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.

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

00:00.85

Sam Shirazi

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

00:17.69

Sam Shirazi

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

00:36.80

Mark downey

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

00:41.25

Sam Shirazi

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

00:45.80

Mark downey

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

01:04.58

Mark downey

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

01:29.98

Mark downey

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

01:40.81

Mark downey

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

02:12.67

Sam Shirazi

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

02:32.06

Sam Shirazi

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

02:41.95

Mark downey

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

03:00.85

Mark downey

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

03:31.69

Sam Shirazi

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

03:50.92

Mark downey

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

04:10.44

Mark downey

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

04:56.20

Mark downey

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

05:15.63

Sam Shirazi

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

05:35.49

Sam Shirazi

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

05:45.39

Sam Shirazi

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

05:53.68

Mark downey

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

06:17.08

Mark downey

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

06:31.36

Mark downey

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

06:53.02

Mark downey

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

07:02.92

Sam Shirazi

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

07:15.04

Sam Shirazi

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

07:29.26

Mark downey

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

07:47.33

Mark downey

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

08:05.45

Mark downey

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

08:22.10

Mark downey

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

08:35.36

Sam Shirazi

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

08:58.23

Mark downey

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

09:19.81

Mark downey

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

09:45.33

Mark downey

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

09:56.48

Mark downey

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

10:07.62

Mark downey

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

10:21.41

Sam Shirazi

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

10:35.23

Sam Shirazi

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

10:46.68

Sam Shirazi

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

11:05.100

Mark downey

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

11:25.34

Mark downey

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

11:35.45

Mark downey

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

11:46.03

Mark downey

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

12:08.24

Mark downey

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

12:25.69

Sam Shirazi

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

12:46.31

Mark downey

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

13:02.86

Mark downey

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

13:17.24

Mark downey

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

13:34.38

Mark downey

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

13:46.60

Mark downey

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

14:02.20

Mark downey

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

14:09.32

Sam Shirazi

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

14:26.18

Sam Shirazi

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

14:32.71

Mark downey

Correct.

14:35.12

Sam Shirazi

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

14:45.29

Mark downey

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

14:58.67

Mark downey

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

15:12.53

Mark downey

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

15:33.08

Mark downey

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

16:02.07

Mark downey

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

16:20.10

Mark downey

adrenaline

16:22.43

Sam Shirazi

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

16:30.74

Mark downey

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

16:44.84

Mark downey

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

16:54.15

Sam Shirazi

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

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

00:00.70

Sam Shirazi

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

00:17.57

Sam Shirazi

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

00:32.81

Sam Shirazi

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

00:49.57

Sam Shirazi

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

01:00.87

Sam Shirazi

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

01:22.63

Sam Shirazi

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

01:42.91

Sam Shirazi

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

01:57.37

Sam Shirazi

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

02:09.12

Sam Shirazi

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

02:27.36

Sam Shirazi

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

02:44.20

Sam Shirazi

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

02:57.04

Sam Shirazi

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

03:16.62

Sam Shirazi

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

03:33.78

Sam Shirazi

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

03:45.27

Sam Shirazi

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

04:02.90

Sam Shirazi

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

04:32.12

Sam Shirazi

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

04:47.54

Sam Shirazi

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

05:06.57

Sam Shirazi

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

05:36.47

Sam Shirazi

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

05:52.01

Sam Shirazi

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

06:06.38

Sam Shirazi

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

06:19.07

Sam Shirazi

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

06:30.54

Sam Shirazi

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

06:41.80

Sam Shirazi

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

06:59.57

Sam Shirazi

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

07:15.42

Sam Shirazi

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

07:28.05

Sam Shirazi

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

07:41.17

Sam Shirazi

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

07:54.53

Sam Shirazi

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

08:12.48

Sam Shirazi

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

08:36.04

Sam Shirazi

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

08:49.41

Sam Shirazi

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

09:00.79

Sam Shirazi

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

09:13.48

Sam Shirazi

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

09:38.29

Sam Shirazi

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

09:51.82

Sam Shirazi

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

10:11.66

Sam Shirazi

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

10:25.31

Sam Shirazi

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

10:42.24

Sam Shirazi

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

11:03.32

Sam Shirazi

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

11:16.44

Sam Shirazi

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

11:33.02

Sam Shirazi

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

11:47.48

Sam Shirazi

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

12:04.13

Sam Shirazi

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

12:30.97

Sam Shirazi

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

12:48.07

Sam Shirazi

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

12:59.99

Sam Shirazi

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

13:11.32

Sam Shirazi

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

13:24.07

Sam Shirazi

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

13:44.40

Sam Shirazi

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

14:00.91

Sam Shirazi

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

14:20.67

Sam Shirazi

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

14:33.78

Sam Shirazi

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

14:49.97

Sam Shirazi

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

15:12.74

Sam Shirazi

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

15:34.36

Sam Shirazi

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

16:03.90

Sam Shirazi

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

16:15.88

Sam Shirazi

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

16:29.86

Sam Shirazi

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

16:40.98

Sam Shirazi

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

16:55.83

Sam Shirazi

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

17:11.42

Sam Shirazi

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

17:25.14

Sam Shirazi

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

17:37.64

Sam Shirazi

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

18:05.54

Sam Shirazi

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

18:26.91

Sam Shirazi

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

18:40.66

Sam Shirazi

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

18:54.01

Sam Shirazi

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

19:04.92

Sam Shirazi

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

19:30.81

Sam Shirazi

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

19:52.43

Sam Shirazi

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

20:41.61

Sam Shirazi

ah

20:42.03

Sam Shirazi

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

21:02.29

Sam Shirazi

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

21:15.95

Sam Shirazi

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

21:29.33

Sam Shirazi

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

21:44.16

Sam Shirazi

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

22:07.73

Sam Shirazi

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

22:15.03

Sam Shirazi

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

22:26.98

Sam Shirazi

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

22:48.53

Sam Shirazi

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

23:16.55

Sam Shirazi

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

23:34.70

Sam Shirazi

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

23:52.94

Sam Shirazi

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

24:26.12

Sam Shirazi

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

24:46.52

Sam Shirazi

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

24:53.51

Sam Shirazi

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

25:15.02

Sam Shirazi

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

25:27.45

Sam Shirazi

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

25:47.46

Sam Shirazi

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

26:10.71

Sam Shirazi

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

26:31.22

Sam Shirazi

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

26:53.18

Sam Shirazi

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

27:21.51

Sam Shirazi

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

27:33.20

Sam Shirazi

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

27:49.10

Sam Shirazi

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

28:18.18

Sam Shirazi

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

28:29.40

Sam Shirazi

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

28:48.74

Sam Shirazi

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

29:06.43

Sam Shirazi

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

29:17.12

Sam Shirazi

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

29:34.82

Sam Shirazi

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

29:50.28

Sam Shirazi

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

30:09.83

Sam Shirazi

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

30:23.29

Sam Shirazi

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

30:41.88

Sam Shirazi

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

30:53.24

Sam Shirazi

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

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

00:00.46

Sam Shirazi

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

00:41.59

Sam Shirazi

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

00:52.60

Sam Shirazi

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

01:05.07

Sam Shirazi

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

01:16.45

Sam Shirazi

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

01:45.36

Sam Shirazi

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

01:56.81

Sam Shirazi

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

02:25.26

Sam Shirazi

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

02:45.04

Sam Shirazi

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

03:08.18

Sam Shirazi

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

03:18.81

Sam Shirazi

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

03:34.19

Sam Shirazi

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

03:47.93

Sam Shirazi

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

03:59.97

Sam Shirazi

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

04:12.74

Sam Shirazi

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

04:36.51

Sam Shirazi

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

04:54.76

Sam Shirazi

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

05:02.91

Sam Shirazi

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

05:11.82

Sam Shirazi

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

05:30.69

Sam Shirazi

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

05:43.94

Sam Shirazi

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

06:13.28

Sam Shirazi

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

06:34.65

Sam Shirazi

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

06:49.27

Sam Shirazi

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

07:06.59

Sam Shirazi

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

07:17.56

Sam Shirazi

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

07:42.24

Sam Shirazi

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

07:55.89

Sam Shirazi

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

08:09.22

Sam Shirazi

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

08:29.86

Sam Shirazi

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

08:42.66

Sam Shirazi

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

09:02.86

Sam Shirazi

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

09:15.83

Sam Shirazi

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

09:29.60

Sam Shirazi

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

09:44.97

Sam Shirazi

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

09:55.92

Sam Shirazi

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

10:30.50

Sam Shirazi

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

10:55.86

Sam Shirazi

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

11:15.56

Sam Shirazi

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

11:44.32

Sam Shirazi

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

11:54.24

Sam Shirazi

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

12:15.69

Sam Shirazi

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

12:26.79

Sam Shirazi

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

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

00:00.47

Sam Shirazi

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

00:19.25

Sam Shirazi

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

00:31.33

Sam Shirazi

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

00:47.92

Michael Pope

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

01:09.74

Michael Pope

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

01:21.40

Sam Shirazi

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

01:40.60

Sam Shirazi

Can you guess who it is?

01:40.75

Michael Pope

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

01:52.47

Michael Pope

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

02:08.49

Michael Pope

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

02:13.03

Sam Shirazi

about this one?

02:15.36

Michael Pope

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

02:32.52

Sam Shirazi

Oh, yeah, that that could be intro.

02:35.31

Michael Pope

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

02:40.31

Sam Shirazi

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

02:49.01

Michael Pope

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

02:57.68

Sam Shirazi

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

03:21.09

Sam Shirazi

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

03:29.41

Michael Pope

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

03:52.54

Michael Pope

Sam Shirazi, what podcast do you listen to?

03:54.94

Sam Shirazi

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

03:58.19

Michael Pope

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

04:00.56

Sam Shirazi

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

04:00.84

Michael Pope

Thank you for listening.

04:04.63

Sam Shirazi

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

04:35.91

Michael Pope

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

04:54.13

Michael Pope

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

05:14.32

Sam Shirazi

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

05:32.30

Sam Shirazi

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

05:54.23

Sam Shirazi

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

06:07.97

Michael Pope

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

06:28.71

Michael Pope

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

06:53.52

Michael Pope

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

07:07.29

Michael Pope

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

07:19.75

Michael Pope

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

07:39.24

Michael Pope

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

07:44.91

Sam Shirazi

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

08:01.43

Sam Shirazi

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

08:20.44

Sam Shirazi

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

08:36.32

Sam Shirazi

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

08:45.44

Michael Pope

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

09:16.97

Michael Pope

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

09:44.88

Sam Shirazi

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

10:02.43

Sam Shirazi

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

10:22.17

Michael Pope

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

10:39.57

Michael Pope

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

11:07.38

Sam Shirazi

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

11:23.51

Michael Pope

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

11:40.99

Michael Pope

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

12:10.11

Michael Pope

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

12:23.67

Michael Pope

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

12:36.62

Michael Pope

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

12:43.86

Sam Shirazi

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

13:25.78

Michael Pope

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

14:03.71

Michael Pope

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

14:27.24

Michael Pope

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

14:46.55

Michael Pope

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

14:57.71

Michael Pope

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

15:12.99

Sam Shirazi

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

15:27.16

Sam Shirazi

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

15:42.59

Sam Shirazi

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

15:54.13

Sam Shirazi

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

16:17.96

Michael Pope

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

16:37.45

Michael Pope

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

16:57.86

Michael Pope

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

17:12.77

Michael Pope

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

17:51.91

Michael Pope

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

18:01.60

Sam Shirazi

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

18:29.67

Sam Shirazi

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

18:36.12

Michael Pope

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

19:10.34

Michael Pope

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

19:45.56

Michael Pope

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

19:59.26

Sam Shirazi

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

20:03.54

Michael Pope

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

20:28.13

Michael Pope

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

21:17.69

Michael Pope

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

21:43.77

Sam Shirazi

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

22:13.82

Sam Shirazi

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

22:25.96

Sam Shirazi

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

22:38.86

Michael Pope

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

23:12.42

Michael Pope

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

23:34.05

Michael Pope

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

24:17.75

Michael Pope

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

24:29.26

Michael Pope

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

25:06.44

Michael Pope

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

25:20.71

Michael Pope

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

25:32.89

Michael Pope

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

26:00.38

Michael Pope

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

26:14.39

Sam Shirazi

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

26:33.03

Sam Shirazi

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

26:50.77

Sam Shirazi

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

27:09.49

Sam Shirazi

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

27:23.88

Sam Shirazi

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

27:39.35

Sam Shirazi

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

27:50.12

Michael Pope

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

28:01.22

Michael Pope

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

28:40.76

Michael Pope

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

28:53.51

Michael Pope

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

29:04.68

Michael Pope

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

29:27.66

Michael Pope

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

30:02.28

Michael Pope

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

30:25.39

Michael Pope

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

31:01.99

Michael Pope

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

31:15.70

Michael Pope

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

31:43.85

Michael Pope

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

32:00.84

Sam Shirazi

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

32:11.86

Sam Shirazi

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

32:38.64

Michael Pope

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

32:46.87

Sam Shirazi

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

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