it and by 10 points in 2020.

08:48.18

Sam Shirazi

And then by the end of um 2021, Glenn Youngkin was able to win Virginia by two points because of all these factors and it was this perfect storm. And I do think one of the perfect storms was Afghanistan because if you look at the vote in Hampton Roads, which is a very military dependent area, ah the Democrats just generally didn't do well in Hampton Roads in 2021. And I think that was part of the reason.

09:10.92

Sam Shirazi

All right. And, you know, I don't want to speculate too much right now because what's going on between Israel and Iran is obviously very fluid. There's a lot of ways it could end. um You know, there was a few weeks ago where it looked like maybe ah India and Pakistan were about to go to war, but that seemed to have been averted.

09:27.73

Sam Shirazi

So you never really know, especially in something as unpredictable as this. But, um you know, I will say that it's possible this gets dragged on and by November there there could still be things going on um related to this conflict and that might influence American politics. Obviously, America could get um dragged into the war if um it feels like it needs to be defending Israel and needs to um you deploy troops and and other resources to the Middle East.

09:55.79

Sam Shirazi

And I think it's just one of those things where foreign policy is very unpredictable. And it often has these impacts in elections in a way that you just can't control for other like other things where are a little bit more predictable.

10:09.64

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, obviously um one of the things that hurt Democrats last year was um the war in Gaza. And, you know, that happened in October 2023. But um the effects were still felt a year after that in November 2024. And i think that's one of the reasons. Obviously, there were many reasons why the Democrats lost in 2024. But I do think the war in Gaza was one of them.

10:29.06

Sam Shirazi

So while, yes, we're in the middle of June, um it's possible by the November, no one remembers this. It's also possible these things tend to drag on. Obviously, the Ukraine war started in 2022. It's still going on.

10:40.49

Sam Shirazi

um You know, once these wars start, sometimes they're hard to end. And the longer a war drags on, but usually the worse it is for the party in the White House because people blame the president when a conflict is not resolved.

10:53.26

Sam Shirazi

So I'm not saying that's going to happen this time. i do think there's a possibility. um you know i don't imagine this election is going to be a referendum on what's going on necessarily in the Middle East. But if you think about...

11:06.08

Sam Shirazi

the potential rise in in oil prices, and you think about some of the bigger implications on the economy, it's possible, it's part of the overall impression about what's going on in DC. And you know part of what President Trump ran on in 2024 was this promise to bring back um stability and and order and strength. And you know he criticized President Biden for the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

11:29.52

Sam Shirazi

And if people don't really feel like the world's getting more orderly and things are more peaceful, um it's possible Republicans will pay the price because um they campaigned on that. And the Democrats certainly didn't benefit from the fact that there were wars going on in 2024. And um so we'll we'll just have to wait and see. I don't want to dwell on it too much. I do think...

11:50.39

Sam Shirazi

The historical analogies are kind of interesting to think about when foreign policy fell into the Virginia elections. um I kind of wanted to do this episode to talk about something a little bit different because next few days are going to be really about the primaries, um even though all this other stuff is going on in the world. So keep your eye keep keep an eye out. I do want to release a podcast right before the primary about the Virginia elections.

12:15.57

Sam Shirazi

ah primary and ah about my predictions. I think it's going to be a little bit hard to make any sort of final calls, but I'll try my best to come up with something. And so hopefully you listen to that. I hope you found the ah podcast with Chaz interesting to hear from his perspective.

12:30.80

Sam Shirazi

And I appreciate everyone listening. um you know There's going to be a lot of twists and turns in this campaign. It's still you know crazy to think that we're over four months, four and a half months away from the election. a lot of things can still happen. So please follow along. I've gotten good feedback and i appreciate everyone who's been listening and sharing the podcast and writing reviews and feel free to keep doing that if you enjoy the podcast. But I will join you soon with my primary predictions.

12:59.14

Sam Shirazi

And this has been Federal Fallout and I hope everyone has good weekend and then I'll see you on Monday.

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

Hi Everyone I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode, we will have our first return guest with Chaz Nadecombe.

00:11.51

Sam Shirazi

Chaz, thanks again for coming back.

00:13.29

Chaz Nuttycombe

Hey, Sam. It's so good to be back. Thanks for having me on.

00:16.38

Sam Shirazi

Yeah. So before we turn to Virginia and the primaries on Tuesday, I did want to talk a little bit about State Navigate. I've been watching what you guys have been doing. Really cool stuff, including the map you have of all the House of Delegates districts this year in Virginia. So did you want to talk a little bit about what State Navigate is and and how people can find out more about the elections this year in Virginia?

00:38.17

Chaz Nuttycombe

State Navigate is a 501c3 nonpartisan nonprofit. So all donations are tax deductible. We don't have a dog in the fight. You know, we just like data.

00:48.81

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, you know, that's precinct data. That's ideology data. We don't have that out for Virginia yet. just launched it in South Carolina for calculating the ideology of the legislators using W nominate, which has been used for Congress for 35 years.

01:03.27

Chaz Nuttycombe

we are getting into, um, trying trying to conduct polling, public polling for, you know, races for governor and and house of delegates districts. You know, there's no such thing as say, let's say of district public polling, right?

01:15.88

Chaz Nuttycombe

it's all like, oh, whether you get your hands on an internal or something, uh, We aggregate news. We forecast elections. We show the demographics of districts. We list in one nice, easy table the every donation received and every expenditure made by candidates campaigns.

01:36.94

Chaz Nuttycombe

and that's just kind of the beginning of what we have so far. And we got more coming down the pipeline. you know, we're, uh, starting on list of committees, list of legislators, list of bills, what bills have legislators sponsored and co-sponsored, right.

01:52.08

Chaz Nuttycombe

that's kind of the next phase of development. And I'm hoping that we're going to get it done in a couple of weeks, end of July, You know, i think this is the biggest brunt of the of the site.

02:03.88

Chaz Nuttycombe

after that, you know, we may just kind of juggle around see what states we can get out. We're trying to open up and at least half of the states this year. I think at most we would get to 38.

02:14.01

Chaz Nuttycombe

are currently up in Virginia and South Carolina. After that is Utah. So, yeah. And I am the ah president of the organization.

02:23.85

Sam Shirazi

Well, congrats on getting that up and running, and I definitely recommend everyone go check out State Navigate to learn more about state legislatures, including in Virginia this year. So speaking of Virginia, let's turn to the primaries that are coming up on Tuesday. so There's a there's a decent amount of House Delegates primaries, but I did want to focus more on the statewide races for the Democrats, because I think that's where most of the attention is going to be.

02:52.31

Sam Shirazi

First in the lieutenant governor's race for the Democrats, there's six Democrats running. And I think it's pretty hard to get a sense of who's up, who's down. and My sense is it's pretty competitive and may not find out who's going to win until later in the night on Tuesday, depending how close it is.

03:11.09

Sam Shirazi

So, Chaz, can you kind of give us your sense of what's going on in the lieutenant governor primary for the Democrats?

03:16.66

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah. So, you know, we've been kind of looking at just early vote and turnout. Last week was a pretty good week for the Stoney campaign terms of Richmond City, especially the African-American parts of the city in the East End and North and and South, which is Stoney's base in the Richmond area.

03:37.54

Chaz Nuttycombe

has been kind of catching up, it's still, when we were looking at votes as of Tuesday, was still falling behind Chesterfield and Henrico.

03:48.18

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think that, you know, I mean, Stoney does have a lot of money, but um I would be kind of surprised if he won. I wouldn't say it's impossible. I would say this is largely now between, I, if I had to pick, I would say it's largely now between Hashmi and, uh, uh, Rouse.

04:09.16

Chaz Nuttycombe

So I think it's probably going to be one of them too. You know, maybe Stoney is going to do well or do more importantly, do better with black voters and Rouse does.

04:22.31

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. That would be one of those things for, for a path to victory. You know, Rouse has come in and, uh the what like a week uh until the campaign or just under a week and you know is going after stony for the whole water crisis thing and so they're swinging at each other hashmi hasn't really taken any swings or thrown any you know and i would think that hashmi is going to win henrico and chesterfield and

04:50.98

Chaz Nuttycombe

Powhatan, Hanover, Goochland, you know, those, those counties in the suburbs and exurbs. think the question is, you know, like how does Southside go for Stoney and Rouse?

05:06.33

Chaz Nuttycombe

Cause they're probably going to come in first and second there, i would think. I'm also interested in, you know, just like, the West, I think, and the West isn't going to have that many votes, but you know, you still have like Roanoke city and, and Blacksburg and Radford and, you know, just some rural votes out there.

05:24.36

Chaz Nuttycombe

I, I don't think anybody knows who's really going to place for us with those voters. I'm going to guess Rouse. but it's, it's, there's no data to this, right? Like everybody's, everybody's saying, you know, both publicly and privately, Oh, we're up, we're up, we're up, you know, like everybody's trying to, and that's the job of the campaign.

05:43.47

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, if you're you're you're running a campaign or you're working on it, you you want to say we are going to win We are going to win. Right. You don't want to demotivate your voters or people will think that you don't have a shot at the nomination. Then they won't vote for you.

05:57.27

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, yeah. And then, you know, when it comes to Hampton Roads, Rouse is going to dominate there. I think the the question is Nova. I think Hashmi is going to do well in um and.

06:08.16

Chaz Nuttycombe

Like I would say that, ah you know, I think that's the question of just how Nova goes. But like Nova has such a lower turnout rate compared to its 2021 votes.

06:22.37

Chaz Nuttycombe

the Richmond area is just skyrocketing in terms of looking at its 2021 vote. Hanton roads is also up, just South side and Richmond ah Metro, mar Metro area, you know, meeting market.

06:36.75

Chaz Nuttycombe

has a ah large increase and, you know, that's good for Rouse and Stoney. So, you know, I think at the end of the day, this is probably going to be between Hashmi and Rouse.

06:49.36

Chaz Nuttycombe

I could see Stoney winning if, you know, he's not as toxic in the and the suburbs around Richmond as I think I and a lot of others on both sides of the aisle think he will be in a primary.

07:01.93

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, he's drawn ire from white moderates and white liberals. Right. And I think that will, ah you know, be be an issue when it it comes to like finding votes for a ah ah statewide path. Right.

07:16.29

Chaz Nuttycombe

If he does a little bit better with, would say, especially white moderates and he, you know, beats Rouse in Southside and beats Rouse in Nova, then I think he has a shot.

07:32.12

Chaz Nuttycombe

but you know, and one of the things that I think is important to note when we talk about, you know, Rouse throwing swings at Hashmi is I would say he, or Rouse throwing swings at Stoney.

07:42.37

Chaz Nuttycombe

I would say he's actually kind of throwing swings at Hashmi, uh, or at least throwing like swings into trying to chip away some of her boats. cause Hashmi is going to get a lot of the Richmond, especially Richmond liberal,

07:55.31

Chaz Nuttycombe

anti-Stoney vote, uh, which I would say is probably going to end up being a majority of the, uh, you know, top three localities, know, uh, Henrico, Chesterfield, uh, Richmond.

08:08.72

Chaz Nuttycombe

but you know, if Rouse is the only one swinging, then, you know, maybe those like, you know, people who hate LeVar Stoney so much would want to, Richmond, would want to end up voting for Rouse.

08:21.37

Chaz Nuttycombe

so, you know, that's, that's going to be interesting to, uh, to watch, And then, you know, I think, uh, Bob or Latif, uh, question is what does he win Prince William?

08:32.70

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know, could he, could he maybe come second or third in Nova? Right. ah ah yeah we could see a scenario where like Stoney Rouse place, uh, you know, like third or fourth or something. think with Latif's presence.

08:44.85

Chaz Nuttycombe

I don't think Latif really has path. because I don't think he has a lot of name recognition in Nova. Right. I mean, let's remember. her name uh the the she ran for lieutenant governor from norfolk yeah mcclellan right i think the conventionalism is that mcclellan was gonna do well in hampton roads she didn't even win win norfolk right gonna win her home locality

08:59.50

Sam Shirazi

McClellan.

09:12.86

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, So, um you know, I think that that's going to be something to watch is where Lateef plays in and Nova.

09:22.07

Chaz Nuttycombe

So i think I think I've kind of gone over everything off the top head.

09:25.27

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I think it's going to be you know tough to make a call about who's going to end up winning. It's just one of those races where, especially since the winner is likely going to get yeah know less than 40%, possibly you know less than 35%, it's just going to be you know really hard to to pick who's going to win.

09:38.91

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right.

09:43.46

Sam Shirazi

So I agree with you.

09:44.19

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah, there there's no science to forecasting primaries in general. You can't. Right. that They're too volatile of electorates. There's no science to it. It's all hearsay. And, you know, like internals or something and that can be on the campaign or that can be on an organization side.

10:01.76

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. There's probably been a few of those or at least one in trying to figure out who's ahead. Right. We have no public polling. of the attorney general, lieutenant governor primaries.

10:12.82

Chaz Nuttycombe

So anybody that says, I know who is going to win on on Tuesday, i think, you know, maybe they just have a whole bunch of great internal data or, you know, they're,

10:26.60

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know, just trying to gas up a candidate or something, you know, there's, again, there's, there's no scientific method to, you forecasting the outcome of anything on Tuesday.

10:36.84

Chaz Nuttycombe

think you can like you can say on the House of Delegate primaries that, and this is a very boring season, I think that's also why it's kind of easy predict. It's like, oh yeah, some incumbents are going to win and then But you know then you have like okay these candidates who are spending $10,000, $20,000, which is going to make no difference. They're all newcomers.

10:55.54

Chaz Nuttycombe

which is going to make no difference right and you know they're all newcomers No difference in determining like the effect of who's going to win the primary.

11:05.70

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, it's just, it's just kind of a, a crap game and, and trying to predict those. So.

11:11.52

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, well, I did want to ask you about another race that's maybe a little bit more easier to talk about, and that's the attorney general race, because there's only two candidates. And, you know, I'd say but in the about a month ago,

11:24.82

Sam Shirazi

You had Jay Jones who had more of the endorsements. He had more money. had like a bigger base in Hampton Road. So you think, okay, he seems to be doing pretty well. And then Dominion came in last minute, has dumped a lot of money in the race. I think overall Dominion has given roughly $650,000 Shannon Taylor.

11:44.47

Sam Shirazi

who I think and I think that's like the most Dominions ever given in a primary. So it's definitely like throwing things off a little bit at the end. And, you know, Shannon Taylor, she's going using that money to go up in air and Nova.

11:57.79

Sam Shirazi

I think her play is to kind of do well with women in Nova and and all other voters in Northern Virginia.

11:57.82

Chaz Nuttycombe

Mm-hmm.

12:03.20

Sam Shirazi

And so that She might have a path. I mean, personally, I still think Jay Jones probably has an easier path just because all he needs to do is do well in Hampton Roads, do well with black voters and then keep no Nova competitive.

12:16.23

Sam Shirazi

Chaz, what do you think about this race?

12:18.35

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah, I think that's the thing with Nova. I mean, Jay Jones got blown out in Nova, right? I mean, Herring got like 77% in Loudoun and probably 67% in Fairfax County, if I recall correctly, the top of the dome.

12:33.70

Chaz Nuttycombe

I don't think, but you know, Herring is from Nova. I don't think that he's, I don't think Jay Jones is going to, have that big of an issue compared to then. Right. I would be surprised if those margins repeat themselves.

12:45.87

Chaz Nuttycombe

He's probably going to do better in Hampton roads this time. But, you know, I mean, he was, Jay was, Jay Jones was competitive in Richmond. Right. I mean, knew there were pretty much all the localities for 50, 50.

12:58.57

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, and then I think, you know, what was interesting is that those liberal college towns, Jay Jones didn't do well, right. Herring won those. that gets a little bit of the vote. So, I mean, yeah, look, uh, I doubt that, yeah, I, you know, it's, it's been what, like a month or something like that since Dominion got involved, right. Or, or got really, really involved.

13:21.45

Chaz Nuttycombe

and that's probably because, you know, name recognition for both of these candidates is going to be low and you know, this is going to be decided in the last two weeks, pretty much of the campaign,

13:31.52

Chaz Nuttycombe

And probably saw that, whether it would be in the candidates internals or something. Right. I mean, neither of them are like big names. Right. In terms of, you know, maybe I would guess Jay Jones has a little bit of a bigger name recognition.

13:50.44

Chaz Nuttycombe

But. you know they yeah They wanted to go in and fight with Clean. you know it's it's I've been doing this you know virginia and Virginia analysis and and prediction stuff for eight years now. and you know it's It's been eight years since that fight started between Clean and Dominion.

14:10.27

Chaz Nuttycombe

so i mean yeah i think i think that the Jones campaign got kind of got caught with his pants down. Maybe it saw itself in you know, we are the nominee.

14:20.93

Chaz Nuttycombe

and, uh, that they, and I think a lot of people, not just the Jones campaign, but i think a lot of people counted Taylor out. ah yeah, like I'm not, I feel like I, I think I know who's going to end up on top.

14:36.75

Chaz Nuttycombe

I'm not gonna say publicly, like, I don't like predicting, uh, you know, like so saying one winner or something, right? Like, I'm fine with, uh, you know, saying like, uh, the LG is going to be between like two candidates, you know, and then just kind of narrowing it down.

14:52.29

Chaz Nuttycombe

That's the best that I would do, but this is already a two way race. So a two person race, for AG. So, those who have my number can text me and and I'll tell you.

15:02.82

Chaz Nuttycombe

but,

15:02.20

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I mean, you got to pick one of them. And I guess we'll we'll know for sure on Tuesday. So I guess we'll find out. I did want to ask you maybe more so about the general election.

15:14.07

Sam Shirazi

And specifically, I guess we can start with the fundraising numbers, because I think they were pretty interesting, both at the top of the ticket with Spanberger and then with the House of Delegates. i mean, what did you make of the fundraising and the fact that Democrats are doing you know a lot better than than the Republicans?

15:28.43

Sam Shirazi

Yeah.

15:29.03

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, this is, this is a really good time that we're recording. because, I had a meeting with Dr. Steve Rogers today. it, who's on one of our committees. ah He's a political scientist. Um, a really, really, uh, really good book for like data nerds and, and for state legislature specifically, it's, I think it's, it's, uh,

15:52.21

Chaz Nuttycombe

it's accountability and state legislatures. I got to read in undergrad. And so we got this data from VPAP. VPAP gave us this data because I pitched to them, you know, i could give it to the,

16:07.22

Chaz Nuttycombe

professor and he can run an observation to figure out, you know, what is the effect of campaign finance spending in house delegates races, accounting, you know, or controlling for district partisanship and come and see that sort of thing.

16:21.26

Chaz Nuttycombe

And so the observation was ran yesterday. And so we have our house the delegates forecast coming out at our forecast launch.

16:32.78

Chaz Nuttycombe

event on June 29th here in Richmond. If you want to find out more, you can go to state navigate.org and go under donate, then scroll down and go to forecast launch fundraiser.

16:46.61

Chaz Nuttycombe

There are going be 18 districts, I believe, that are within a 10-point margin. So I recall correctly, thinking back to 2023, that's a little bit more than, or it's about the same in terms of which like which districts are competitive, by margin or you know by rating and whatnot.

17:09.52

Chaz Nuttycombe

But yeah, so our forecast has you know almost 20 districts that are going to be within 10 points most likely. and you know when it comes to campaign finance spending, we're now, apply that.

17:19.04

Chaz Nuttycombe

The thing is, is like, it doesn't, uh, according to, uh, Dr. Rogers findings, it, it's not really that big of a difference. I mean, we, it can be a difference when you have a huge spending gap. Right.

17:33.96

Chaz Nuttycombe

and I think that's something to watch for this year. Cause when we think about back to 2023, Republicans and Democrats were pretty much on parity. I mean, at this point in 2023, Republicans actually had a spending advantage in 2023 and in those pre-primary reports in a lot of those competitive districts, you know, including House District 82.

17:59.64

Chaz Nuttycombe

for example, which was, you know, decided by what 50 votes or something like that. yeah Taylor spent like $50,000 more. and now, uh, Pope Adams has spent $200,000 more in this cycle. Right.

18:14.11

Chaz Nuttycombe

i mean, here's the thing that I think is, is an issue for Republicans this year. Um, Um, um, is in terms of fundraising, what is the pitch, right? Like what, what is, you have to make a pitch to, the Republican donors, people that are can donate, four, uh, five, six, even seven figures of like, why should you put your money there?

18:36.87

Chaz Nuttycombe

and the, this, this is, and look, I've only been doing this for eight years, so I can't think of the last time, uh, and when it was the last time Virginia has had a pretty much safe democratic race for governor?

18:49.26

Chaz Nuttycombe

Cause, cause Abigail Spanberger is going to be the next governor unless someone has some huge oppo, right. on, on her, she has some sort of scandal or something. There has to be some sort of meteor that hits this race.

19:02.86

Chaz Nuttycombe

so, and then, you know, with Lieutenant governor, I think that kind of depends on the primary, but I would say likely it's probably going to follow the same,

19:12.32

Chaz Nuttycombe

I mean, I can see, depending on who the nominee is, John Reed doing worse than Winsome Sears or you know vice versa. I think it would kind of depend on the LG nominee.

19:25.22

Chaz Nuttycombe

And that can also affect house seats. Like when you have an effectively done deal at the top of the ticket,

19:36.29

Chaz Nuttycombe

and you have no shot of a trifecta, I mean, you weren't gonna they they they weren't going to have a trifecta anyway because of the state senate. You know, state senate's not up, right?

19:46.15

Chaz Nuttycombe

think I think that's an issue. Like, Democrats are already... heavily outraising, heavily outspending the Republicans at this point in the year in most of the competitive races.

19:57.47

Chaz Nuttycombe

And still in 2023, Democrats had those huge spending advantages by November. So I would think it's probably going to get worse for them from here in fundraising fundraising.

20:10.04

Chaz Nuttycombe

doesn't again like have a huge impact but it can if there is a large enough gap we're talking tenths of percentage points we're talking maybe like one or two points uh in uh in the model we have um um our call corrects off the top my head i mean like you know let's look at let's look at like house district what is it uh 21 21 right up in prince williams You know, Republicans are trying for that seat last time and now they aren't right there. None of their nominees are raising, spending any money.

20:42.81

Chaz Nuttycombe

And the effect of that is going to be like a plus one, one percentage point or maybe more. depending on, you know, how things shake out and and fundraising over the next several months for the incumbent Democrat Josh Thomas.

20:56.55

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, you know, it's it's going to depend like like when they're on parity, it's not as much of an issue, right? But even if like Democrats outspend like one point two five percent or one point one point five percent more than a Republican, I recall correctly from the findings,

21:16.14

Chaz Nuttycombe

It's not even half a percentage point if if I'm doing it correctly my head. um But, you know, Dr. Rogers is going to be kind of writing more on that. um did send the the observation and just kind of a a ah small summary that he wrote to me last night, sent that over the to BPAP, and we'll see if they want to do visualizations with those.

21:38.41

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, I mean, there's other interesting tidbits in there. Like, for example, being a freshman incumbent is actually a slight net negative in terms of how your margin is going to go.

21:49.73

Chaz Nuttycombe

It's not huge. I think it's like less than a point or at least less than half 1.5%. I don't remember exactly. But yeah, so I think that's one of the things to keep in mind is if Republicans can't find a pitch to stay competitive, that could that could effectively end the Republican Party of Virginia.

22:11.38

Chaz Nuttycombe

for, you know, it could it could end it for a quarter century because if they're getting heavily outspent and spending, I'm not saying like this level of being outspent.

22:25.21

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think it is damaging to their odds of, you know, being able to, you know, stay in the high 40s in House of Delegate seats and um um But, you know, if if they're losing a whole bunch of seats because, you know, the spending gap has gotten so wide, right, and it's it's adding more and more just, just, ah you know, to the margin in these in these districts, especially these ones that, you know, Republicans represent that voted for Kamala Harris, um then that could that could pretty much, they there could be a point of no return. There would have to be a real line then.

23:01.35

Chaz Nuttycombe

And I think that is like the only pitch Republicans can make is that it's do or die this year. this, this is a map that is a lot harsher than the map in 2017 when Democrats, you know, picked up 15 seats, not in terms of what they can gain in net seats, but in terms of what threshold of the chamber they can get.

23:24.72

Chaz Nuttycombe

So I think I think that's kind of the issue for them. You know, back in right after 2023. I tweeted that if Trump wins next year, know, just like right after the 2023 election, week or two after I said, if Trump wins next year, it could be the color Colorado a occasion of the of of Virginia and my Colorado if occasion.

23:50.80

Chaz Nuttycombe

I mean that, you know, Democrats could end up getting a supermajority. it's It's unlikely, I think.

24:00.100

Chaz Nuttycombe

it is still in the realm of possibilities. um And... You know, i mean, it's just going to be tough for Republicans to hold on those competitive seats.

24:09.95

Chaz Nuttycombe

ah But, you know, it's it's going to depend on the money. It's going to, you know, I mean, where is Glenn Youngkin in his spending? Right. Pretty much nowhere.

24:19.70

Chaz Nuttycombe

And is he's probably gearing up for a 2028 run for that. Right. Which makes sense because why would you, he's a, he's a smart businessman. Why would you want to ah spend money where you can't change the outcome of government?

24:33.27

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. Cause either way, there won't be a Republican trifecta this year. It would make sense for him to do it when he was, you know, governor in 2023 and they had a shot at the majority, the trifecta, but

24:43.80

Sam Shirazi

I did want to ask you about a couple other things before I let you go. One of them is this poll that you I think you were the first one to find that you didn't do the poll, but you did kind of share it pretty widely from NextGen America.

24:56.12

Sam Shirazi

about the youth vote and they did an oversample in Virginia. Now, caveat, this is more of a progressive organization, so you would expect it to be a little bit more favorable to Democrats, kind of like an internal.

25:07.15

Sam Shirazi

But basically what they found in Virginia was that with the 18 to 29 year old voters, Abigail Spanberger was getting 54 percent and Winston Earl Sears was getting 32 percent.

25:18.38

Sam Shirazi

And this is just like my personal theory. In these off year elections, like the young voters who are coming out are like high propensity young voters, like typically either in college or college educated. So those probably are going to be more Democratic leaning type voters as opposed to the voters that come out in a presidential election. That's my personal theory.

25:37.10

Sam Shirazi

Chaz, you think that's kind of what's going to happen? Do you think the Democrats are going to bounce back with young voters this year in Virginia?

25:42.78

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think I think there's I think that's a true. What I would say is that I also think they do bounce back. Right. What we're seeing with, know, young voters in polling is that they have becoming much more increasingly hostile compared to Election Day 2024 to Donald Trump.

26:02.15

Chaz Nuttycombe

And this this is a very volatile, you know, it's a volatile age. It's it's, you know, when you're talking about that 18 to 24 demographic, right, that's when you're even, you know, just a few years younger than that.

26:12.55

Chaz Nuttycombe

That's when you're developing your worldview, right? And, you know, we all we had like a recession scare. Was there going to be recession and, you know, all the tariffs and whatnot? There's a stock market crash, right? Like voters are reactionary. Voters are interested in their self-preservation. It's it's human nature.

26:29.86

Chaz Nuttycombe

There's nothing wrong with it. And when we talk about how people develop. Your outview on life and what you believe is, you know, is is kind of those formative years.

26:41.55

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, right. I mean, that's why we had like Democratic dominance in America for decades because of the Great Depression happened under a Republican. So, you know, young voters are not happy with what is going on in federal government right now.

26:55.08

Chaz Nuttycombe

Now, what I will say is, I mean, look, yeah, I mean, this is a progressive organization. That being said, I mean, progressive organizations can do good polling. That is accurate. um know, like the for progress is a pretty good pollster.

27:06.10

Chaz Nuttycombe

think the main flag with this oversample and look, i'm I'm glad we have this oversample. Right. And nobody's done this. And I'm really interested in the youth boat. And, you know, there are four college districts that are going to be at least somewhat on the board this year. That's ah Harrisonburg district with JMU. That's the Liberty district um Lynchburg.

27:27.47

Chaz Nuttycombe

That's Blacksburg, Virginia Tech district and the Williamsburg, William & Mary district. Um, and i think the main thing to look at in this for the main caveat is, you know, when we talk about the over or not the over sample, the, uh, just the sample itself and the 2024 presidential recall, uh, they broke down Harris plus 17 and Atlas Intel, which, you know, was, ah ah they had a really good year last year, not just in Virginia, but nationwide.

27:56.44

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know, I looked at that and Harris was only up three in their crosstab. that being said, it's a crosstab, so it's going to be a little bit more, uh, wider of a margin of error, but you know, still, I mean, it's, it's Harris plus 17 and, uh, now Spanberger is up 22 with that sample.

28:14.13

Chaz Nuttycombe

And then, you know, when they're asked about 2026, it's Dem plus 31, which is a nine point difference. so I think that, uh, you know, Spanberger does have some ground to gain with young voters, a lot of ground, honestly,

28:28.78

Chaz Nuttycombe

because of how hard to the right they went last year. they're, you know, like, especially still in college, when we're talking about these, these, these college town districts that are going to be competitive.

28:39.40

Chaz Nuttycombe

And yes, I do think that if you are, if you're in college, and you are in, you know, you're in that age range,

28:48.54

Chaz Nuttycombe

and you voted for Trump and you still approve of Trump, it's less likely that they're going to come out and vote, right? One of the great predictors of whether you're going to vote is age. So I think that is true. But I think for those defectors who are, you know, who or maybe those who who voted for like third party, right? There was a decent amount third party voting and in Blacksburg, if I recall correctly. And, know, like VCU and all that on these college campuses, right?

29:13.08

Chaz Nuttycombe

them and, uh, or those that didn't turn out to vote, um, are upset with the administration, they'll, they're going to want to come out to vote. and that can either be, you know, and I listened to Ben Tribbett's episode on your show. And I think the, I think he breaks, broke things down really easily in terms of like how voter persuasion works. Right.

29:31.94

Chaz Nuttycombe

If, uh, you know, you're a young person and you're liberal releaning, you didn't come out to vote last year, you're coming out to vote this year. That's a plus one, right. For the Dems. If voted for Trump last year and now you're going to vote for Abigail Spanberger and you're, you know, one of them college students, that's plus two. Right.

29:51.68

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, I mean, that that's and that's something I'm interested in this year. Like there's four districts that are going to come down to that are on the board that you know, college students play a big part in.

30:03.98

Chaz Nuttycombe

when we talk about those that aren't going to turn out, I mean, Liberty did not turn out in 2023, right? Terrible turnout. When you look at how much of a share of the electorate it made in houses for 52 in 2024 compared to 2023.

30:15.10

Chaz Nuttycombe

And that's why Wendell Walker only won by eight points. because it's, you you know, it's like 99% Republican or something, right? It's like either the most or the second most Republican precinct in Virginia, right?

30:26.19

Chaz Nuttycombe

with Tangier up there. So I think that there's not really anything that the Dems can gain in, in Liberty, but you know, there's, there's those small colleges, Randolph and, you know, university Lynchburg and whatnot.

30:40.13

Chaz Nuttycombe

But still, I mean, if they're not turning out, that's, that's minus one for the Republicans, right? You know, those Liberty kids aren't coming out.

30:49.23

Sam Shirazi

I did want to ask you one last thing before I let you go. And i saw you know you tweeted about this a couple of times about Loudoun.

30:56.91

Sam Shirazi

So in 2024, Loudoun was kind of infamous because there was a drop of the vote in Loudoun. And I think it showed early in the night that Trump was probably going to win and because there was a big shift to the Republicans in Loudoun.

31:08.28

Sam Shirazi

But then earlier this year, there was a couple of special elections for the state Senate and House of Delegates, and the Democrats ended up winning those pretty handily. And so and you would think with the federal fallout of what's going on in D.C. and all the federal workers in Loudoun, you would think Loudoun would maybe come back to the Democrats.

31:26.12

Sam Shirazi

But You know, you and I are probably the only people spending all their day looking at early voting data in Virginia. And ah ah do notice that Loudoun is kind of lagging behind even after their satellite voting locations open. So, Chaz, what do you think about Loudoun? Do you think the Democrats are going to go back and kind of make all these gains? Or do you think the Republicans are going to be able to keep it relatively close in Loudoun this year?

31:50.22

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think relative to the environment, I think Loudoun is a problem for the Dems. I mean, yeah, look when Loudoun County dropped at 7.30 PM, you know, you know My phone is blowing up and, you know, I was i was like, look, this is not my job.

32:06.16

Chaz Nuttycombe

But, you know, i mean, I am interested in what's going on. and So I looked at him like, oh, he won. You know, ah so Trump won, you know, like and for those of us who look at elections, that's when we knew, right.

32:18.83

Chaz Nuttycombe

You don't have to wait for Wisconsin or Michigan or all that sort of stuff for to know how the presidential election went. Loudon came. That was it. and, you know, I think the Asian American vote, uh, not, not the Asian American vote, but specifically, you know, part of the Asian American vote, the Indian indian- American vote is interesting because, you know, uh, again, and maybe I brought this up in your podcast or I've tweeted it, you know, quite a bit, but it's like, why did they move to the right? They're college educated, they're wealthy, right. In, in terms of, uh, like comparison to all these other demographics that moved to the right, 2024. Right.

32:52.36

Chaz Nuttycombe

So so it was it's interesting. But yeah, I mean, turnout in Loudoun is not great for the Dems in this.

33:02.04

Chaz Nuttycombe

did they but And then also, like they barely overperformed in those specials. Like what, two or three points? That's like nothing. The average special election overperformance nationally, as of right now, is like 13.1%.

33:16.04

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. So that's like a 10 point difference. Now, public opinion is in a much different place compared to then. But even still, you would think that, you know, the the Dems would do a little bit better, especially yeah when we talk about those and what was going in the beginning of the year, what was about to be going on.

33:34.66

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, you think they would have a little bit of that turnout and advantage in their favor. I mean, hell, my district, John McGuire State Senate District, that special election, had a bigger overperformance for the Democrats, Democrats spent nothing there.

33:50.11

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, yeah, I think Loudoun is a problem for the Dems this year. i think I think when I'm thinking of... their biggest, I would say it's a bigger problem than black turnout because black turnout in this primary is, is higher than 2021.

34:04.82

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. and the second biggest overperformance, in a state legislative special was in a, either polar, uh, plurality black or majority black district. You know, it's like somewhere in that range since South Carolina.

34:21.67

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. and And we have this kind of notion of like, oh, well, you know, black voters are hard to turn out in these off years. Right. So but that kind of defied that.

34:31.58

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think black voters are amped up and they're ready to go. um So I think the main issue I'm seeing for the Dems this year in terms of like where they would have problems is it's probably Loudoun looking at everything that I've i've seen throughout this year.

34:46.27

Chaz Nuttycombe

looking back to last year, nobody's giving me a good explanation for why the Indian American vote went right. Right. Nobody. yeah. so yeah

34:55.58

Sam Shirazi

Well, we're definitely going to have to keep an eye on it. And I think the Loudon drop this November will be very interesting, although I have a feeling it's not going to be as ah friendly to the Republicans this year. But I think the exact number is going to be really interesting. So anyways, Chaz, always really interesting to get your perspective on things and just hearing from what you're seeing out there. I know everyone's going to be following Chaz.

35:20.04

Sam Shirazi

your social media and make sure to check out state navigate too, because I think they have a really cool way of looking at all the districts and just really good data on there. So Chaz, thanks so much for coming on.

35:30.38

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah. and And real quick, we are going to be mapping the primary election results. come to our site. go to State Navigate, click on Virginia, statenavigate.org, click on Virginia, and you'll see it on the page there.

35:43.47

Chaz Nuttycombe

And you'll be able to see the results as they come in. And we'll be doing race calls as well. And thanks for having me on, Sam. Appreciate it.

35:50.05

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, no problem. And this has been Federal Fallout, and 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

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia elections. This is a special bonus episode to go over some recently released Virginia campaign finance reports.

00:12.89

Sam Shirazi

So I'm going to go over three basic things. One, I'm going to look at the big picture governor numbers for the Democrats and the Republicans. Then I'm going to look at the upcoming Democratic primary and some of the fundraising numbers that were released and what it might mean.

00:26.90

Sam Shirazi

And then finally, I'll take a look at the House of Delegates. So the reason there was this fundraising report deadline that happened recently was because the primary is coming up on June 17th. And as part of that, this is kind of the last campaign finance reports that are required to be filed before the primary. So people have a sense of where the money is coming from.

00:47.04

Sam Shirazi

And given that the primary is coming up and it's pretty interesting on the Democratic side for lieutenant governor and attorney general, I thought it'd be a good time to touch base about what's going on with the campaign finance stuff.

00:58.02

Sam Shirazi

But before we turn to the primaries that are happening on June 17th, I did want to talk about the top of the ticket, the governor's race. Now, for both the Democrats and the Republicans, there is no primary for the governor's race, the Democratic nominee will be former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger. The Republican nominee is current Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle Sears.

01:18.67

Sam Shirazi

And in terms of fundraising, congresso former Congresswoman Spanberger certainly has a big leg up on fundraising during the filing period. And the period that this report covered was April 1st through June 5th.

01:30.17

Sam Shirazi

So of a little over two months. ah former Congresswoman Spanberger raised over six and a half million dollars and she has 14.3 million dollars cash on hand.

01:42.37

Sam Shirazi

So obviously she's posting some big numbers and you know going back to the days of her congressional races, Congresswoman Spanberger has always been good at raising money. And so I think you're seeing that here where she's got a big amount of money raised and she has a ah ah very healthy cash on hand number.

02:00.74

Sam Shirazi

Now, for Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle Sears, she is lagging behind in the fundraising category. So she's raised during this time period about three and a half million dollars, and she has less than three million cash on hand.

02:13.78

Sam Shirazi

So that means that the Democrats at the top of the ticket with Spanberger have over ten million dollars more cash on hand in the bank. And what that means is Congresswoman Spanberger is she's building her war chest so so to speak. So she's not spending a lot of money right now because most people aren't tuned in.

02:31.94

Sam Shirazi

And so she's just able to raise money, put it in the bank, and then obviously save most of that for the November election.

02:39.97

Sam Shirazi

Winston Earle Sears, she's trying her best to kind of catch up and raise money and, you know,.Not to say three and a half million dollars is nothing, but certainly at least is not keeping pace. And obviously, the longer this race goes on the there's a risk that the further and further she falls behind.

02:55.59

Sam Shirazi

And at the end of the podcast, I'll talk a little bit more about why that might be and why the Republicans are struggling a little bit this year with the fundraising. But I think. It's just one metric among many to think about how is this year leading so far. And I think most people who get the sense that Democrats in Virginia have a little bit of an advantage.

03:13.23

Sam Shirazi

And I think you're seeing that on the money side of things. Now, I should say money is not everything. And obviously, there's been campaigns where people have more money and they end up losing. And we don't know what the next report is going to look like. We don't know if there's going to be any sort of big donations from some of the big Republican donors. So I don't want to dwell on it too much right now because a lot of things can still change.

03:33.63

Sam Shirazi

But I think just purely looking at the numbers right now for the governor's race, you you'd say on the fundraising side, Spanberger definitely has an advantage. And we'll it'll just have to wait and see how that evolves in the summer as the next report will come out and we can take a look at the numbers then.

03:50.30

Sam Shirazi

All right. I did want to move on to the primaries that are coming up on June 17th. There are some House of Delegates primaries. I don't want to spend too much time on that because I don't think the numbers really made too much of a difference in those primaries. I did want to spend most of the time in Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General primary.

04:06.88

Sam Shirazi

for the Democrats, because i think that's gotten a lot of the attention. I think that's where most people are focused right now in terms of the primary on June 17th. And I'll start with the lieutenant governor's race. So there's six people running on the Democratic side for lieutenant governor. I think it's a competitive race. It's still not clear who has the advantage.

04:23.62

Sam Shirazi

And I'll probably talk about Before the primary, one more podcast about what I think is going on. But if you look purely at the lieutenant governor numbers, I think all the major candidates raised a decent amount.

04:35.26

Sam Shirazi

They all raised, you know, in the in the neighborhood about $750,000. And they're all spending a lot of money. They're all on air. So, you know, it's one of those things where I think they're all doing pretty well in terms of fundraising, but no one is you know blowing it out of the park.

04:52.78

Sam Shirazi

and raising millions and millions of dollars more than the other candidates. So I think all the major candidates are doing what they need to do to compete and to run ads, but none of them has a great fundraising advantage where it's going to make the difference. And so I don't think this is the type of race where the money is going to make the difference. I think there's a lot of other factors you' have to look at, and I'll talk about it in a separate podcast about where I think maybe the lieutenant governor's race is going to end up.

05:16.00

Sam Shirazi

None of the candidates raise like a crazy amount of money where you look at it and you say, OK, well, they're going to be able to drown the airwaves that adds. I just don't think that's what's going to be happening in the lieutenant governor's race. And so I don't think we got much more clarity about who who the front runner might be based just on the fundraising numbers.

05:33.47

Sam Shirazi

Okay, but I did want to spend a little bit more time on the attorney general race because I think there's been a lot of interesting last minute things that are going on with the campaign finance. I think it's important to spend a little bit of time just focusing on that because I think it may change the dynamics in that race a little bit.

05:50.44

Sam Shirazi

So in the last campaign finance numbers, the former delegate Jay Jones had a decent fundraising advantage over Henrico Commonwealth's attorney, Shannon Taylor. And I think in terms of cash on hand, he had almost, I believe, twice as much cash on hand as Shannon Taylor in the old campaign finance report.

06:09.74

Sam Shirazi

However, since that time, Shannon Taylor got a big injection of cash from Dominion Energy. And if you follow Virginia politics, you know that Dominion Energy is one of the big donors. They often donate a lot of money to members of the General Assembly.

06:25.57

Sam Shirazi

And on the other side, you have an organization called Clean Virginia. And Clean Virginia is a nonprofit, and oftentimes they will go and support candidates who pledge not to take Dominion money. So in this race, Jay Jones is backed by Clean Virginia, and Shannon Taylor has been backed by Dominion.

06:44.39

Sam Shirazi

And that's not an uncommon thing you'll see in many races, more so in the General Assembly, where clean Virginia will back one candidate and then Dominion might back the other candidate, particularly in Democratic primaries. That sometimes happens.

06:56.85

Sam Shirazi

So it's not totally unusual. And that's kind of a normal dynamic you see in Virginia elections, at least recently. I will say the thing that's a little bit unusual here is the amount of money that Dominion is giving to Shannon Taylor because,

07:09.65

Sam Shirazi

you know, in most races, Dominion will give maybe like 50,000 or a hundred thousand. I mean, that's kind of the ballpark of a lot of their donations. Uh, and at the very end of this campaign, Dominion energy has given Shannon Taylor, you know, I think I've lost track of the exact amount, but I think it's over $600,000, which I think is the most they've given in one cycle to one candidate in one primary. So definitely Dominion is spending a lot of money in this race and they're spending a lot of money on Shannon Taylor.

07:38.84

Sam Shirazi

And on the clean Virginia side, they've tried to highlight how this might create a conflict of interest and how it it doesn't really make sense for a ah the attorney general candidate to be getting this much money from one donor where they may have to step in and try to regulate Dominion.

07:57.33

Sam Shirazi

And the other thing to keep in mind, Dominion has also backed Jason Miyares, the Republican incumbent.

08:01.76

Sam Shirazi

And then Clean Virginia is giving money to Jay Jones. And so this has all created kind of a lot of last minute spending in the attorney general race. And so what it's done is in the last campaign finance numbers, Shannon Taylor was able to catch up to Jay Jones in terms of the money that she was able to raise.

08:16.76

Sam Shirazi

And that's allowed her to spend more on ads than she has been in the past. I will say because Jay Jones had a bit of a larger war chest to begin with, I think he's still been been spending more on ads. It's just that Shannon Taylor been able to catch up.

08:30.53

Sam Shirazi

And I think the real difference is Shannon Taylor has been able to spend more money in Northern Virginia, because if you think about it, the other media markets in Virginia, while they are you know not cheap, The DC media market is like a different level of spending that you need to be able to put an ad in the DC media market.

08:49.53

Sam Shirazi

And for most of the race, Shannon Taylor hasn't been able to spend a lot in DC, but with this new money that she's gotten from Dominion, she's been able to go on air in the Northern Virginia DC media market.

09:01.05

Sam Shirazi

And Jay Jones has also been on that market. So all that's to say is like, there's been a lot of spending last minute in this race. And I think it creates a little bit of uncertainty about what's going on, because, know, if you take out the Dominion money, you know, Jay Jones would have had a big money advantage and you would assume, OK, with some of the other advantages he had in terms of the endorsements and in terms of Hampton Roads, that should if it make him the pretty clear favorite. I think with this last minute spending that's been coming in for Shannon Taylor, I think she's hoping that it will get kind of boost her name ID in Northern Virginia.

09:34.57

Sam Shirazi

And if she can get a big enough margin in Northern Virginia, then she might be able to win, even though Jay Jones has more of the endorsements and he has, I would say, a larger base in Hampton Roads.

09:45.38

Sam Shirazi

However, as I point out, while I think it's made Shannon this race more competitive, it's not like Dominion gave the amount of money that it's like a total game changer. I think it's it's allowed Shannon Taylor to go up in Northern Virginia and compete with Jay Jones in terms of the spending in Northern Virginia. But I just don't, it's not the amount of money unless they put in even more because frankly, they can put in more at the very last minute.

10:07.84

Sam Shirazi

But I think, you know, the fundamentals of the race are in some ways the same. And I will do a different podcast probably right before the primary where I kind of go over the races and who I think might be up, who I may

10:19.60

Sam Shirazi

who I think might be down. But at the end of the day, like it definitely is adding a lot more uncertainty into the attorney general race. would still say, just given all the fundamentals, you know Jay Jones has the advantage that he has a bigger base in Hampton Roads.

10:33.92

Sam Shirazi

And so that that should help him. And the question mark is Northern Virginia. And just like the lieutenant governor's race, the question mark is Northern Virginia. And I think that question mark is still fundamentally the same. And so while I think it's added a little bit of intrigue to the attorney general race at the end, know I'll let you know but my final predictions, but I don't know if it's like fundamentally changed the entire race.

10:56.52

Sam Shirazi

All right. And the last thing I want to talk about before I wrap up, this podcast is about the House of Delegates. And again, I don't want to go through every single House of Delegates race. I'm looking more for the general election in terms of the candidates who have been raising money. And I will say overall, I think the Democrats are doing a better job raising for the House of Delegates. And, you know, there's a few reasons for that. I think the fact, the reality is they're already in the majority.

11:24.12

Sam Shirazi

And most of the donors know that more likely than not, that Democrats are going to maintain their majority. you you you know, it's just easier to raise money when you're in the majority and people think you're going to keep your majority.

11:35.67

Sam Shirazi

So if you look at all the Republicans and all the Democrats, so the Democrats raised, you know, roughly four point six million all of the Democrats in the House of Delegates, whereas the Republicans only raised about two point one million.

11:48.25

Sam Shirazi

I'll just highlight ah one district, the 82nd district in Petersburg and that part of Virginia.

11:55.29

Sam Shirazi

You have incumbent Republican Kim Taylor, and then you have the Democratic challenger, Kimberly Pope Adams. This was a seat that Harris won by four points, and it was the closest seat in 2023. So the Republican incumbent, she raised a little over 64000, which, you know, is a decent amount of money. And she has over 34000 cash on hand,

12:16.23

Sam Shirazi

you've got to compare that to the Democrats. So the Democrat, Kimberly Pope Adams, she raised a whopping $262,000 in this reporting cycle. And she has over $289,000 cash on hand.

12:27.33

Sam Shirazi

So she has over $250,000 more cash on hand than the Republican incumbent. and I think it's just like pretty rare to see a Democratic challenger or any challenger have that much more money than an incumbent.

12:39.40

Sam Shirazi

particularly in a state election. But I think it just shows you some of the challenges the Republicans are having this year with the fundraising in the House of Delegates. As you saw at the top of the ticket, they're having some challenges with fundraising. And now you're seeing at the House of Delegate level some fundraising challenges. And why is that?

12:54.58

Sam Shirazi

I mean, i want to say that I think the last four years, Glenn Youngkin has been able to kind of prop up and keep afloat the Virginia GOP with some of his personal money and also the money he's been able to raise because, you know, realistically, he's got a decent network of donors that he's been able to count on to chip in large amounts of money to his PAC.

13:16.15

Sam Shirazi

And then Glenn Youngkin would give some of that money out to all the various candidates running in the General Assembly. He gives them to the Republican Party of Virginia, who would then give it to the candidates. So there were a lot there was a lot of money coming from Glenn Youngkin through his donations and through the money he was able to raise.

13:33.63

Sam Shirazi

And I think that's papered over a lot of the problems the Virginia Republicans have had in the past with fundraising. And he was able to kind of, again, prop up the Virginia Republicans. And this year, the Democrats, they have a lot of grassroots enthusiasm and the big institutional donors want to spend a lot of money in Virginia.

13:49.68

Sam Shirazi

And so they're going to have a lot of money. And the question is, where the Republicans going to get their money? So one possibility is Glenn Youngkin goes out and raises a bunch of money and then he gives it to the Republicans and they're OK.

14:00.86

Sam Shirazi

You know, to be honest, that hasn't really been showing up in the campaign finance reports so far. I mean, it's possible he's kind of saving his money, waiting to see which are the most important races, which are the races where the money is really needed.

14:13.73

Sam Shirazi

It's also possible he's saying, like, you know, I've done my time as you know governor of Virginia and I don't need to do this anymore in terms of going out and raising all this money and giving it to all these Republican candidates. It's kind of.

14:24.54

Sam Shirazi

Winston Merrill Sears turned to do that. i've done I've done my time and he might be thinking about his next steps. And so it's possible, you know, he'll give some donations, but not to the level that he's been giving in the last few years.

14:36.64

Sam Shirazi

You know, I think we've talked about Elon Musk. That doesn't seem like that's going to happen in terms of money for the Virginia Republicans. mean, obviously, there's a lot of other wealthy donors the Republicans have nationally. It's always possible one of those wealthy donors comes in and, you know, throws a lot of money at the Virginia Republicans.

14:52.68

Sam Shirazi

As I mentioned, Virginia doesn't have any campaign finance limits. So if someone wants to donate $10 million dollars and you know that'll make a big chunk and and take take a little pressure off the Republicans if if they get a big donation like that.

15:06.07

Sam Shirazi

I think the challenge for the Virginia Republicans is that they kind of get into this cycle where they're not doing too well. There's not a lot of fundraising. And so the donors don't want to fund even more because they think it's just throwing money away. And The money's not there and it just doesn't show up. you know i I think it's a little bit early to make that final call, but it is something that Virginia Republicans have to think about.

15:27.65

Sam Shirazi

And they have to, when you go to donors, you have to give them a credible path to victory and not just kind of tell them, you know can I please have some money? Because donors, they're looking into the midterms. There's other candidates calling them all the time.

15:40.49

Sam Shirazi

And you have to kind of give them a convincing reason why they should give the money to you. And I think that was one of the things Glenn Youngkin was good at. And in 2021, he showed that he was able to win in Virginia and that enabled him to get donations, particularly in 2023. He got a lot of donations because I think he he proved he proved that he was able to win in Virginia.

15:58.79

Sam Shirazi

And the challenge is if he looks like he's not fully engaged and there isn't a whole lot going on in terms of the top of the ticket or the and and, you know, I should mention the entire Republican ticket is not totally unified. And John Reid's running his own campaign. And there's a lot of things going on right now with the Virginia GOP. And if if that's just kind of how it keeps going, could be in some trouble come November. And, you know, November is not that far away. Early voting is starting in a little over three months in late September and Election Day is less than five months away. And so

16:33.89

Sam Shirazi

If you think about the hole the Republicans are in both at the top of the ticket and in these House of Delegates races, I mean, there isn't a whole lot of time to start raising money. And the Democrats are just they're continuously raising money. So it's not like the Republicans can just you know catch up very quickly. So I think these are all things to think about.

16:53.06

Sam Shirazi

I'm not saying in and of itself the money is determinative, but I do think it's one of those things we have to just keep an eye on as we're moving towards November 2021. There'll be other campaign finance numbers. I'm sure there'll be changes. I'll talk about them. I don't want to assume just because this cycle, this this report, these things look one way.

17:11.58

Sam Shirazi

That's how it's going to be in November. But I do think, you know, the closer we are getting to November, the less time there is to raise money and to kind of compete in these races. So all that's to say is I think.

17:22.66

Sam Shirazi

There's a lot of interesting things going on in this campaign finance report. I'll try my best to cover the future campaign finance report. The next week is going to be very busy as we run up to the June 17th primary. That'll be the primary focus of the podcast, no pun intended.

17:36.73

Sam Shirazi

And then after the June 17th primary, we'll shift the general election and we can talk all about that. So A lot of stuff going on. Very busy in Virginia. Hope you follow along with me. Hope you find this interesting. Feel free to send it to other people if they're interested in the Virginia elections. But 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

00:00.47

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. Today i will be interviewing Lauren Burke, the founder of Black Virginia News. Lauren, thank you for joining me.

00:12.86

Lauren

Thanks, Sam, for having me. You're great. And I love being on your podcast.

00:17.47

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I remember once i you had me on Pod Virginia and you were interviewing me. So I thought it'd be interesting to interview you. i follow your sub stack with Black Virginia News, and I think you do a really good job but summarizing the news and and talking about some of the things that the media doesn't always cover.

00:35.06

Lauren

That's for sure. Thanks a lot. Thanks for reading. I mean, there's a lot going on out there, as you know, and I enjoy the fact that you've got this podcast. I love it. I think really frankly, Sam, you and Fergie are the two people that, to me, really know these races like the back of your hand. So it's great. It's great talking to you.

00:52.76

Sam Shirazi

well that's good Well, thank you. And but before I you know get into the interview, I did want to note the passing of Gerald C. Jones. He is was a former delegate from Norfolk, and he later served as a state circuit judge there, too.

01:07.64

Sam Shirazi

He was a civil rights pioneer and was one of the first black students to integrate his elementary and high school. And also um his son, Jay Jones, is currently running for Virginia attorney general. I wanted to send my condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.

01:23.77

Sam Shirazi

Lauren, can you tell us a little bit more about Judge Jones?

01:26.60

Lauren

You know, what I know is what I know from people like Senator Lucas and Congressman Scott and the people who really know Judge Jones. I just know the basics of what I've read, and I'm probably going put together a podcast with everyone just sort of talking about him so that that history is someplace, because it is amazing to think about some of the pioneering things that he did that are not that long ago. i mean, it's always stunning to me.

01:54.37

Lauren

And really a tough blow and in the sense that you know Jay Jones, obviously running for attorney general, has this happen right before the primary. It's a tough thing to deal with. It took me so long to get over my father passing away, and I can't imagine you know what he's feeling right now, but I'm definitely thinking about him.

02:11.54

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I think we all are and we send the Jones family our condolences. Well, Lauren, I did want to ask you about Black Virginia news. You know, what made you want to start that? And how do you see your role a little bit different than maybe traditional media like the newspapers?

02:28.74

Lauren

Well, i'm definitely not traditional media because i I've worked in politics. I've probably worked in politics longer than being in the media, but I did work in, quote, big media, ABC News and USA Today and all that.

02:41.42

Lauren

And just feel like we're having a moment here of... you know frankly, lying. ah Lying is happening a lot, and misinfo and disinfo, a lot of which is quite strategic and intentional to enact a political result sometimes and just change the world in ways that shouldn't be changed.

02:58.52

Lauren

And I think that the legacy media is failing huge, namely the Washington Post and the New York Times. so And I've seen that, i've experienced it as a communications director. I was a communications director on Capitol Hill for Congressman Andre Carson. And of course, I was a communications director for Justin Fairfax. Justin Fairfax, course, our 41st lieutenant governor in Virginia. So I've seen it. I've seen what I know what the media should be doing.

03:25.37

Lauren

I know the questions they should be asking. I know that they should, in fact, be checking the facts before publication. and then they do not necessarily do that all the time. So it has been a stunner in like the last, I guess, maybe 10 years. I think Twitter has driven a lot of the problem because people are rushing to get information into print.

03:46.98

Lauren

And the speed question is taking over the accuracy question. So the truth is taking a backseat to speed. so So Black Virginia news happened in large part because I got tired of seeing things that were not getting covered in the Black community in Virginia.

04:02.03

Lauren

in fact, when in 2017, when Justin was... when the the when justin fairfax was campaigning I mean, I couldn't believe, i could not believe the events that were not getting covered around Virginia.

04:16.85

Lauren

Some of them were black centric and some of them were not, but what doesn't get covered is just incredible. So I'm like i'm grateful to Substack and I'm grateful to see the other Substacks that I see that pop up around Virginia.

04:30.44

Lauren

I mean, there's a lot of them that are really good, really, really good. And people are just doing some basic information about what's going on and we would not know about it if it weren't for them. So it's incredible to me.

04:41.69

Sam Shirazi

Yeah. And, you know, I like to study history and I know there's a long history of independent black journalism in this country going back, you know, hundreds of years. And why do you think the traditional newspapers, the traditional media has not always been able to cover black community accurately or or get the complete picture?

05:02.45

Lauren

Well, it's a combination of racism and not caring usually. And you you might remember after George Floyd, we had the so-called racial reckoning moment. There were several papers who put out ah ah apologies apologies for their coverage.

05:15.40

Lauren

ah you know It was really interesting actually to read some of those. And they went over the fact that in the past, they had not only covered the black community very poorly, but very negatively.

05:25.04

Lauren

So part of the problem is just the basic fact that when someone else is telling your story, that doesn't have your interest in mind, it is very likely that they're going to tell that story in a very negative way.

05:36.56

Lauren

This has happened for women too, as well. You see a lot of women-centric publications coming up the 19th and a lot of them. And, and, That was happening as well. as no women in the newsroom until like the 1970s. I think Meg Greenfield was the first female correspondent for the Washington Post. She came along in like 1974 or 75, which is crazy.

05:56.54

Lauren

For black people, it's the same thing. I mean, no one is really what I find is these bigger news organizations, The Post, The Times, they're not really interested in black news. I mean, just to give you a little Virginia example, Sam, if you remember a few weeks ago, Congressman Bobby Scott endorsed Aaron Rouse for LG. And then a few days later, he endorsed Jay Jones for AG.

06:18.61

Lauren

No story in The Washington Post. and Then that same that same week, that same week, Jerry Connolly, the late, great Jerry Connolly, of course, endorses his former chief staff, James Walkinshaw, for his seat.

06:32.32

Lauren

And of course, there's a story. Now, you could say that, well, it's a no Nova, Northern Virginia thing, but I'm sitting there going, wait a minute. Bobby Scott is a dean of the delegation. He's the only member of Congress to make an endorsement. That should be a story.

06:45.21

Lauren

I don't care whether he's in Hampton Roads or in Nova, but but the Post does that type of thing all the time. you know, they do not cover the black community. I mean, they just don't. and And the Washington Post has a legacy of that in a town that used to be called Chocolate City, by the way, Washington, D.C.

07:01.70

Lauren

And so i I see it all the time and it just got frustrating. And I said, you know what, at some point, like you know, you just got to stop complaining and just do stuff, you know. But I love, by the way, the Richmond Free Press and New Journal and Guide, the two legacy black papers in Virginia, quite good.

07:16.92

Lauren

But the reasons are obvious, but you know, the black people in Virginia, 20% of the population, there should be more stories about what's happening in black communities.

07:26.95

Sam Shirazi

Well, I appreciate you being one of the voices that are bringing some of those stories out that might not be covered. I did want to shift gears a little bit to the elections this year in Virginia. You mentioned couple endorsements in the primary by Congressman Bobby Scott.

07:42.54

Sam Shirazi

I do think those were important endorsements. And I agree with you that they did not get as much press probably as they should have, because I think they really do change the dynamics of those races a little bit. So first, just generally, you know what are you seeing on the Democratic primary?

07:56.51

Sam Shirazi

side, and then we can talk about the general election after we talk about the primary.

08:00.67

Lauren

Well, it's hard to, it's going to be very interesting, June 17, I think. I mean, certainly LG race is, I think, kind of competitive because you really have like four people that quite good.

08:12.88

Lauren

i mean, I would say that. happen to think Aaron Rouse is going to win, but certainly Senator Hashmi is very good. Like there's nothing wrong Barbara Lateef. So it's like you could legitimately say there's like, you know, was some very good candidates there.

08:25.65

Lauren

And you know what's interesting, too, I think you said this in a prior podcast, Sam, was a really good point, which is that you have a regional, an interesting regional break there. You have two people in central Richmond area.

08:36.86

Lauren

Then you just have Aaron Rouse and Hampton Roads. And then you have Barbara Latif up in Nova. So it's to be interesting to see how much that matters now. you know, on on June 17.

08:48.29

Lauren

And obviously we have Shannon Taylor taylor versus Jay Jones for AG. And, you know, this is kind of an embarrassment of riches in Virginia with some of these candidates. I hate it when you have two candidates are really good. I do think Jay is going win because he ran before and you have that advantage when you when you've run before. you You just have the experience level and people are familiar with your name and all that stuff. But We'll see what happens. It's really exciting, you know, when it's a competitive primary. I am not a fan of anointing candidates or having one candidate or doing what the Democrats did in 2016 with Hillary Clinton, where you just have one candidate, effectively one candidate. I mean, I know Bernie was out there, but still.

09:27.83

Lauren

I think competition is good. And so we'll see what happens.

09:32.06

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I agree with you. I think the Democrats have a number of very um qualified candidates. And one of the things I've been hearing is that people are having a hard time making their mind because they like all the candidates. And yeah, I think it's one of those things for both those races. We'll just have to wait and see when the votes are counted, who the nominees are going to be. And obviously, whoever wins the lieutenant governor and attorney general nominations will be on the same ticket as the Abigail Spanberger, who's the Democratic nominee.

09:58.26

Sam Shirazi

are you seeing in terms of the general election dynamics this year?

10:01.69

Lauren

Well, you know, as you can see, i mean, to me, the Winsome Sears campaign, Lieutenant Governor Sears, Winsome Earl Sears, I should say, I don't see a whole lot happening there. She had an event in Falls Church, I think it was yesterday, that nobody really knew about. I mean, I don't see the level of, like, engagement with that campaign that we saw with now Governor Youngkin in 2021, where they put the schedule online. Everybody knew where he was going to be. Then he went on a bus tour. You knew exactly where the bus was going to be. it's like very easy to pay attention to that race to see where he was. It wasn't a big secretive thing.

10:36.69

Lauren

And I don't know what they're doing. it hit with the with earl sears uh you know obviously uh former congresswoman abigail spamburger on the democratic side is is doing what she should be doing campaigning and i just saw her in portsmouth uh last week uh she was in norfolk and portsmouth uh and made a few stops it looked you know it looked like a campaign like the actual campaign and we're telling people we're doing and we're putting out ads and talking about issues So it's kind of, i don't know whether the Sears campaign is waiting for the 17th to, quote, get going. But I mean, time flies, as you know. So right now, that that poll that came out that has former Congresswoman Spanberger 17 points ahead, that seems and feels very accurate.

11:23.07

Lauren

mean, i would just say that. It just feels accurate right now. But of course, you know how politics is. It's very unpredictable.

11:29.30

Sam Shirazi

Right. And, you know, one thing I wanted to ask about ah Lieutenant Governor Winston Moral Sears is her ah attempt. Have you seen any sort of campaigning or attempts to win votes in the black community? Because I think some Republicans have a sense of, oh, well, maybe we'll be able to do better this year with her at the top of the ticket.

11:48.59

Sam Shirazi

do you think it it's just not going to matter one way or another?

11:52.34

Lauren

It matters. And I think she probably will try to do something policy-wise. You know, usually what is talked about is HBCUs. And four years ago, Youngkin did that. He basically came out and said, hey, I'm going to fund HBCUs. And if you probably remember that former governor Doug Wilder gave Terry McAuliffe hard time on the HBCU question. And then, you know, that kind of spiraled. But, you know, that's usually how, you know, if people talk about education, that's something that that Republicans can universally say. I suspect Sears will say something.

12:21.88

Lauren

I do think it's a problem when your running mate, John Reed, is putting out tweets. I say tweets because I don't like Elon Musk. I still call it Twitter. You know, putting out stuff about George Floyd.

12:34.10

Lauren

on the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's death that really is a deal breaker. Like, you know, if a black voter sends that that John Reed tweet to another black voter, it's game over. like Nobody is going to, to the extent they were considering, consider him after something like that. So I suspect that the Sears campaign didn't know anything about that. But I don't know what they're going to do.

12:56.86

Lauren

They got to do something and more than what they're doing, which that wouldn't be too hard to achieve because it just feels weird. It feels like there's almost no campaign. And you can see like on social media, you see, Sam, there's a lot of griping amongst Republicans about Earl Sears' campaign.

13:12.15

Lauren

I think that that's well earned right now, but we'll see. We'll see what happens. I can't i can't imagine that it'll be this quiet for too much longer.

13:20.33

Sam Shirazi

Yeah. I mean, i imagine at some point the ah campaign's got to pick up, but we'll see.

13:26.03

Lauren

yeah Yeah.

13:27.32

Sam Shirazi

I did want to ask you about the Democrats because, know, you mentioned that Virginia has, I think, of I think it's over 20% of the population is black. And I often tell people, you know, the base of the Democratic Party in Virginia is black voters.

13:41.43

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, there's a lot of focus on Nova and the suburbs. And obviously that's important for Democrats as well. But, you know, ah election after election, the voters that are consistently the most Democratic are black voters in Virginia.

13:53.75

Sam Shirazi

And I think sometimes there might not be a recognition of that, particularly if among some of the maybe consultant class, which is more based in Northern Virginia and is not as familiar with other parts of Virginia.

14:05.05

Sam Shirazi

So what can the Democrats do to energize black voters this year in Virginia to ensure that they are coming out and they are also valued as part of the base of the Democratic Party in Virginia?

14:15.23

Lauren

I'll show up and talk about their issues and the issues that people care about in a forthright way. But there was always this kind of, you know, pushing and pulling with the Democratic Party when it comes to the base of the party.

14:28.72

Lauren

And, you know and ah you you know, in states like, you know, Maryland and Virginia, 34 percent black and ah Virginia, I think, is 20, 21 percent. But that base of the party that shows up for you in that voting booth and 95 percent of the time votes for you, you kind of want to get their support, right? You want to get them motivated to.

14:50.52

Lauren

show up or the couch wins. And I think the couch kind of won last year with regard to Harris v. Trump. So, I mean, there is always this conflict of what issues to bring up. Unfortunately, so much of the time of the Democratic Party they kind of corner off, they they cordon off issues of, you know, justice reform. We're talking about Black people, we're talking about justice reform all the time or, you know, felon voting rights. And it's got to extend further than that.

15:19.94

Lauren

And I think it is going to be a an interesting journey for the Spanberger campaign. I think it becomes a lot easier depending on who...

15:30.61

Lauren

the candidates are for LG and AG. So this question becomes a lot easier to answer based on that. Because of course we do have an interesting moment here where could have actually three women running on the Democratic side.

15:45.79

Lauren

You also could very easily see a a ticket where you have Abigail Spanberger and two black men. So I don't know which combination it's going to be, but they do have to work on the question in this very anti-black moment that we have coming out of the federal government with regard to Donald Trump.

16:05.97

Lauren

They've got to figure out how to message black folks in a way that isn't the same old thing and it is motivating and and inspiring for people to vote because people are getting As time goes on, and I think this is in part the product of media just in our face all the time and just knowing everything, you know whether we're on social media or otherwise, people want results and they want to see results and they want to feel like there are results and that there is change out there.

16:32.43

Lauren

And they will start to ask questions, particularly in this moment where we have a historic set of African-Americans in Virginia in charge. People are going to want to know What are you doing and what how have you made my life better is the central question. So the Democratic Party, unfortunately, Sam, is not good at marketing the things they do do.

16:51.35

Lauren

And then they seem to be reticent and afraid to really talk race. And people see that. mean Black voters see that. They can see that that's happening. And that's got to be fixed at some point.

17:03.25

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I think those are all very, very good points. And, you know, i i think the point about just meeting the voters and talking them about the issues is important. And one of the things I heard after the last election where Democrats didn't do as well as they traditionally did with Hispanic voters is they want to be talking about the normal issues with them as well and not just focus on immigration with Hispanic voters, you know, because that may not be the only thing they care about. And I think it's similar as you the issues that you've raised are really important for the Democrats to talk about in Virginia this year. So I did want to ask you about one House district district.

17:39.38

Sam Shirazi

because I know you spend a decent amount of time in Hampton Roads and you're familiar with the Suffolk area. And there is a House District, House District 89, which I believe Vice President Harris carried by about three points last year.

17:53.57

Sam Shirazi

There will be a primary on both sides because the current Republican incumbent Baxter Ennis is retiring. And so the nominees for the parties are still being finalized in that district.

18:05.42

Sam Shirazi

But can you tell me a little bit about the district? Because it's it's kind of an interesting district where it includes some of the rural parts of Suffolk, but then it goes all the way into more suburban and urban parts of Chesapeake.

18:17.66

Lauren

Yeah, it's got a part that's rural and then it's got a part that's kind of really hitting a lot of development. And Suffolk is big. like So it's sort of a little of both. You know, cotton fields and and s**t know farming on one side and then all of a sudden it's sort of developed and I think getting a little bit too overdeveloped on on another side.

18:41.16

Lauren

Baxter Ennis, of course, has vacated that seat and I think that seat is actually a red seat, by the way. But but i do think in a year like this, where we have the craziness of Donald Trump in the background, frankly, I do think the Democrats going to pick up seven or eight seats. And this is one of them that I think would be a good one to pick up or one that they should be very hopeful about.

19:05.29

Lauren

one in Suffolk. And of course, Karen Jenkins had run two years ago. i think it's I do think it's a lean red, although you do say it's a plus plus blue, which you you know you're probably right. But when I'm down there, I get a very Republican feeling. But I don't know. I just i do think i think the Democrats have a shot in a lot of these closer seats.

19:26.56

Lauren

And anything that is a plus, minus you know two or three, they should have a very good shot. Because the voters are looking to say, we are tired of worrying about our health care. We're tired of you know listening to stories about federal job cuts. And that, of course, is going to impact the entire economy in Virginia.

19:45.23

Lauren

And that is going hit home in a big way. And one way they can they can you know show their displeasure is voting against the Republican Party. and So that I just think there's going to be a big pickup for the Democrats in the House of Delegates.

19:59.03

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, we'll see. and And I take your point. I mean, it's really kind of a marginal district. And, you know, in theory, it could go either way. And I think if the Democrats have a good night, it's one of those seats that could flip. So we'll see what happens there.

20:12.27

Sam Shirazi

Well, know, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on here and talk about some of these issues. And I give you a perspective. You know, I definitely encourage people to check out your sub stack and follow your social medias because I think you definitely give an interesting perspective. And as we discussed, that's sometimes missing. And, you know, I always learn something new when I look at your sub stack or I see your social media. So I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk to me.

20:37.76

Lauren

Oh, absolutely. lot of fun. Don't let that Michael Pope talk into music, Sam. Okay. love good i love it

20:43.33

Sam Shirazi

Well, you know, I will say, i listen, you also have a podcast as part of Black Virginia News, and I like a lot of the the sound effects you got. You got definitely have better sound effects than news.

20:53.19

Lauren

It's easy. It's epidemic sound. I probably should pay me some money for sponsorship. But I like the fact that your podcast just starts. like I like that if you just get right into it, it's fine. There's nothing wrong with that.

21:03.86

Lauren

ah Because I like things to just start and let's just get right to it. So very good job. And thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.

21:10.13

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, no problem. Thank you so much. And this has been Federal Fallout, and 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

00:00.74

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over why the Virginia elections matter and go over some of the history of the Virginia elections over the last 20 years.

00:14.88

Sam Shirazi

And the reason and I want to do this podcast is... Because I talked about the fallout between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. and ah ah And in that emergency podcast, I talked a little bit about the history of Virginia elections and how they're often a referendum on the incumbent president.

00:31.07

Sam Shirazi

And I thought it'd be a good time to now talk about that history in a little bit more detail in this podcast. And the title of the podcast, Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia Elections, makes it clear that this entire podcast, for the most part, is about one election in one year in Virginia, which, you know, it's it's a lot to have a podcast every week and just talk about one election.

00:52.72

Sam Shirazi

But I do think the Virginia elections are really important, and I will talk about the historical reason why they're really important. But also, even if you look at this year in Wisconsin, the only statewide, big statewide race we had this year so far was the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

01:05.60

Sam Shirazi

And when the Democrats won that election pretty handily by 10 points, I would say that was the beginning of the end of Elon Musk's time on the MAGA train. And it was pretty clear that the Republicans were going to throw him off the train because he was going to lead to further losses, including in Virginia.

01:23.70

Sam Shirazi

And so I think the fact that that election was a big win for the Democrats sent a message and really changed the whole trajectory of Elon Musk's time with the federal government. And now it has led to this feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

01:38.19

Sam Shirazi

And I do think there's been this nationalization of Virginia elections, state elections for a long time, going back 20 years, I would say. I mean, you could argue even before that they were nationalized, but I think the really first big national Virginia election was 2005, and I'll talk a little bit more about that.

01:56.35

Sam Shirazi

But the point I'm trying to make is the Virginia elections are not just about state, local issues. Sometimes they are, sometimes those issues are important, but they often take this national character and there're Both parties come in, they spend a lot of money, and they often influence the midterms the following year and even have influences on the presidential election down the line. so I really do think the Virginia elections are important. And I don't want to forget there are also New Jersey elections this year. And I don't want to ignore the New Jersey elections. But the reality is for the last 20 years, I would say the Virginia elections have been more important.

02:29.23

Sam Shirazi

We will see if this year is the exception and maybe New Jersey will get more attention. Maybe the New Jersey race will be closer than the Virginia race. But I would say going all the way back to 2005, the Virginia election has typically been the one that's gotten more attention.

02:41.88

Sam Shirazi

And so we'll we'll talk about the history of Virginia elections going back to 2005. two thousand five So 2005 was really the first nationalized Virginia state election, in my opinion.

02:53.04

Sam Shirazi

So if you think about what happened, George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, including by virginia winning Virginia by a decent margin. And the perception back then was Virginia was this red state, even though Mark Warner had won for the governor's race in 2001.

03:07.12

Sam Shirazi

The Bush was able to win in 2004. And so people perceived Virginia to be this red state. But after 2004, a lot of things happened in 2005 that didn't help the Republicans.

03:19.28

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, the Iraq war was still ongoing and that was not going well. And more U.S. troops were dying every day and every week in Iraq.

03:29.07

Sam Shirazi

in iraq And then in the summer of 2005, you had Hurricane Katrina hit and the devastation of that caused and the perceived failure of the federal government to effectively respond to Hurricane Katrina.

03:41.09

Sam Shirazi

And I think that really led to President Bush's approval ratings and nosediving. And that created this environment where were able this. the Democrats in Virginia had an opportunity to win the governor's mansion again with Tim Kaine.

03:53.56

Sam Shirazi

And I think that election specifically, there was a lot of focus, a lot of outside groups started to come in. There was a lot of a sense of we can send a message with this election. We can start pushing back on the Bush administration. And you saw a lot of the progressive activists getting involved in the early days of the blogosphere and Democratic blogs got involved in that election.

04:15.41

Sam Shirazi

And I think the reason it was really nationalized. So I talked about this in a previous podcast. During the last days of that campaign, President Bush came in and campaigned for the Republican candidate in 2005. And the perception is that kind of backfired on the Republicans and that helped Tim Kaine.

04:31.60

Sam Shirazi

And so The Democrats got the win in 2005, and there was a sense that this was maybe ah ah referendum on Bush. And the the message that the voters sent was that they were not happy with President Bush, and that led to Tim Kaine winning.

04:45.74

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, Tim Kaine winning the governor's race you you know just for his own career was important because that led to him eventually becoming a senator. He was on the national ticket in 2016, and he was reelected last year to the Senate. So I think it had a lot of long-term implications for Virginia. but And that was really, i would say, along with Warner winning in 2001, but then Kane winning in 2005. And then the big transformation was in 2006 at the federal level when Jim Webb won that state, that Senate race.

05:15.52

Sam Shirazi

And then obviously in 2008, after the Democrats won the governor's race in 2005, they won the Senate race in 2006. I think The Obama campaign really saw Virginia as a top target and ah and and they were able to flip Virginia where it voted for the Democrat and the for the first time in a long time since 1964 with LBJ. So you saw that that 2005 election really foreshadowed the Democratic win in 2006 in Virginia with the Senate race and then the Democratic win at the presidential level in 2008 with Barack obama

05:51.96

Sam Shirazi

But the Virginia elections can be very fickle and they often see so huge swings between elections. So in 2008, President Obama won Virginia and he got a big landslide nationally, came in during the height of the Great Recession. Obviously, the Republicans were punished at the polls for what happened when George Bush was president.

06:14.64

Sam Shirazi

But ah It's tough inheriting an ah economy economy like that. And President Obama started to take some action, including the his stimulus bill. But the the reality is the country was in such a big hole that it was going to take a long time to recover from the Great Recession.

06:29.30

Sam Shirazi

And what ended up happening was by November of 2009, the economy was still not in great shape. And I think um The Republican candidate that year, Bob McDonald, was really able to take advantage of that.

06:42.46

Sam Shirazi

And I mentioned before he ran on the slogan, and Bob for jobs, and really talked about the economy. And again, we saw the 2009 election. ah election election in Virginia basically be a referendum on President Obama and his handling of the economy, and that did not go well for the Democrats.

06:59.77

Sam Shirazi

And again, this was a preview of what was going to happen in 2010 when there was a huge backlash against the Democrats during the 2010 midterms when there was a red wave.

07:10.77

Sam Shirazi

And the Democrats ended up losing three House seats in Virginia specifically. So I think the 2009 Virginia elections, again, were nationalized and were a little bit of a preview of what would happen 2010.

07:25.14

Sam Shirazi

I will say by 2012, the economy was doing better. And I think President Obama was able to recover to the point that he was able to win Virginia 2012 and 2010. and Tim Kaine was able to get elected to the Senate for the first time. So it shows you that it's not always, you know, there's always obviously three years between the Virginia governor's race and the presidential race. And I think that's enough time where things can change.

07:50.58

Sam Shirazi

But often between the midterm and the Virginia governor's race, it's just a year. and And often what happens in the Virginia governor's race also happens in the midterm. I did want to talk a little bit about 2013 because that was the exception, I would say, to this general rule of the Virginia election being a referendum on the president. However, I would say it was still a national referendum in some ways, but it was just a referendum on the Republicans. So as I mentioned, Barack Obama wins Virginia in 2012. You would think the Republicans would be able to do well in Virginia again because they are not in the White House and they did well in 2009.

08:24.37

Sam Shirazi

However, they nominated Ken Cuccinelli, who, you know, is perceived to be pretty right wing, especially for Virginia and especially on social issues where Virginia tends to be maybe a more socially liberal state, even if fiscally it's more of a moderate state.

08:38.71

Sam Shirazi

And the Democrats nominated Terry McAuliffe. And I think for a while that race, you know, it was unclear who would have the advantage. And, you know, the the race was kind of chugging along. And then in November in October of that year, 2013, the Republicans in the House decide to shut down the government, trying to defund Obamacare.

09:01.19

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, Virginia, very dependent on the federal government, as we've talked about. And that was one of maybe the original federal fallouts in Virginia, the Republicans were. You know, if you have that level of a shutdown right before a Virginia election, it is not going to go well for the Republicans if they are the ones perceived to be shutting down the government.

09:19.17

Sam Shirazi

And indeed, it not did not go well for the Republicans in Virginia. And Terry McAuliffe was able to win, you know, relatively a narrow victory, but a win's a win. And certainly going against the tide of history where he was able to win, even though Democrats were in the White House.

09:34.56

Sam Shirazi

most people say that was because of the government shutdown. Now, I think part of it, too, was that Ken Cuccinelli was probably too right wing, especially on social issues for Virginia. and And that was part of the reason that Republicans lost that year.

09:47.82

Sam Shirazi

But that was kind of the exception where the Virginia election was not a refer refer referendum on the incumbent president. And that was partly just because of what the Republicans did in D.C. But I do think it was more of a ah ah referendum on the but party in D.C. that was wielding its power, so to speak, more. And that was the Republicans of that time shutting down the government.

10:09.07

Sam Shirazi

All right. So let's fast forward to 2017. So in 2016, President Trump was elected for the first time and he comes into office.

10:20.32

Sam Shirazi

And while the changes he's making to the federal government are certainly not as drastic as they are this time, i think at that time they were perceived to be very drastic because we had not been used to President Trump yet. And obviously it it caused a backlash in Virginia in 2017. And I think it really energized the Democratic activists.

10:39.99

Sam Shirazi

And I would say, you know, more so than in any of the elections before that, the Virginia elections once again became nationalized. And I think there was a sense of we need to send a message. to to Donald Trump, the Democrats were saying, we need to win the Virginia election and we did need to send a message.

10:56.88

Sam Shirazi

for for much of that campaign, it was not obvious the Democrats were going to win. i think, you know, President Trump, people were unsure how popular he was and If he was able to maybe bring out these voters who in the past hadn't voted in Virginia elections.

11:12.80

Sam Shirazi

But what ended up happening is Democrat Ralph Northam got a big win in 2009. Sorry, he got a big win in and won by almost nine points and you know, if that was, again, a little bit of a preview of what was coming. So in 2018, the Democrats were able to flip three House seats in Virginia, and they won the Senate race really big in Virginia.

11:34.30

Sam Shirazi

And then in 2020, they won the presidential race really big in Virginia by 10 points, and they won the Senate seat in 2020 in Virginia. So I think 2017 was certainly, i think, in hindsight, a referendum on Trump in Virginia. I think At the time, it wasn't as clear and it wasn't as clear if the Democrats were going to do well. Obviously, in hindsight, it became much more clear that the Democrats were doing well in Virginia. And that continued throughout the first Trump administration.

12:01.62

Sam Shirazi

So, again, you saw that this Virginia election became nationalized. But as I mentioned, Virginia elections can be very fickle and the pendulum swings back and forth. And obviously, 2020, President Biden gets elected.

12:14.43

Sam Shirazi

And then we had the Virginia elections in 2021. I'd say the first few months of President Biden's term, things were going OK. Then there were some issues with the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

12:25.77

Sam Shirazi

And I think at that point, people were getting a little bit tired of all the COVID precautions that were going on. And so Glenn Youngkin was able to come in, take advantage of that, take advantage of the fact that President Biden was getting more unpopular.

12:38.88

Sam Shirazi

And I think, again, he was able to turn the Virginia elections into a little bit of a referendum on President Biden, but I'd also say on some of the COVID protests. precautions that had still been going on.

12:50.84

Sam Shirazi

And Glenn Youngkin was able to get a narrow win in 2021 by two points. And I think, again, it's this idea that the Virginia elections at that time, and this time as the Republicans, the Republicans wanted to send a message that, know, we're fed up with some of the stuff that's going on in D.C. with Biden, and we want to send a message.

13:08.95

Sam Shirazi

And you saw a lot of outside attention on Glenn Youngkin. He went on Fox News a lot. They wanted to feature him a lot. So it didn't really become a super hyper local Virginia election, it became super nationalized in many ways. And this time the Republicans were able to turn the Virginia election to their advantage and make it a referendum on the incumbent president.

13:30.31

Sam Shirazi

And then you saw next year in the midterms, while it wasn't a massive red wave that everyone thought was coming, the Republicans still did okay. And they were able to pick up a house seat in Virginia in the second district.

13:41.69

Sam Shirazi

And then obviously in 2024, uh, president Biden was not able to end up running for reelection and the Democrats, while they did win Virginia, it was by six points and vice president Harris nationally was not able to win the election.

13:54.75

Sam Shirazi

And so we saw that maybe, the Virginia elections in 2021, where a little bit of a preview of what was coming down the line. I would say that the midterm hit was maybe dulled a little bit because of the Dobbs decision in 2022 and the overturning of Roe.

14:09.45

Sam Shirazi

But still, you know, there was clearly energy on the Republican side. And that was eventually shown in 2024 when Donald Trump was able to win the back of the White House.

14:20.91

Sam Shirazi

So the question is, what happens this year? I mean, I've talked about it before. I mean, my sense is this election will still be a referendum on Trump, especially given all the federal fallout about what's going on in D.C.

14:32.71

Sam Shirazi

I think the Democrats very explicitly, both the pitch to their donors and outside groups, and I think to the people in Virginia, want to make this referendum on Trump. I think they tell...

14:44.49

Sam Shirazi

their supporters that, you know, if the Democrats get a big win here in Virginia, it will make a difference nationally. And they they want to nationalize the election as much as possible. the Republicans, it's a little bit unclear what the strategy is, but they are probably not trying to make this a referendum on Trump as much as maybe talk about some of the local issues or talk about some of the more culture issues that they like to talk about and maybe try to change the the focus from Trump. But the reality is when you are the party in the White House, you and especially someone like Donald Trump, who likes to be the center of attention, it's going to be very hard to talk about anything else other than Donald Trump in this election.

15:23.48

Sam Shirazi

And I do think there's a scenario where, you know, We look back and if the Democrats get a big year, a big win this year in Virginia, there will be a sense of, oh, this was just another referendum on the incumbent president. And this was just like 2017 when you know there was a backlash to what Trump did in D.C.

15:41.06

Sam Shirazi

And I do think. And the Democrats, the bigger the win, the bigger the message. I mean, I think if they do get a big win this year in Virginia, it will send a message not just in Virginia, but across the country and even across the world where people will pay attention and see that maybe there is this backlash to what President Trump is doing, and especially the downsizing the federal government and the firing of federal workers.

16:02.97

Sam Shirazi

I think the Republican hope is that, you know, maybe they can still win this year in Virginia, or even if they don't end up winning, they can keep it close. And that will show that people are still supporting President Trump and that he's not this super unpopular figure that the Democrats think he is. I think that was it was a little bit of a wake up call for the Democrats in 2024, because the sense was particularly after President Biden dropped out and Vice President Harris came in the ticket, there was a sense of, OK,

16:28.91

Sam Shirazi

It seems like President Trump is not super popular and you know we have a different candidate. you know We should be winning this election really easily. And I think there was a you know a rude awakening for many Democrats when not only did Trump win, but he he had a bigger win than he had in 2016.

16:43.76

Sam Shirazi

And so I don't think you could discount the possibility that there are a lot of people who support President Trump and they can certainly come out in the Virginia elections. At the same time, I think the Republicans have to be realistic with themselves. And this is Virginia. There's a lot of federal employees. there's a lot of impact from what's going on in the federal government.

16:59.51

Sam Shirazi

And can't just kind of wish that away. And you can't just say, oh, well, all those people already are Democrats, because the reality is a lot of those people aren't Democrats, especially in a place like Hampton Roads. People, jobs might be tied to the federal government, but they might might have more of a military background. They might be more of a swing a voter.

17:15.39

Sam Shirazi

So I don't think the Republicans can sleep that easy at night just telling themselves every single federal worker is a Democrat. I do think they have to take the threat that there will be this backlash in Virginia seriously.

17:27.05

Sam Shirazi

And they have to think of ways both to get their voters out in November and to keep the more moderate swing voters in their side of the aisle as opposed to going over to the Democrats.

17:37.25

Sam Shirazi

And I'll kind of end the podcast with one really interesting historical fact. So I mentioned 2013 was a little bit of an exception. But if you think about 2013, even though Obama was in the White House, there was a Republican governor in the governor's mansion. So right now,

17:50.80

Sam Shirazi

We have a Republican governor in the with Glenn Youngkin and then obviously the Republican president with Donald Trump. So that means both the governor's mansion and the White House, it's the same party in Virginia. And the last time that a party that has controlled the governor's mansion and the White House has won the Virginia governor's election was all the way back in 1973.

18:12.63

Sam Shirazi

So we are talking about 52 years was the last time that kind of a similar situation where you had a Republican in the White House and a Republican the governor's mansion and the Republicans were able to win.

18:22.86

Sam Shirazi

So I think that just gives you a sense of the historical challenge the Republicans have this and this election, even if you put aside all the federal fallout and you put aside everything else and the candidates that are running just, you know,

18:36.06

Sam Shirazi

purely look at the historical trends. I think it's just, it's a tough, it's a tough year for the Republicans. And I think, you know, we'll have to just wait and see what the final numbers look like when the election is over.

18:47.84

Sam Shirazi

But I do think the Republicans have to take this year seriously in Virginia, given historical trends. Obviously, Every election is unique just because something happened in the past doesn't mean it's going to happen in the future. 2013 showed us this where it is possible for a party to win the governor's race if they have the White House.

19:05.60

Sam Shirazi

I think 2013 depended a lot what was going on in D.C. And in theory, if the Democrats do something crazy in D.C., you know, maybe that'll change the dynamics. But frankly, And this has been something that the Democratic activists have been a little bit upset about. I mean, the members of Congress in D.C. are not super eager to take on the Trump administration directly and sort of sort of open confrontation by at least not yet.

19:30.52

Sam Shirazi

And There was that whole controversy when the Democrats decided not to shut down the government. I think in hindsight, that might look a little bit better because frankly, the Republicans are kind of destroying themselves right now with this bill they're trying to pass and the fact that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are fighting with each other. so you know There was a calculation maybe on Chuck Schumer's part to just you know not pick a fight then, and a lot of the activists were upset. But in some ways, it might have worked out because now the Democrats are sitting back and watching the Republicans fighting each other.

20:00.26

Sam Shirazi

And so if that's the atmosphere where the Democrats are not doing a whole lot in D.C., they're just kind of sitting around watching the Republicans fight each other and Republicans aren't able to pass this bill. and there's a lot of chaos going on in DC.

20:10.73

Sam Shirazi

I mean, that's again, the environment that's going to help the Democrats. And that's not the type of environment that's going to lead to this counterfactual win for the Republicans this year in Virginia. So all that's to say is there's a lot going on. You know, there's still five months to the election. i don't want to pretend like any the election's over, Democrats have won.

20:28.98

Sam Shirazi

But at the same time, i mean, yes, five months is not an insignificant amount of time, but early voting starts in late September in Virginia. And so that is coming up and the Republicans should be mindful of that and the fact that the election campaign is in full swing and especially after the June 17th primary, when the tickets are set on the Democratic side, it will really be the general election. so There's a lot to cover this year in Virginia. I'll try to do my best to cover it all. I wanted to talk a little bit about the historical nature of Virginia elections and the fact that they often become nationalized. So I will try to do my best to cover it all.

21:04.78

Sam Shirazi

And I appreciate everyone who's been listening and giving me positive feedback. And I'm going to try to do these every week. And I hope you listen along. 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

00:00.47

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This is a special bonus episode where we we will go over another type of fallout, and that is the breakup between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

00:14.96

Sam Shirazi

And we will see how all this will impact the 2025 Virginia Okay, so for some background, obviously during the last election, Elon Musk was one of the biggest supporters of Donald Trump and cheerleaders of him.

00:29.16

Sam Shirazi

And after the election, Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk to be the person in charge of some of the government reorganization and layoffs that were going to be happening.

00:41.54

Sam Shirazi

And there was an entity create created called Doge. And in the early days of the a second Trump administration, Elon Musk really took a leading role in some of the things that happened in terms of cutting funding, cutting people and agencies,

00:57.12

Sam Shirazi

and laying off workers. And that was a lot of what was going on in the first couple months of the Trump administration. And obviously, this podcast was called Federal Fallout because we were seeing all that in Virginia. And obviously, it was going to have an impact in the Virginia elections in 2025.

01:12.61

Sam Shirazi

So a lot of the premise of this podcast, at least initially, was that much of the federal fallout from Doge specifically was going to have a big impact here in Virginia for our elections this year.

01:23.46

Sam Shirazi

Then there was a big Supreme Court election in Wisconsin where Elon Musk went all in for the Republican candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and that didn't end up well for the Republicans. the Democrats had a big win in that Supreme Court election and won by 10 points.

01:39.45

Sam Shirazi

And after that, I think Elon Musk really started to fade a little bit into the background. I think he was a little disenchanted by what happened in Wisconsin. So the sense was – Everyone kind of got a message from Wisconsin, Elon Musk, the Republicans, that it was probably time for Musk to move on. And it was announced at the end of May he would be stepping down from his role with Doge.

02:05.86

Sam Shirazi

And even as late as last week, there were indications that, know, the relationship between Trump and Musk was not... maybe as close as it was during the election, but, uh, president Trump had Elon Musk and in the Oval Office last week. And, you know, there was a sense maybe Musk would just move on and this wouldn't be that big of a deal.

02:26.72

Sam Shirazi

uh, he'd go back to doing his various businesses and Trump would go back to being president and they'd all just kind of move on. But, um, If you know Donald Trump and Elon Musk, it's not their type of personalities to just quietly fade into the background after something happens.

02:45.90

Sam Shirazi

And I think there was a lot going on with this new bill that the Republicans were trying to pass in Congress. So the House of Representatives passed a version of what called what Trump calls the big, beautiful bill.

02:58.59

Sam Shirazi

And Elon Musk started speaking out against the bill. And I think there was a big moment when Elon Musk posted on X that he the bill was a disgusting abomination because it raised the deficit.

03:14.79

Sam Shirazi

And anyways, so that was kind of the beginning of obviously the the latest feud that was going to explode because neither Elon Musk or President Trump are the type of people that when There is criticism of them, though we'll just take it quietly.

03:32.16

Sam Shirazi

So President Trump started pushing back on Elon Musk. And long story short, after a while on X, Elon Musk started posting a lot of things. And but it turned into a full-blown feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

03:48.22

Sam Shirazi

Elon Musk would say stuff on X and then Trump would say something on Truth Social and Trump would threaten to remove some of the contracts to Elon Musk's company. And Elon Musk said that there was something with the Epstein files and Trump's not releasing them. And just a lot of back and forth that is going on on social media and a lot of posting about this big feud.

04:08.28

Sam Shirazi

And honestly, I have no idea how all this ends. It's just a lot of stuff going on. Pretty chaotic scene. in terms of what's going on with Elon Musk and Donald Trump. And this is like a huge change from January, February, when Elon Musk and Trump still seem very close and Musk was dominating the news.

04:25.65

Sam Shirazi

And there was a sense that maybe this year in Virginia, it was going to be all about Elon Musk and Doge. I think things are changing a little bit. And it's a little bit unclear where things are going right now in this whole thing that's been happening.

04:40.68

Sam Shirazi

And I think there are like two scenarios about what could happen. There's maybe the Republican hope for what might happen. And then there's a Democratic hope. And I'll first go over the Republican hope.

04:52.08

Sam Shirazi

So I think even before this latest fallout between Trump and Musk, there was a sense that among Republicans that Doge was fading into the background by November. Most people wouldn't really remember Doge.

05:04.80

Sam Shirazi

it wouldn't be a big part of the Virginia elections. I mean, frankly, I think that was a little bit of wishful thinking because there were hundreds of thousands of people in Virginia affected by what Doge and the Trump administration have done.

05:16.72

Sam Shirazi

And so the idea that a couple months later they won't really worry about it anymore not really realistic. But I mean, it certainly was going to be true that you were going to hear in theory less about Doge and Elon Musk if there was kind of this scenario where Musk quietly rode into the sunset.

05:33.72

Sam Shirazi

So in theory, that could have been better for the Republicans if it played out that way. And I think there's also a hope probably among the Republicans that Elon Musk, he was not going to be able to be used as a boogeyman by the Democrats.

05:47.04

Sam Shirazi

And if anything, maybe the Republicans will start running against Elon Musk at this rate. So, I mean, one scenario is essentially Doge and Musk are out of the picture. And that's generally good for the Republicans because they're not tied to Musk. And he's made a very public break from the Republicans.

06:04.68

Sam Shirazi

And so that means that the Republicans can run. their own race and not be tied to Elon Musk the way the Republican in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race was. I think part of the problem with that calculus is, well, that yeah yeah, the Republicans are probably not going to be tied to Elon Musk, but they're going to be tied to Donald Trump. And so I think that's still going to be a big challenge for the Republicans this year in Virginia, because as I mentioned in another podcast, almost and certainly Trump is going to have negative approval in Virginia. so Even if the Republicans don't have Elon Musk hanging around their necks, they will have Donald Trump and they'll have to deal with that.

06:40.40

Sam Shirazi

And now they're going to have to be dealing that with that in an environment where you have Elon Musk potentially going nuclear and attacking Trump on X So that takes us to basically like the...

06:52.88

Sam Shirazi

democratic version of what might happen or or what they hope might happen. And that is that this basically turns into a full-blown Republican civil war. Elon Musk is maybe more with the tech bros slash fiscal conservative side of things. And then you have Donald Trump with the economic populace and the MAGA movement, and they kind of go all out war.

07:15.81

Sam Shirazi

This bill that the Republicans are trying to pass in Congress is not going to go anywhere because there's all this infighting and They can't agree how big should it be you can't and how much should be cut, how much should be left.

07:26.62

Sam Shirazi

And so there's just a lot of chaos. And this generally adds to the sense of chaos with Donald Trump that he is not able to kind of orderly manage the government. And now he's got this feud with Elon Musk. And I think one of the things that hurt Trump in the past in his first administration is when the country has a sense that things are chaotic and that that he's not in charge of things. And, you know, that was certainly true, I would say, in 2020 when COVID came. And, you know, realistically, that was a ah hard thing for any president to have to deal with.

07:56.68

Sam Shirazi

there was a sense that the Trump response was a little bit chaotic. And if here we get a similar situation where Trump is going after Elon Musk and, you know,

08:07.15

Sam Shirazi

app a few months after endorsing all everything Doge was doing. And does Trump come in and reverse what Doge did? Does he try to get rid of the Musk loyalists that are so some of them still in the government working on Doge? So, I mean, it just kind of adds to the sense that the Republicans don't have their act together and the Republicans can come in and you know what are they going to campaign on in Virginia if that's going on in the background?

08:32.75

Sam Shirazi

And it makes it pretty easy for the Democrats to come in and say, you know actually, we offer a different vision. We're going to run the government effectively. We're competent. And for the average voter, when they're seeing Trump and Musk fighting on X all day, and then you see the Democrats running a relatively normal campaign with relatively normal candidates, I think there's a sense that maybe that would be a more appealing message to Virginia voters.

08:57.63

Sam Shirazi

And This doesn't even get to the Republicans who are running this year in Virginia. So obviously the top of the ticket, you have Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears. What does she do? Is she asked about Musk? Is she asked about Trump?

09:09.14

Sam Shirazi

I mean, my sense is she will have to back Trump because he's the president. And does that mean she has to throw Musk under the bus if she's asked directly about it? My sense ah Sears is she's just going to try to avoid the topic. I think she knows it's a no-win proposition to be talking about Elon Musk, so she'll probably just try to avoid it.

09:28.50

Sam Shirazi

I mean, the more interesting question is what does the Lieutenant Governor nominee for the Republicans, John Reed, do? Because he is pretty hardcore MAGA guy and he's pretty big supporter of President Trump. And so does he come in 100% behind President Trump? And does he spend time talking about Elon Musk and bashing Elon Musk?

09:47.41

Sam Shirazi

And what what is going on with the attorney general in Virginia, and Jason Meares? Is he talking about this? and And not to go too off sidetrack, but there was some questions to – Winsome Sears this week about whether she was going to campaign with John Reed and the whole ticket would campaign together. And it was a little unclear. And, you know, we still don't have an event where the entire Republican ticket has appeared on the same stage. And is that going to happen this year?

10:14.21

Sam Shirazi

And that's a little bit of a separate drama, but it's related in the sense of there's kind of this identity crisis, i I would say, with the Republican ticket, because You have Winston Earl Sears, the lieutenant governor, obviously not distancing herself from President Trump, but also maybe trying to run her own campaign and trying to show a little bit of independence and not wanting to be perceived as being 100 percent the Trump candidate, because that's probably not going to work in Virginia when Donald Trump last year lost Virginia by six points.

10:44.93

Sam Shirazi

And then you have John Reed as the lieutenant governor of candidate who's almost have to the exact opposite strategy where he's going to run as the MAGA candidate. and you know really tie himself to President Trump.

10:56.85

Sam Shirazi

And that's not a clear picture if you're trying to run as a ticket and you have the governor and the lieutenant governor candidate not wanting to appear with each other, not clear that they have similar political ideas.

11:09.43

Sam Shirazi

So I think though things have been changing in Virginia, but the one consistent theme I would say that the the Republicans constantly are facing these problems in Virginia. So first problem was when trust Trump and Musk were close and Doge came in and started firing federal employees.

11:26.57

Sam Shirazi

There was definitely a lot of hit, a big hit to the Virginia economy. And the Virginia Republicans didn't really know how to respond to that. And and their response was basically, well, this was kind of necessary.

11:37.76

Sam Shirazi

One, two, three. So that was like one big crisis the Virginia GOP already had to deal with this year.

11:43.100

Sam Shirazi

And then there was like the second crisis that happened when John Reed became the lieutenant governor nominee. And then Governor Youngkin called him and asked him to drop out. And John Reed said, no, I'm not going to drop out. And there was kind of that drama that had lasted a couple weeks.

11:58.66

Sam Shirazi

Seemed like the Virginia GOP had moved on from that and they were hoping maybe Doge was less in the news. And now they're just being hit with this turmoil where the Republican Party is being...

12:10.75

Sam Shirazi

in a lot of chaos right now. And there's a fight between the Trump and the Musk people. And, you know, realistically, I would say most Republicans are loyal to Trump. And as much as Elon Musk thinks he has influence out there in the world, I'm sure there he does have a fair amount of followers. But Donald Trump won the Republican primary in 2024 pretty handily.

12:28.53

Sam Shirazi

Anyway, so all that's to say is there's a lot going on right now nationally with the Republican Party. And that's going to have an effect here in Virginia. And I call this podcast Federal Fallout. And the fallout itself has been changing over time. So the initial fallout was really the firing of the federal workers and the cuts the federal government.

12:48.94

Sam Shirazi

That's still going to have an impact. But I think the federal fallout now might be this kind of weird conflict between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. And there's a unclear who's going to end up on top and what it's going to look like. And Elon Musk, you know, he has a lot of money. He has a social media platform on X, so he can do a lot of things. He can say a lot of things.

13:09.23

Sam Shirazi

And the Democrats faced that for a while last year, and it certainly didn't help them in the 2024 election where you had Elon Musk posting all day ah negative things about the Democrats. And it's very possible he will start posting all day negative things about Donald Trump and the Republicans.

13:25.50

Sam Shirazi

And then what what happens with the the bill the Republicans are trying to pass? I mean, all that is happening in the background. And, you know, these state elections, I've said it before, really are impacted by national politics.

13:37.93

Sam Shirazi

And so as much as the Virginia issues are important, they're not always center stage in the governor's election. And I'm mindful of, you know, this election may not exactly always be the same topic.

13:52.03

Sam Shirazi

Maybe it's going to shift a little bit from the beginning of the year when it was really about the federal cuts to maybe now it's going to be about other things. But I think the constant in the Virginia election is the federal fallout.

14:03.43

Sam Shirazi

And that's kind of the constant throughout this election. And ultimately, the election, if there's anything that it's going to be about, it's probably going to be about Donald Trump. And it's going to probably be a referendum on Donald Trump. but And almost every Virginia election, with maybe the exception of 2013, going back all the way to 2005, has essentially been a referendum on the incumbent president.

14:25.91

Sam Shirazi

So 2005, it was in a referendum on ah President Bush. 2009, it was a referendum on President Obama. 2013 was a little bit of an exception for various reasons. 2017 was a referendum on President Trump.

14:41.49

Sam Shirazi

2021 was a referendum on President Biden. It seems likely one way or another that 2025 is going to be a referendum on President Trump. And if his his approval ratings in Virginia are negative, that should be good news for the for the Democrats. So the Democrats are assuming, at least right now, I think that they're probably in the driver's seat for this election. We'll see if that's true in November.

15:01.89

Sam Shirazi

But certainly right now, this chaos between Donald Trump and Elon Musk it does not help the Virginia Republicans. And they've already had to weather a lot this year And, you know, the Democrats, not that they're everything's perfect for them, but relatively things have been pretty clean for them this year in Virginia.

15:20.55

Sam Shirazi

They do have a primary coming up on June 17th. The candidates are starting to throw a little bit more jabs at each other. I'll probably talk more about the primary next week on the podcast, because I think that's going to be a big deal as we're going to come up into the run of the June 17th primary in Virginia. But After that, the Democratic ticket will be set. The Republican ticket has been set for a while. And, you know, we can really focus on the general election. But I just want to do this emergency podcast, talk about some of the stuff going on, because it's been really crazy.

15:48.13

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, i appreciate everyone who's been listening and following along on this crazy ride that is the 2025 Virginia elections. And I'll try to do my best to keep everyone updated. But for now, that 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

00:00.66

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.

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