00:00.77

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, I will be interviewing Democratic consultant Ben Tribbett. He's the found founder of Pocket Aces Consulting.

00:14.91

Sam Shirazi

And I'm also old enough to remember when Ben had his blog, which was one of the original go-to sources for Virginia politics. And now you can get his talk hot takes on X.

00:28.06

Sam Shirazi

So Ben, what made you want to take the leap from giving hot takes online to starting your own consulting firm?

00:36.63

Ben

I got into politics when I was very young.

00:40.73

Ben

And so when I was in high school, I started doing volunteering for campaigns. And then I got to manage my first campaign when I was still a teenager, but which was for a Fairfax County school board race.

00:54.34

Ben

By the time I was 21, I managed my first winning delegate race where we unseated a Republican incumbent. And from that point, I was kind of off to the races from the consulting side of things.

01:06.01

Ben

And so I actually was there before I started the blog. And when I went to Las Vegas to play poker full time, I decided to start Not Larry Sabato, the blog, as a way to sort of stay in touch with Virginia while I was while i was playing poker.

01:21.88

Ben

So I did that for about a year and a half and got the blog off the ground. And so by the time I got back into political consulting, after I kind of winded down doing the, we'll call it the journalist thing for a few years,

01:35.14

Ben

you know, it was more of a return home for me than it was trying something new.

01:39.97

Sam Shirazi

Got it. Well, I did want to ask you one kind of interesting question about the gambling side of things, because I know Nate Silver and you seem to like gambling. Is there something that maybe attracts people to both politics and gambling?

01:54.21

Ben

Well, first of all, poker is a game of skill, not a game of chance, Sam. So poker players would not consider themselves gamblers. But I do also like to partake in other forms of gambling.

02:04.53

Ben

And I think you know anyone who is doing wagering, especially on stuff like sports, there's certainly a numbers component to it. And that's been the side of politics I've always been on is the looking at precinct numbers, looking at trends, looking at statistics.

02:22.44

Ben

And so I'm trying to figure out what that means and portends for the future. So there's certainly some overlap there.

02:29.24

Sam Shirazi

Got it. Well, I wanted to ask you about being a consultant because after Democrats lost the last election, there was a lot of blame directed at the consultant class. And can you just explain what a consultant does and why they're not all bad?

02:44.15

Ben

Yeah. Well, and I think a lot of that blame was deserved. I mean, the the Democratic consultant class structured very differently than what Republicans do. So when people say, you know, you're a campaign consultant, it means very different things if you're a Democratic consultant or a Republican.

03:03.45

Ben

Democrats tend to be structured in these very rigid sort of a pyramid of a campaign. It's a, you have a staffer on the ground and they have a consultant that deals with each aspect of the spends that they're doing. So they'll have a television consultant, a digital consultant, a male consultant, on larger campaigns, they might bring in an expert that's a field consultant.

03:29.83

Ben

And this is overlaid with your traditional staff. Obviously there's also fundraising consultants. the Republicans tend to do more of a model that is a general consultant. They put bring in one firm that sort of handles all these aspects of your campaign for you.

03:46.73

Ben

And that's the model that Democrats use in California. And that was really what, when we started Pocket Aces, while there's times in which we might do a aspect of a campaign for someone,

03:58.82

Ben

and go into that structure. Generally, our candidates, we're general consultants for, which makes us a very different product than what you see from other democratic firms in Virginia, because we handle everything from the start of a campaign to the finish if we're if we're asked to do that.

04:18.19

Ben

And it I think it makes a campaign People have commented before that they think some of our candidates have had better messaging, for example, like better themes.

04:28.43

Ben

And I think a lot of that revolves around the fact that what they're saying on television, what they're saying on radio, what they're saying in the mailbox, what they're saying on X and social media, it's all the same thing because they have the same people that are working on it instead of having different crews that are getting on a conference call for 10 minutes a week.

04:48.34

Sam Shirazi

I think so sometimes people are a little bit unsure about why the consultants are needed. So kiating can kind of explain the difference between like a campaign manager, or someone working directly on a campaign and why the consultants would need to also be there to kind of come in and help the campaign?

05:04.40

Ben

Yeah, so I think obviously you know each campaign's a little bit different, and I understand in some of the local races why there can be frustration with consultants because if you're running for the county board and in a county and these consultants don't know anything about your local issues, a lot of times people on the ground will say, well, why do we need somebody from DC to come in and tell us how to run for the the county board in Prince William County? Or or you know really, you can insert that anywhere.

05:32.20

Ben

And I think what consultants have is a broader look at the electorate because they're seeing it in so many different areas. So one of the places that we had a large amount of business in 2018 for Pocket Aces was in Orange County, California.

05:52.50

Ben

And it was, if you remember that cycle, sort of Orange County had been a Republican steadily Republican County in California. And in 2016, it flipped to Hillary and everyone realized, wow, there's a ton of stuff that might be in play here.

06:07.03

Ben

And the reason that we did so much work in Orange County, and and there were three Congressional that we worked on there that year, as well as some other races, was it had a lot of overlay with what we had seen in Virginia 2017. And And so as consultants, we were sought after because we had seen kind of the first effects of the Trump presidency, what voters in 2017 were moving against Trump, what voters are being mobilized for primaries, what new people you might expect to come into that primary, and what groups were respondent to different messages. and

06:44.10

Ben

And so, you know, in in Orange County, California, where you have a lot of diversity, know, There's a large Asian population. There's a large population of sort of upper income suburban women that were moving very quickly at that time towards the Democrats.

06:58.74

Ben

These were the exact same thing that had happened in Virginia the year before. And so from a consultant perspective, what a manager that's on the ground there might not be able to do is know exactly what's happening elsewhere and how that might apply to their race.

07:16.36

Ben

We see so much polling data. And look, I know Tip O'Neill said all politics is local, but in this era, all politics is national in terms of how the electorate moves.

07:27.80

Ben

You see very similar moves state to state among demographic groups. I think the reason that Nate Silver became as successful as he was in 08 where people thought he had uncorked this magic formula for 538, was he was really just applying statistics to what he was seeing from how demographic groups were moving and then predicting the outcome of those primaries between Hillary and Obama.

07:53.83

Ben

and And frankly, it was... following a very, very steady pattern state to state among how white working class voters were breaking versus African-American voters versus educated voters.

08:07.60

Ben

And the only place where you saw a real difference in the 08 primaries was Hillary was pulling more of the white vote in southern states.

08:18.54

Ben

There were a little bit more, you know, there was more of sort of African Americans voting for for Barack and white voters voting for Hillary in the south that was evident in those results. Otherwise, basically, it was a direct match group to group around the country in almost every state.

08:37.45

Ben

depending on whether you were looking at a caucus electorate or a primary. And so from a consultant perspective, when we're looking at these campaigns, the movement we see and in one area, if we see polls and in New York and New Jersey, they may very well have application to Virginia. That messaging may have application to Virginia.

08:55.76

Ben

And so that's what we're looking at from consultants is having that broader set of data and understanding what's moving people in this in this time. And you know right now, I would say, Sam, and I know it's a long-winded answer, but you know, as a candidate, you would need a consultant more than ever right now because politics is changing so quickly.

09:20.33

Ben

And so you would you would want to arm yourself with somebody who knew what groups had moved in the 2024 election and what groups were moving now since the 2024 election and whether those groups were over or underrepresented in your district and how you could best speak to them.

09:38.11

Ben

Now's the time you would want to have those kinds of people to be able to help you.

09:42.31

Sam Shirazi

I think it's helpful for people to to hear, you know, the value added that consultants have and not just the negative things you always hear online.

09:50.07

Ben

I would also say, Sam, a lot of people always, when they're saying you know negative things about consultants, and and look, there's plenty of negative things to say, but one of the things that was looking at is look how much money they're making.

10:01.95

Ben

But a lot of times that money that you see on the reports is very misleading. For example, when we do a mail piece for someone, that's the consultant is paying the printing and the postage as part of those payments you see go out. So you might see a check go to a consultant that's for $35,000.

10:20.77

Ben

that that We're probably clearing on something like that $2,000 $3,000. two or three thousand dollars And so while that's not always transparent as transparent as it could be on the finance reports, I think some of the anger that gets put towards campaigns having consultants is they people feel like they are sopping up all the campaign resources when oftentimes that's just not the case.

10:43.90

Sam Shirazi

Before I turn to Virginia, I had one last question because I think these are the people who are the real scam artists. So you've talked a lot about the scam packs and I would call it the grifter industrial complex.

10:54.88

Sam Shirazi

Can you explain the issue and what Democrats can do to address it and maybe why that's more of the real issue as opposed to consultants?

11:01.99

Ben

Yeah. So there's a few pieces of this. Number one is, and I'll make this statement and people are going to hear it and think immediately, well, I think that would ever come out of his mouth. But, the biggest problem facing the democratic party right now is small dollar donors.

11:19.71

Ben

And the reason that the small dollar donors are such a problem is that when large donors came in the party in the, in the past and, you know they might have interests that they were interested in. You might have someone who you know is donating to pro-choice candidates or someone who's donating to candidates who want to see more gun safety or you know go down the list.

11:39.68

Ben

They oftentimes have the the resources to know what's going on in campaigns, to know which candidates are competitive, to know which candidates are just kind of just putting out some b******t.

11:52.93

Ben

These small dollar donors don't have that information and they're set all over the country. So there's nowhere to how to communicate with them. And so they're coming into areas that they don't know anything about and helping to select candidates for those areas that are not necessarily the people who are strongest on the ground.

12:12.90

Ben

I think of that Kentucky Senate race from a few years ago where all the national Democratic donors decided that Amy McGrath was going to be the person who would unseat Mitch McConnell and pumped in tens of millions of dollars to her campaign.

12:27.47

Ben

Yet she barely emerged from a primary against a state rep who she outspent 50 to one because that she wasn't the kind of candidate that Democrats on the ground in Kentucky wanted to field.

12:39.80

Ben

And I think that the small dollar donors come in and they pervert this process. I think small dollar donors in your area, there's nothing more valuable that you can put together, but it's these donors from around the country that just sort of come in because they saw a tweet or they, they heard a name or they're recommended by a scam pack that took three quarters of their donation. And, and they're coming in supporting candidates that they don't know anything about.

13:06.69

Ben

I'm, i think frequently, these donors are supporting people in primaries. They don't even know there's a primary going on, right? They think that they're just seeing a tweet that goes out that says, this is our Democratic candidate, and and they're interfering in primaries that they don't know are are ongoing.

13:23.06

Ben

You know, in the in last cycle, and this is a seat we would never be able to carry, but we spent so much money, millions and millions of dollars against Marjorie Taylor Greene.

13:35.72

Ben

In one of the most Republican seats in the country because people want to donate against her. And look, in the general election, that's going to happen. But I will tell you, that started all the way in the primary. And there were three candidates who were running in that primary, two of which ran digital strategies to raise a lot of money, the third of which was actually an elected official that lived in the district.

13:56.98

Ben

Right. And they got completely overrun by the two candidates who did a bunch of digital spending, neither of whom were even lived in the district. They both moved in to to the district just to run and and and basically gripped off of these donors.

14:16.06

Ben

And you see these scam packs come in and they amplify these candidates. It's, it's, it's never supporting strong candidates. It's always supporting candidates that are, uh, want to partner with them and are going to give them the biggest cut of the donations.

14:32.18

Ben

And it's really become a cancer on the party because it deters stronger candidates from running. Now, in Virginia, we don't face this as badly because we have unlimited campaign contributions.

14:45.76

Ben

And the upside of a limited of unlimited contributions, and I know this is probably big money out VA is not going to like hearing this, right? But the upside of the unlimited contributions is if somebody is getting that kind of support, there's ways to catch up to them.

15:00.98

Ben

In a federal race for Congress, for example, where you have donation limits, if someone comes in and raises millions and millions of dollars from the grassroots from around the country, you never have a chance to even compete with them.

15:15.19

Ben

And so, you know, we saw this in the 7th District last year where, you know, Eugene Vindman, I think, won by 44 points in the early vote and by Election Day was winning by, i think, ballpark 10 points.

15:27.30

Ben

Once the other candidates had done a little bit of communication, it was a competitive race. But early on, the race wasn't competitive because none of the other candidates had the resources to talk to voters publicly.

15:40.33

Ben

early on. And so he he may not have been the candidate that people chose to nominate had national small dollar donors not been interfering in it to allow the voters in that district to figure out who they wanted to be their member of Congress.

15:54.00

Sam Shirazi

I think that's all really helpful for people who are trying to kind understand the mechanics of politics. And I could ask you about this stuff all day, but I know we have to move on to Virginia stuff. So I will ask you generally about Virginia. You know, what are the vibes? You mentioned 2017. Is this kind of 2017 type vibe? What are you thinking is going on this year? you know Obviously, more so at the governor's race, but if you want to talk about any of the other races going on.

16:20.27

Ben

Yeah, so far it feels bigger than 17. the The wave that we're likely to catch this year just feels like it's absolutely massive. I think the 2017 wave was primarily driven from surges in turnout. Yeah.

16:40.65

Ben

And turnout surges are worth one vote each. And so what I mean by that is when you start to persuade voters and you move someone from the other side to your side, it's worth two votes for you in a campaign if youre if that person's a regular voter because they go from being a plus one to a minus one or vice versa, in this case, a minus one to a plus one.

17:04.92

Ben

So it's a two vote swing. When you turn somebody out, who otherwise might not have voted, they're worth one vote to you because they go from a zero to a plus one instead of a minus one to a plus one, if that makes sense.

17:18.59

Ben

And so you get much bigger swings in the electorate when you see people moving away from a party or candidates than you do when it's just some groups are really excited about it.

17:32.53

Ben

And 17 was really the story of excitement You saw the Republicans were more excited than they had been in any cycle in Virginia governor history with Ed Gillespie.

17:46.15

Ben

And they still got completely blown out because the Democratic excitement was that much greater for Ralph Northam, who got, I think, around a half million more votes than Terry McAuliffe had gotten four years earlier.

17:57.60

Ben

That was a turnout surge. What I'm feeling happened this year is not just a turnout surge. I'm feeling a movement away from the Republican Party. There's so many people that voted for Trump that are realizing he was serious about everything he said, and some of some of whom are losing their jobs, some of whom are feeling other impacts of the Trump presidency in real ways to their families.

18:23.44

Ben

that are going to move them from being, you know again, minus one voters to plus one voters. And when you get those kind of movements in the electorate, seats that you never imagined can suddenly come into play very quickly.

18:35.96

Ben

Places that you thought might be competitive for pickups turn into landslides very quickly because the electorate moves so much faster with that. And I just everything I'm seeing on the ground, all the numbers I'm seeing is telling me that this is a year that you're going to see voters switching and surging.

18:55.11

Ben

And that would lead to a historic type of win for the Democrats, who have never, by the way, Sam, in the modern history, won a governor's race in Virginia by double digits.

19:06.24

Ben

But if I was setting a Las Vegas line, I would absolutely put the line and as a starting point in the double digits for this year.

19:14.91

Sam Shirazi

I think most people think the Democrats are favored, but it's certainly, you you make a compelling case that it it could not be that, it might end up being not that close.

19:24.80

Sam Shirazi

And I guess, you know, I'm trying to grapple with, you know, what exactly is going on and and how big of a surge there is. And and and how much vote switching there is, as you mentioned.

19:35.50

Sam Shirazi

And I think the thing that I'm trying to think through is what what is the Republican plan? Because it just seems like they're a little bit deer in the headlights, don't really have a lot of plans to counter what's going on.

19:48.02

Sam Shirazi

And so do you think there's a way the Republicans can kind of right the ship to maybe... You know, realistically, it might be hard for them to win, but maybe they'll kind of get get a competitive and maybe the House of Delegates, they don't lose that many seats.

20:01.57

Sam Shirazi

You know, you do you think that's possible or kind of the the train's already left the station?

20:05.99

Ben

Well, the train's leaving the station. i think what the Republicans are likely to to do when they get their numbers back this fall is to, when you're having both a surge against you in terms of turnout and voters are leaving you, the first problem you've to deal with is the voters leaving you.

20:23.95

Ben

I mean, I think you're already seeing the Republicans picking up on this. You saw that the purple caucus got formed from the House Republicans this week where they're calling themselves the the purple district or the purple Republicans. that I don't know.

20:38.25

Ben

I saw the list of them. i couldn't really differentiate from any of them, you know, like what made them purple other than they had a marginal district. I don't think all their voting records are all that purple is purple.

20:50.37

Ben

my point, but I think they're going to be looking at how do we hold some of these voters that are fleeing the Republican party? Because you're not going to be able to solve this just with a surge of going to the base and getting more base turnout.

21:07.70

Ben

And so, you know, that's probably going to be for them breaking with Trump is going to be the only pathway that they have to trying to hold some of those voters. And that, of course, is dangerous and double-edged and you know creates all sorts of perils for the campaign.

21:25.16

Ben

But I think they're going to have to look at that kind of strategy as a as a way to try to deal with the people leaving, because turnout just ain't going to cut it this year.

21:35.94

Ben

It's just not, it's, you can't, you can't turn, there aren't enough voters to turn out in a state that the Republicans already lost to go win it just by turning out the base.

21:46.06

Sam Shirazi

you might see some individual delegates maybe trying to distance themselves from Trump. Do you really think the Republicans, you know, statewide are going to do anything to try to distance themselves from Trump? Because it seems like the mentality is we're just going down with the ship. if And if if Trump takes us down, you know, it is what it is.

22:03.77

Sam Shirazi

I haven't seen any of them really try to distinguish themselves from Trump.

22:08.87

Ben

Yeah, I think you know each person has to kind of look at their own politics on this. you know For example, Jason Merez, who's the attorney general. I think that there's probably a spot in the administration for him if he's not successful.

22:24.23

Ben

So I doubt that he wants to to go blow up his relationships in order to, you know, potentially, let's say hypothetically lose by eight instead of lose by 15. Right.

22:35.81

Ben

So I think he's probably more go down with the ship. I think. somebody like a Pat Herity is probably more likely to see some breakage from Trump if he was to emerge as the Republican nominee for LG.

22:48.67

Ben

And Winston Sears obviously has in the past had some breakage with Trump. So she could always go back towards emphasizing that now that she's through her primary season. But again, like I said a few minutes ago, but you know if if we were sitting in a sports book right now and the the book put up a line of Spanberger minus eight and a half,

23:09.24

Ben

which is about the record of a Democrat in Virginia, I can't imagine that there wouldn't be a lot more votes for Spanberger minus eight and a half than Sears plus eight and a half right now.

23:19.31

Sam Shirazi

it's just kind of the reality the Republicans have to start to grapple with. I did want to ask you about, you know, after 2025, because you mentioned 2017, Democrats learned some lessons that they applied 2018.

23:32.14

Sam Shirazi

ah ah twenty eighteen Do you think after 2025, there are going to be lessons that Democrats can apply in 2026? Obviously, it's still early, but it sounds like, you know, you there might be a playbook that that's being successful in Virginia that could be applied next year in the midterms.

23:49.74

Ben

Yeah, this is the they look, this is the the test case. And I'm having already talking to candidates, you know, when they're running around the country that they want to know what's going on in Virginia. What are we seeing from our polling in Virginia? And they'll all be studying the results that come out of Virginia that give them some idea what they might see and in their areas.

24:10.15

Ben

and and And look, the same way that we look to other states, I think Hampton Roads, for example, which has been an area of Virginia that you know has bounced around and in recent years, that the Northern Virginia and Richmond suburbs have been consistently moving to Democrats, that Hampton Roads suburbs have been oh sometimes moving towards Democrats, but occasionally have bounced back towards Republicans in other cycles.

24:35.91

Ben

It's bounced around a little bit. It's not the straight line that you see in Northern Virginia and the Richmond suburbs. And so you know I look at the special election that happened in Florida last month, and in a Navy town in Pensacola, that county voted Democrat for Congress.

24:55.58

Ben

For the first time since they had voted for Bill Nelson, I think 20 some years ago in a race that he was barely contested in and in the in terms of a serious election, probably 40, 50 years so since they had voted for a Democratic candidate.

25:09.75

Ben

Well. What groups are overrepresented in Pensacola that are less represented in other districts? and And, of course, veterans would go right to the top of your list of you would suspect that is a movement against the Republican Party amongst people in the military or veterans, which wouldn't surprise me at all with some of the things going on with this administration. And so, you know, that would immediately make you in Virginia circle. Well, obviously, Virginia O2 goes right to the top of your list of, okay, if that's happening, that seed is very likely to flip back to us.

25:43.88

Ben

And Virginia 1, you start to look at and say, oh maybe Virginia 1 is in play. And I even start to to think, you know is this a cycle that's big enough that you know a few months from now, we're seeing a strong candidate emerge in Virginia 5?

26:01.44

Ben

That's going to be make it competitive because, you know, the the height of the Democratic wave is when Tom Perriello was successful in Virginia five. And the math does allow you there where you could win it.

26:13.53

Ben

But you would have to be at the very, very top of a wave.

26:16.53

Sam Shirazi

if you just look at 2018, there was a big blue wave and in Virginia. And I think, you know, the way things are going, that's a possibility in 2026. 2025.

26:25.16

Sam Shirazi

I did want to shift gears to one question about an issue that is kind of near and dear to your heart, and and it's a local Northern Virginia issue. It is the Fairfax Casino. So can you explain to everyone why a casino in Fairfax, like Tyson's Corner area, is a good idea and how people would vote for it in a referendum? Because I think there's certainly been a decent amount of opposition to it.

26:49.70

Ben

Yeah, I mean, Sam, I'm the head of a group called the Virginia Players Alliance, which I founded a few years ago that advocates for more gaming in Virginia that is friendly to the consumer.

27:04.16

Ben

And so what we're really focused on from the Players Alliance perspective is making sure that the as Virginia expands its gaming opportunities, that it's done in ways that are fair for the players.

27:15.28

Ben

And that the the payouts are fair for the players and that the the things that come with gambling are an asset to the community. And so we jumped all over the opportunity to help with the Fairfax project because there's so many possibilities that come with that. I think you know talking about a but Fairfax County finally getting for the first time its own sort of tourism industry based here when you have a convention center.

27:45.51

Ben

fairfax The Fairfax board has been asking for this for my entire adult lifetime. And no one's been willing to build this convention center because the economics of a standalone convention center just don't work in Fairfax County.

28:01.16

Ben

But one that was attached to a high-end casino and hotel, the economics would work for it. And we would finally be able to host major conferences in the county.

28:11.85

Ben

The revenue that comes from a casino, especially a high-end one in a place like Tyson's Corner, allows you hundreds of millions of dollars between the state and local government to spend on schools and other public needs.

28:26.56

Ben

And that doesn't even factor in the actual economic boost that the economy gets from the thousands of well-paid union jobs that go into a facility like this. And so, you know, to me, it's a no-brainer.

28:39.86

Ben

We have MGM across the river. Anyone who's been there knows that it's it's a safe place to go. It's what a high-end casino looks and feels like.

28:49.100

Ben

And it generates hundreds of millions of dollars. of for Maryland and for Prince George's County, a big chunk of which comes from Virginians. And so I think there's a lot of people in Northern Virginia that are looking at this saying, you know this isn't a gambling discussion because it's already here.

29:11.18

Ben

The General Assembly's already legalized us to do unlimited sports betting on our phones from home. And so you know when we're talking about gaming, how do we do it in a way that it's attracting people in from outside of the community that are leaving their money here and having a great time doing it instead of just being targeted to people in in our communities, right?

29:36.100

Ben

And I think, you know, the cat's out of the bag on on gaming in Virginia. I mean, I can go on my phone now, log on the Virginia Lottery website, and I don't know, Sam, if you ever go into these things, but you can now, there's slot machines on the Virginia Lottery website.

29:55.09

Ben

and you can go up to $50 a spin on these slot machines. And if you hit the the the little more spins button or the programming thing when you're logged in, first you load up the $50 spins, you can load up to 100 spins per push of the button that's preset. In other words, the button on the $50 machine will light up where you can bet $5,000 per push the button per push of the button on the Virginia Lottery website on the slot machines that they have to order 100 spins of $50 each right off the top.

30:31.64

Ben

The idea that we have that, but we can't have a high-end facility in a place like Tyson's Corner, that could attract in, uh, people that, uh, allows for a social aspect versus people doing this from their home, that's safer for people that brings in tourism.

30:50.25

Ben

to me, it's just asinine. So I think as all these facts kind of get to presented to voters, a lot of the opposition melts away, because it's, it's not really a discussion about, uh,

31:01.84

Ben

gaming, gaming's already here. It's a discussion about whether or not we want to keep some of this revenue in our community and whether we want to have it in in one facility. and And I'll tell you, Sam, from a player perspective, having a casino is a lot safer for players because they have programs to go find problem gamblers, to pull them off of the floor, to make sure that people aren't wagering when they're too drunk or too high or you know exhibiting other problem behaviors, none of those things are available when people are betting from home, when you can't see them and talk to them.

31:40.68

Ben

And so I think we want to encourage, you know from from my perspective, and you know I think this is something that Players Alliance is advocating for, we want gaming more gaming in person in these types of facilities versus things on our phones.

31:56.63

Sam Shirazi

Well, I think you certainly make a strong case for the casinos. I guess the the question I have, you know having looked at the Richmond casino referendum and the fact that you know Fairfax is wealthier community, and as you probably know better than I do, the electorate is going to be older and whiter and wealthier.

32:09.58

Ben

Thank

32:16.92

Sam Shirazi

you know How do you think a referendum would go? Do you you have a sense of Yeah, my sense is the the opposition is going to say this doesn't make sense in Fairfax County. you've You've laid out a good case about why it might make sense.

32:30.53

Sam Shirazi

But is that going to be able to carry the day, particularly when Richmond rejected the casino not too long ago?

32:37.85

Ben

Yeah. You know, Richmond rejected the casino the first time in a year where it was passing everywhere else in Virginia. It was on the ballot. So it seems like there were some unique factors that were going on there.

32:48.67

Ben

And that may have been related to the campaign that they ran. it could be related. I wouldn't necessarily say that there was a, that Richmond is a a canary in the coal mine about Fairfax County.

33:01.52

Ben

You know, Referendums are always touchy things in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County is known for voting no on it's voted no on bonds before, it's voted no on when the Board of Supervisors wanted to institute a meals tax two times, county residents rejected it. even Even in the year in 2016 when Hillary was on the ballot and Democrats were winning overwhelmingly in the county, the meals tax was failing 54 to 46.

33:30.38

Ben

My experience from having run campaigns in Fairfax is nothing is popular in Fairfax until you make a choice with it. And so I think with the casino, what you will see happen is the more that the casino is discussed in terms of you can have the revenue from the casino or you can pay higher real estate taxes.

33:54.58

Ben

You can have the revenue from the casino or we can pay our teachers less. You can have the revenue from a casino or you can have a meals tax or any of the other choices that the county has to make.

34:07.26

Ben

You see people flock to they want the casino. And so I think that the that campaign will be fundamentally about what the choices are that voters have and how how well the campaign is able to educate voters on what that choice is.

34:23.43

Ben

I know the second referendum in Richmond, there was a lot of controversy around. The mayor kind of strong-armed it a little bit to say, i think it was childcare issues. you know We won't have childcare in Richmond. We won't fund these unless unless you pass the casino. And people were, i think, put off by that.

34:42.71

Ben

I don't think this needs to be done in a threatening way. I think it's just done in a factual way. that voters can understand. Like, look, you can either have the hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue from this that the county board can put to your priorities, or you're going to pay it in a different way.

35:00.47

Ben

And we also have to remember that what the electorate looks like in Fairfax County this November, next November, any future November in the Trump era is rapidly changing.

35:13.79

Ben

the county budget is under tremendous pressure right now. All the Northern Virginia counties are facing this enormous budgetary pressure that's being created from the layoffs, from the real estate market, from the commercial real estate market and the residential.

35:32.67

Ben

And they're used to... Gold-plated services. They're used to having, you know, decent-sized class size in schools. They're used to having enough money being paid to teachers that you can recruit and retain quality teachers.

35:48.41

Ben

And I don't think Northern Virginia counties are ever going to get to a place where they're not going to prioritize that first. And if the choice on that is creating a tourism industry that has a casino and a location in Tyson's Corner, or again, raising class size or cutting teacher pay or doing any other number of things that would you know create hundreds of millions of dollars of savings in the county budget, I think that, again, voters are going to flock towards give us the casino.

36:19.92

Sam Shirazi

Well, we'll see what happens next year at the General Assembly. I'm sure it'll be a hot topic next year as well. All right, Ben. Well, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. I did want to just leave with one question about your X account, because i know that it is one of my go-to sources on election night. You're always the first to make the calls, and I think you're always 100% right. So I'm always impressed with that. And i've I've tried to emulate it, but I don't think I'm as ever as good as you and as quick as you. So kudos to your X account.

36:49.26

Sam Shirazi

I did want to say... you know You certainly have a little bit of a different style than me. i I tend to be pretty tame on my ex account. Sometimes you have some spicy takes on there and you also, i would say, air are some personal beef you have with various people.

37:05.72

Sam Shirazi

you know Why do you feel the need to do that? And is that kind of what you think people want to see? Or is it more just kind of, you know you feel like that's where you want to express yourself?

37:17.25

Ben

I just, I've always felt like, you know, I'm in politics to be real about it. And I'm going to tell people what I actually think. In terms of a lot of people will give me the feedback of like, well, you're a consultant. How can you, how can you say these things? Because you might lose a client over it.

37:35.97

Ben

Oftentimes i think it actually helps us pick up clients because we have, we're in primaries and primaries are, heavily competitive, and a lot of times Democrats are afraid to say in primaries what the distinction is between the candidates.

37:50.78

Ben

And I'm not afraid to tell people what the the choices are and why we chose to support a particular candidate because I think they're a better choice. And you know I know that there's a lot of people out there that can sometimes be a little uncomfortable with that, but especially in an area like Northern Virginia,

38:10.47

Ben

where the primaries are the election, we either lay out those choices for people or we continue to win elections and not get anything done. And voters deserve to know, you know, last year, for example, and i guess it's now a year and a half ago, you know, we took on Stella Pekarski's race against George Barker in the primary. And a lot of people said, you can't do that. You know, you won't be able to work for a number of different candidates around the state because you're taking on the the chairman of Senate Finance in a Democratic primary.

38:40.90

Ben

but we really felt that you know Stella was a better representative for that district and put our necks out to tell people about George Barker's voting record and why he should go. And, you know, the same thing, we got involved in the the famous Lucas versus Spruill primary.

38:57.69

Ben

Most of the consultants around the state went into hiding for that primary. yeah

39:02.87

Sam Shirazi

Yeah.

39:03.06

Ben

oh my we we were I was really proud to, you know, I've been working with Senator Lucas for 25 years to tell people why I thought she was the the person we needed at that time.

39:03.12

Sam Shirazi

and

39:11.79

Ben

And I think, you know, you look at what happened with the arena the year after that election and you know i I look back on that and say, boy, did she prove us right? And so you know I'm just not afraid to get in there and mix it up. And and I know that's not everyone's style, but what I have found is a lot of times when people first get involved, they're too nervous to do that stuff. And by the time they've been hanging around the block for 10 years or so,

39:38.43

Ben

they're pretty much all telling me like, yeah, go for it. Like it's time to go send a message. So I get most of my negative feedback on that that stuff from people that are just saying like, well, why can't we just elect Democrats? Well, we don't need to just elect Democrats. We need to elect better Democrats and we have to hold our are Democrats accountable.

39:57.90

Ben

You know, I would, Sam, if you don't mind like me filibustering for a second to say like, you know, the situation we have in Fairfax right now, where you have the school board budget chair being sued for embezzling money from a company.

40:13.98

Ben

This is asinine. The idea that like the school board, which is entirely controlled by Democrats, isn't able to even act.

40:23.83

Ben

theyre not They don't need to remove him from the school board. That's up to him whether he wants to resign or not. But that they're going to keep him in a leadership position overseeing the budget while there's like serious allegations of embezzlement.

40:37.61

Ben

this This is crazy town stuff that just leads to the the the party looking bad. It hurts our statewide candidates. It's the kind of story that easily shows up on Fox News to label the Democrats nationally.

40:51.57

Ben

It's just bad news for us. and And I think the only way you see that stuff change is when you hold them accountable. And I'll tell you last year, you know using that school board as an example, It wasn't until a number of us got involved criticizing them for not having gotten involved with the the the football team that was not following all the rules in Fairfax County that the that the that situation was resolved itself.

41:21.82

Ben

And prior to people sort of raising their voices on it, The school board was going to allow this team to go beat everyone 98 to nothing. That was essentially an all-star team.

41:32.62

Ben

And a bunch of kids were sort of ending their high school athletic career disappointed that they weren't allowed a fair chance to compete. And the school board was not going to do anything until we until we all started speaking about it and then they decided to. So I think oftentimes holding the Democrats accountable, you see it works.

41:54.25

Ben

They're afraid of their next election. And and they don't they want people to think they're doing a good job. And so, you know, again, like this is a new situation now of, you know, the school board members that speak up and say, look, we can't have someone accused of embezzlement that's chairing our budget committee.

42:12.95

Ben

I think they're going to do a lot better in the next election than the ones that say there's nothing we can do and cover up their eyes and pretend ears and pretend like they don't see it happening.

42:22.56

Sam Shirazi

Well, no one can ever accuse you of not speaking your mind. So I know everyone appreciates your hot takes on X, or at least they they take a look, even if they don't always agree with them. But but I do appreciate you always you know giving your opinions on things and being willing to come on here and and share some thoughts. And I think part of the reason I wanted you on was so that people got to know you a little bit. You're not just some random guy on X, you're you're a real human and you actually have, you know, a lot of insights into what's going on in Virginia this year. So Ben, thanks. Thanks again for coming on.

42:52.87

Ben

Yeah, thank you, and congratulations on getting this thing started.

42:56.10

Sam Shirazi

Thanks so much. And see here everyone next week on Federal Fallout.

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

00:00.77

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This will be the first and hopefully many interview episodes, and I'm really excited to have as my first guest Chaz Nuttycombe.

00:14.31

Sam Shirazi

Chaz, thanks for coming on.

00:16.41

Chaz Nuttycombe

Hey, Sam, thanks for having me on. I've really enjoyed some of the episodes you've you've put out thus far and have have enjoyed your feed. And you've come on my podcast back when I was doing the CNALS podcast. And I think you came on in 2023 when we talked about the Virginia state legislative primaries. And I'm excited to talk about you know the where the primaries are right now.

00:42.51

Sam Shirazi

Yeah. And, you know, I've always been impressed with your work, Chaz, especially with state legislative races. It's a really granular thing. And I think you're doing a really good job with that. i I first noticed it in 2021 when I saw your maps and your rankings. And I thought it was really cool because I'd seen that at the congressional level, but I'd never really seen it at the state legislative level.

01:02.25

Sam Shirazi

And then your claim to fame was in 2023 when you got all 100 races in the Virginia House of Delegates and the state Senate correct. And so that was you know really impressive given you know some of those races came down to the wire.

01:17.44

Sam Shirazi

So anyways, thanks. Thanks for coming on.

01:20.22

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, Jack and I, Jack Kirsting is the is the co-forecaster at, you know, was that at C-Analysis and C-Analysis is now State Navigate, the 501c3 nonprofit. so I've, you know, been been working on for a while and, you know, Jack came on 2021. That was so the first year that we were working together and, you know, we, uh, we had a good year and in, in 2023 and, had a a pretty decent year, all things especially considered, in our state legislative forecast 2024 and, in given, you know, the small polling misses

02:01.44

Chaz Nuttycombe

really excited for for virginia twenty twenty five you know there's There's a lot at stake with you know all 100 House of Delegates seats up and you know the Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, and obviously guillatorial race.

02:21.34

Sam Shirazi

All right, Chaz. So tell me a little bit more about State Navigate. you know What's it all about and how can people help if they want to?

02:28.87

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah, so State Navigate is the successor to Sea Analysis, which was you know the site that i started up back in 2020 when I was in college. But now I'm a graduated man, and you know we still got a lot of familiar faces that were at Sea Analysis over at State Navigate, including my co-forecaster, Jack Kirsting.

02:52.24

Chaz Nuttycombe

And so, you know, we are a 501c3 nonprofit. And the thing that I'm really excited for is i think by sometime in May is what my goal is, is that we will have State Navigate Virginia out.

03:08.46

Chaz Nuttycombe

And by the end of this month, we will have finished out State Navigate South Carolina. For those interested, they can go to State Navigate and look at the What we have for South Carolina, that includes our state aggregate future, which has news aggregation and our district summary pages, which has candidate data, election data going down to precinct level, district demographic data, education, income, race, education by, you know, white college, non-college, that sort of thing.

03:42.42

Chaz Nuttycombe

And you know the next step with with South Carolina is building out the legislature features, which is going to have bill tracking and the ideology calculation using W nominate, which also includes the individual member probabilities of voting yay or nay on each roll call. Got to toy around with it quite a bit in my undergrad, and it's it's something I very much nerd over.

04:07.78

Chaz Nuttycombe

And, we're also working on deep campaign finance data, for, uh, for South Carolina this month as well. So once we've pretty much finished out, our front end and back end stuff for South Carolina, you know, hopefully not long after that, you know, a few weeks after we'll, uh,

04:26.18

Chaz Nuttycombe

we'll get up and running in Virginia. And, uh, you know, obviously, I think we're, we're known in Virginia for, you know, as he noted, the, uh, the forecast that we, we have because of our record.

04:38.100

Chaz Nuttycombe

and, uh, We are going to be launching our forecast for Virginia 2025 with the House of Delegates and Governor and Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General at our June 29th fundraiser in Montpelier, Virginia. That's just about 30 minutes north of Richmond City.

04:59.46

Chaz Nuttycombe

And that will be publicly selling tickets, I believe, on April 18th. I'm already contacting some, like, you know, members of the legislature and and politicos and consultants and and whatnot over the next, you know, 12 days and giving them the opportunity to get a ticket because it's kind of a small venue.

05:25.35

Sam Shirazi

Nice. Yeah, I had a chance to look at the South Carolina and look really cool. And I'm definitely looking forward to Virginia and especially with the elections this year. So anyways, congrats on getting State Navigate up and running. Now let's turn over to Virginia and this year and just the latest news since my last podcast was that Amanda Chase would not make be making the GOP primary ballot.

05:49.58

Sam Shirazi

And so Winsome Sears is the Republican nominee, Abigail Spanberger is the Democratic nominee. Chaz, what do you see in terms of Spanberger versus Sears contest in Virginia this year?

06:01.21

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah. Look, um, Look, um, when we're, when we're talking about the general and we're talking about the gov race, you know, i think, uh, the obvious, thing to keep in mind, that I'm sure pretty much everyone listening to this podcast already knows is that ever since Virginia has been a a two party, uh, state and, you know, black voters have, have truly had the right to vote, in Virginia,

06:28.25

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know We have elected the party opposite of the White House. This is a tradition that's gone on for, what, 50 years now or just over 50, right?

06:40.95

Chaz Nuttycombe

And so I think that's something that you know we should keep in mind. Look, I will say that I've already, pretty much the night of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election,

06:53.52

Chaz Nuttycombe

that was the final test and straw for me to be comfortable in saying that the Virginia governor race is not going to be competitive this year. uh, we can maybe quibble about margin, which margin is important because, Spanberger winning by as much as Harris won by, or maybe even a little bit less on a good night for the, uh, GOP versus Spanberger winning by double digits very much makes a difference. And,

07:22.19

Chaz Nuttycombe

what the house looks like and and whether, you know, Mieres wins and whether Republicans can retain the lieutenant governor office.

07:32.84

Chaz Nuttycombe

But unless somebody has, you know, just just kind of thinking of Ralph Northam here, I guess, like pictures of Spanberger in blackface or you know some some oppo of something spanberger did on like something she did the cia or something you know there has to be like some big scandal or oppo dump in you know like early september for abigail spanberger to not be the next governor of virginia

08:03.15

Chaz Nuttycombe

Point blank period. The only question is, is she winning narrowly? Is she winning by double digits? Is she, you know, doing better than Belial's? Is she doing better than Kane 2018?

08:19.02

Chaz Nuttycombe

Is she running ahead or behind of Harris? You know, stuff like that. that That's kind of all that really is quibble about the the Virginia governor race at this point.

08:30.79

Sam Shirazi

Well, yeah, I mean, you you certainly make a case there that Spanberger has a good shot this year. i mean, do you think it's some of these issues that are happening, such as with Doge and with the tariffs?

08:42.05

Sam Shirazi

Is that what's giving Democrats such an advantage right now? Or do you think it's just the nature of Virginia, the party out of the White House who usually does pretty well or a combination of those two things?

08:52.45

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think that, you know, you raise some issues that I think are important. I think that Doge is is definitely toxic in Virginia.

09:01.54

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, we can I think I think Signal and I love Signal. I really do. The people at Signal are are very, very smart and probably my favorite Republican pollster.

09:12.58

Chaz Nuttycombe

But, you know, I think they put out a poll that said, you know, Virginia voters approve of Doge, but they didn't say Doge. They said, you know, like describing what Doge, you know, wants to accomplish. Right.

09:26.52

Chaz Nuttycombe

Whereas if you say Doge in in any polling in Virginia, you're probably going to see it down. Right. at least double digits. But, you know, when we talk about not, not only just for the fact that, yeah, yeah Trump is in the white house, but let's also keep in mind what I think was the big lesson in 2024 for election forecasters and election analysts.

09:50.05

Chaz Nuttycombe

When we talk about turnout and non-presidential years, I mean, let's look back at the 2017 gubernatorial map, Edgar Lesby and Republicans of Virginia,

10:00.83

Chaz Nuttycombe

held up pretty decently well with high prop voters. You know, Gillespie was winning Stafford. Gillespie barely lost Chesterfield. Gillespie even won James City County, right?

10:12.46

Chaz Nuttycombe

And I mean, this is the big thing in this this chain that the change between the party's bases, right? You know,

10:23.56

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yes, Democrats are becoming the party of of the wealthy, elite, and the educated, those those with a college degree educated, and Republicans are becoming more of the party of the...

10:38.75

Chaz Nuttycombe

Those who aren't tuning in to news every day and are just working man, working Joe, not just for white voters, but also increasingly non-white voters. saw that in 2024. So that's a thing. Trump doesn't have to

10:55.72

Chaz Nuttycombe

but trump doesn't have to be at the you know the lowest point of approval in his presidency, which is right after Charlottesville, right? October 2017 was the lowest point for job approval in Trump's presidency.

11:10.56

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, and he doesn't have to be at that point. He just has to be, you know, a couple points down in job approval. And, you know, Spanberger can, could win by double digits because of the shifting, changes between the parties, uh, voting bases.

11:28.65

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, now you don't have to go back to 2017 necessarily, to look at, you know, Republicans in Virginia doing well with high prop voters. You can look at, you can look at 2023.

11:42.61

Chaz Nuttycombe

but you know, to your point, yeah, you know, Trump is, is in the white house now. And, uh, when we talk about turnout deferentials, I think that there's going to be,

11:52.92

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know, an electorate that's going to be a democratic leaning, that probably voted for Harris. but you know, that being said 2021, that electorate voted for Biden by three points. It was just for the matter of fact that Republicans could win on persuasion.

12:08.92

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, so I mean, look, if, if Republicans can do what Trump did, in 2024 with peeling off, working class, low, low to mid prop, nonwhite voters that traditionally vote democratics, especially Latinos, especially, well, I think the main, the really interesting demographic thing,

12:32.48

Chaz Nuttycombe

That kind of is they're not really low prop and and don't lack a college degree. But, you know, I think the Indian American community is a big, big thing to where Republicans could, yeah, maybe make gains with that demographic.

12:47.45

Chaz Nuttycombe

And they are, you know, like high prop. So, you know, making gains with with non-white voters pretty much, especially on the issues of like transgender politics and immigration to.

13:03.57

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know, earn over the, the conservative parts of those demographics and, you know, being able to have that, those gains and then doing what they can on persuasion is pretty much their, their only hope in getting the areas over the line and retaining the LG office and, you know, maybe flipping the house delegates.

13:22.82

Chaz Nuttycombe

that's pretty much their best night possible. right now. I, I just don't see, any universe unless again, Spanberger has some sort of big oppo dump that comes in September, or October, that changes the outcome of the Virginia governor race.

13:39.57

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, and I think also, for the matter of fact that, that Winston Sears has a laughable campaign, i would say, you know, I,

13:51.82

Chaz Nuttycombe

the The fact that they fired Pool House, which you know was the architect for branding of the Unkin campaign, is, is insane.

14:01.90

Chaz Nuttycombe

And, you know, i mean, Sears is just, she's got two left feet and, uh, and is trying to, trying to dance. and, and it's, it's, uh, it's, it's a sight to behold. And I think that's something that's really hurting her. And the question is, you know, is there enough ticket splitting to where, you know, Republicans can retain those statewide offices? And, is there, you know, enough, enough room to gain with minority voters to where they could flip the house delegates. I think those are the only things that they are really shooting for, i would say, and, and are hoping for.

14:41.84

Chaz Nuttycombe

So.

14:42.86

Sam Shirazi

Yeah. I mean, I think i think the governor's race is is looking pretty dicey for the Republicans. And and I often think that you know, if if the Democrats win the governor's race by a decent margin, you know, the rest of the ticket is just going to get swept in. And so having said that, for LG and AG, I mean, I think the primaries are really important. They don't get that much attention, but given the way things are looking, think there's a decent chance that whoever wins the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor and attorney general will win those races in November. And so having said that, I mean, what are your thoughts on the LG and AG primaries, you

15:16.16

Sam Shirazi

You know, both both on on both sides for the lieutenantant governor, but I would say more on the Democratic side, given that it's more interesting race with all those people and then also attorney general race on the Democratic side.

15:27.79

Chaz Nuttycombe

i would I would be shocked if if John Reed were to be able to beat Pat Herity in the Republican nomination for LG.

15:39.75

Chaz Nuttycombe

I would be kind of shocked. Right. I mean, this is... I mean, look, now that being said, as I live in Hanover County, right? Right.

15:50.08

Chaz Nuttycombe

And i know then I know the power of news radio 1140 WRVA. I really do. I, you know, i've I've heard plenty plenty of their their stuff, like growing up in and whatnot. And, you know, I don't remember, you know, Reid. I don't know how long he's been there.

16:12.82

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, but I mean, if this was someone like Jeff Katz, then I think that would be a little bit different, but you know, I don't know how, how many people were like listening to his radio show and whatnot, but you know, like even then, i mean, the fact of the matter is that, you know, heritage is probably gonna out raise and,

16:30.59

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know, he's, uh, he's going to make a good pitch to, to Nova voters. And i mean, you know, uh, reads, reads base and re reads reach only goes into the, Richmond metropolitan area. And, uh, I think that, you know, I mean, if he could win Hampton roads, then, then yeah.

16:51.69

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, but I, uh, I would, I would be shocked if Herity is not the LG nominee. Going into the LG Dem primary, i mean, look, again, for for any of these these takes, it's mainly on intuition. Like, there' there's no forecast. You can't forecast any primary. There's a very volatile electorates and very unpredictable.

17:16.06

Chaz Nuttycombe

Polling is, like, good for, like, a baseline, but in terms of, like, how accurate polling is in primaries versus generals, right? so it's, it's mainly like intuition.

17:27.69

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, and you know, I, I'm not like really having my finger this close on the pulse, but. you know I mean, I think that the LG Dem primary is is competitive.

17:40.16

Chaz Nuttycombe

If I were to guess, I would say Rouse has a little bit of an advantage. you know he'll He'll do well in Hampton Roads, and then I think he's probably going to do well with rural black voters and rural white voters as well with his ads for his time Virginia Tech.

17:55.09

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah. you know know virginia ah his his time at virginia tech and, uh, you know, I think that the question is, where, where does s Stoney play in all this?

18:10.58

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, I think Stoney is a dead man, by the end of this, cause there's, there's no way he's going to go into, into, you know, uh, the third week of June unscathed.

18:23.25

Chaz Nuttycombe

with the water crisis, with Navy Yard, with, uh, the, casino, attempts and especially the second one.

18:33.92

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, like the the, I think the question is with Stoney is like, is he going to carry Richmond city? I think he could, you know, he has support from black voters in the city.

18:46.92

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, and, uh, but you know, i mean, just white voters in Richmond hate them, uh, in the city proper. And I would assume that he, he probably wouldn't do well with,

18:59.83

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know, voters that aren't black in Henrico and in Chesterfield. So, you know, I mean, I think that gives Hashmi an advantage with, you know, doing well in those counties, I would guess.

19:17.97

Chaz Nuttycombe

And, you know, there's, there's Babur Lateef, which, you know, like Nova is the big question mark, I think in this, right. And I think there is a lot of attention on Nova and on Doge and and whatnot.

19:33.91

Chaz Nuttycombe

And, you know, I mean, Is is his that being his home base going to going to help him out? I have no idea. I think Nova is the big question mark and is it is really going to decide this primary, most likely.

19:50.94

Chaz Nuttycombe

Shock to nobody. and Nova is going to decide a Democratic primary. right. But, you know, I mean, in terms of like, who's doing well in Nova, I don't think anybody really has a good, like, and I don't think anybody is confident enough to say, oh yeah, we're, we're up in Nova.

20:09.07

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. Like, I don't think any campaign has that level of confidence. with the, with the AG Dem primary, I think it's probably going to be Jones.

20:19.37

Chaz Nuttycombe

I wouldn't rule out Taylor. you know, i think that being a woman in a democratic primary is a big boost and right. You can say that applies the same for cause Allah Hashmi, and keeps her competitive as well.

20:34.39

Chaz Nuttycombe

and in addition to her base and, you know, her time in the state Senate, uh, but, you know, I think that, you know, Jay Jones has,

20:45.23

Chaz Nuttycombe

put together a campaign that's been running a lot longer and he has a lot more name recognition from his 2021 run. So, but also again, there's that, there's that question of Nova, like, you know, he'll, Jay will probably do well in, you know, obviously Hampton roads and with black voters, rural and urban, you know, but like,

21:11.94

Chaz Nuttycombe

how How is he going to play in Nova? Is that something maybe Shannon Taylor can, you know, bite into or or outright win or something? Right. So, yeah, I mean, that's that's where I think things are. But it's it's early April.

21:28.64

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. We got two and a half months for the primary. This could age very well or of age age very poorly. So.

21:37.71

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. Northern Virginia is like the big wild card in both those races. And it's it's always hard to know because it costs a lot of money to run ads. And I don't know if that's to happen in these races.

21:49.07

Sam Shirazi

So we'll we'll see. I agree. it's It's a little bit early to to give it exact prediction, maybe closer to the primary. we We'll have a better sense.

21:56.78

Chaz Nuttycombe

Well, I think also when we talk about ads, I mean, on on the note of, you know, Stoney or maybe even the AG primary, are C4 is going to get involved in this, you know, with like doing the dirty work and attacking a candidate.

22:16.20

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. And I could think of a few that, you know, would want to get involved in especially like going against Stoney.

22:26.37

Chaz Nuttycombe

Maybe there's one that wants to go against Taylor. I don't know. But, you know, I think that's going to be something that I think people are are watching for right now as well.

22:36.07

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I think it's a good point. So we'll we'll just have to kind of wait and see what happens with all that. I did want to just shift gears a little bit. Don't want to ask about specific districts except one, which I might ask you after you answer this question. But I wanted to get your sense of the House of Delegates more so for the general election.

22:53.88

Sam Shirazi

Because I'm kind of struggling to, you know, i'm my guess is Democrats have a shot to pick up seats. Is it going to be, you know, like a little wave where they pick up a few of the pretty obvious seats? Or is there the possibility of like a big 2017 wave where they pick up a bunch of seats?

23:12.06

Sam Shirazi

And obviously it's very early and we can't really know the real answer to that until we get closer to the election. But what's your sense in terms of the House of Delegates and is it going to be... a little wave or a big wave, or is it too early to tell?

23:24.64

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think it's a little early. Look, again, Jack Kirsting and I are starting on the forecast this week and and we're going to unveil it on on June 29th. It starts at 3 out here in in Montpelier for a fundraiser.

23:39.08

Chaz Nuttycombe

And then we'll publicly release it, you know, month to a month half after that. Look, I think that there's, again, like just going back to what I was saying with what I think Republicans are are hoping for for a good night into where they could flip the House of Delegates.

23:57.08

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think their ceiling is 51 seats for the Republicans, right? I think that you know there is like maybe two other seats that could have put them in I don't think they were necessarily like really trying for 53 in 2021 or sorry, not 2021, 2023.

24:15.20

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, and I certainly don't think they are this time. not even 52, I think like, you know, the best case scenario for them is 51. Right. So R plus two.

24:26.56

Chaz Nuttycombe

but look, you know, again, with, with the fact that there's a Republican in the white house, And, um, And, um, I mean, a good, and some good news for Republicans recently for, for house Republicans is the fact that Elon Musk is on his way out.

24:43.80

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, but you know, is, is our Democrats going to still be able to run against him in the general? I don't know. or, you know, like, do they want to, or are they scared of his money?

24:54.67

Chaz Nuttycombe

which i would I would say, I think, is his money's a net negative, as you know you can see by the difference between the state superintendent race and the state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin.

25:06.81

Chaz Nuttycombe

But look, I think that the the ceiling for the Democrats could be 20 seats. The fact that we might enter and look,

25:16.24

Chaz Nuttycombe

I'm a numbers guy, but I'm a specific numbers guy. I'm not going to get out of my depth. I'm not an Nate Silver, right? um um don't know anything about economics, truly. I literally don't.

25:29.49

Chaz Nuttycombe

I'm not predicting a recession, right? Now, I think that for those conservatives who you know want to laugh at J.P. Morgan's face, I think they they can since you know J.P. Morgan was predicting a recession in 2023. think it was, right? And then they were saying like, okay, yeah, maybe a little bit inflation and in 2021 or 2022.

25:53.05

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think that's a good counterpoint. But, you know, we kind of have to wait and see on the recession if there is one coming or, you know, if there isn't. Because right now the markets, you know, last week were we're in free fall.

26:05.72

Chaz Nuttycombe

So look, if there's a recession, yeah, this this could be, like a 2009 situation. Now, that being said, right, I've been saying like, okay, you usually have this like intersectional moment to where the incumbent party in the White House has a big, you know, I done goofed moment with Trump, with Charlottesville 2017, with, you know, Afghanistan with Biden in 2021.

26:35.66

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, or, you know, you you don't even have to necessarily say the incumbent party. right. I think that I would kind of quibble with and say, think that there might be a chance that, uh, Ken Cuccinelli would have, would have become governor it wasn't for the 2013 shutdown.

26:52.05

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, I know that can be a hot take and I think it's plenty, you know, can be up for debate. And, you know, so I I think that the fact that this moment is happening right now is is a double edged sword for the Virginia Republicans.

27:07.98

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. It can either be a oh, it's only going to get worse from here. Right. Or B, okay, our worst moment is now. And, you know, it could, it can get better by the time of the election.

27:22.88

Chaz Nuttycombe

So yeah, there is a little bit of wait and see, and that's why, you know, there's a 22 seat range. And, again, no hard forecast, just like in terms of where I think things are, it could be anywhere from R plus two in the house to, you know, Democrats getting to 71

27:39.72

Chaz Nuttycombe

And that is if there's a recession and, you know, again, with the fact that there is a a much different voting base and, you know, if we will see if Sears keeps stepping on her toes or whether she, you know, does some public speaking coaches or classes or whatever, because I think she has a public speaking issue.

28:03.29

Chaz Nuttycombe

um um but yeah, so I think there's a little bit of a wide range right now but you know so I I don't think there's any world in which there's something like r plus three or d plus 21 I feel i feel safe ruling that out but that's it's such a big range right to where it's like okay yeah no duh

28:24.66

Sam Shirazi

Yeah. No, I mean, it's just too early to tell. i did want to ask you about one specific district, House District 41, that is in the Blacksburg area in Southwest Virginia. i consider you a little bit of an expert in that district because you went to Virginia Tech and obviously have covered past races.

28:42.82

Sam Shirazi

And usually that that house seat is competitive. What do you think this year in terms of that district and if Lily Franklin has a chance to win it this time after she just came up really short 2023.

28:55.44

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah, so the college town districts, I think, are like definitely the races that I'm most interested this year. even So I'm actually going to be most likely moving into Mark Early's district in September or October just...

29:11.36

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, cause I'm, I'm looking for a new apartment and I want to stay in Richmond. So why not do it where there's good real estate for voting for the next three or four years. But the college town districts are very interesting. Right. And I think it just has to do with my, my fascination with, how the zoomer vote went in 2024.

29:31.60

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. Um, Right. Um, I'm an older zoomer. right. An 18 year old would be calling me young. I'm 25 now. so, you know, for those, you know, maybe listen that podcast who remember me in like 2017 when, and when I was 18, right.

29:48.38

Chaz Nuttycombe

I'm, I'm, I'm old now, according to, to college students. and, uh, and, you know, they got a lot more conservative and I think, you know, there's been a lot of good writing and research on it.

29:59.92

Chaz Nuttycombe

with the fact that, you know, i think Biden is is very responsible and COVID is also responsible. But I think a big thing is that just...

30:12.27

Chaz Nuttycombe

in terms of like college students also being kind of naturally low prop. I would say that the Republican college voters are especially low prop.

30:23.07

Chaz Nuttycombe

I mean, i posted this the other day, Liberty University had like 13% of the precinct, Liberty University precinct proper had like 13% its 2024 turnout. think that might be,

30:35.36

Chaz Nuttycombe

and i think that might be like for any contested race, at least like the lowest, turnout of 2024 vote share in that precinct, in the Commonwealth.

30:48.15

Chaz Nuttycombe

And, um, um, you know, the question is, can, can Republicans get these kids out to vote? right. They've made a lot of gains here, but can they get them out to vote?

30:59.45

Chaz Nuttycombe

this is going to be their first rodeo, pretty much an investing in same day registration. right. They didn't really do that in 2023. Uh, and that almost, and because of that investment in same day registration, that almost resulted in Amanda Batten and Chris Obenshain losing.

31:17.73

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. So i'm I'm really interested in it. And and yeah, I'm interested in the 41st. You know, i I especially just a story I love is, you know, back in 2023, it's like literally Election Day. And for Jane Tech, wanted to do like a little video on like, you know, a day and a day of Election Day following, you know, the elections font, whatever, you know, they have in the in the thing.

31:46.22

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, cause I saw the Cardinal news article, which, you know, I, I do love that article. but i I went to campus to write for J tech has three voting, uh, precincts on campus now.

31:59.46

Chaz Nuttycombe

And they're bringing out the beer bong tables. They're bringing out the foldable tables. And, and I felt good about my predictions that year.

32:05.70

Sam Shirazi

That's

32:08.68

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, I did, i thought like, okay, I feel like I feel good about like 98 in the house, uh, and then like a 38 out of 40 in the Senate. And then like when I'm seeing that and I predicted that Ovenshane was, you know, going to win, i thought it was going to be closer than people thought.

32:26.56

Chaz Nuttycombe

Certainly wasn't, it was closer than I thought, but still I'm on my drive home and I'm thinking like, if I get every single district right, but the one i live in for the past couple of years, I'm going to hate myself.

32:38.71

Sam Shirazi

you

32:41.76

Chaz Nuttycombe

I'm going to be so pissed. Right. If that is the one district I miss. And you know, it, it, it didn't happen. But look,

32:51.43

Chaz Nuttycombe

yeah i i posted the other day blacksburg now makes up a higher share of uh of the district's uh registered voters in uh in 2025 uh at least currently march 2025 versus march 2023 blacksburg makes up a higher vote share right it compared to like the rest of Montgomery County and, uh, wrote the part of Roanoke County, which, you know, open Shane, um, you know, that's something that's working against them.

33:27.37

Chaz Nuttycombe

Uh, I also think that Democrats got caught. I would, I would say, let me be specific house Democrats got costs caught sleeping in that district. Right. and I think that they,

33:38.23

Chaz Nuttycombe

also did not cut great mail. I saw a mail that they, like mail they did for Lily Franklin and it said like, Lily Franklin for for Southwest Virginia, right? Like cookie cutter crap.

33:52.10

Chaz Nuttycombe

Oh, it's a Southwest Virginia district and and whatnot. right. So they, they just pretty much phoned it in. and, uh, so, you know, uh, look, that's, that's gonna be a competitive race. I think everybody knows that, right. It was decided by 0.8%.

34:09.21

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, in 2023 it's competitive race and, uh, yeah, it got more Republican from the 2020 presidential to 2024 results. but.

34:19.79

Chaz Nuttycombe

what I was saying with, uh, for the fact that I think that these pro-Trump young voters, college voters, are not really going to be motivated to come out this year.

34:33.70

Chaz Nuttycombe

It's going to be a big thing. I'm also am interested because in these college districts, because look, the most important years in determining voting behavior later in life are when you're in your teenage years and you're in your early twenties.

34:50.97

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, right. And that, and that applies for like a whole bunch of other things psychologically. but like if there's a recession or like if these tariffs are, you know, like G Elliot Morris posted like that, uh, you know, Nintendo's news that the switch to is getting delayed or the pre-orders are getting delayed. Right.

35:11.62

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, And 18 to 25-year-old men love love gaming. they They do. you know I don't i know really play many video games much myself anymore, but maybe that's because I'm exiting the demographic.

35:28.16

Chaz Nuttycombe

But anywho, think that... it are these gains permanent or where are these, are these college kids just, they like Trump and then they don't show out or do they like Trump?

35:42.58

Chaz Nuttycombe

they are voting Democrat for everything else maybe, or did they like Trump in 2024, but now that they're not getting their, uh, switch to, or now that they're seeing like everything getting more expensive if the terrorists do that, you know, this year,

35:58.12

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, are they are they now Democrats? Are they now like going to be out protesting? You know, I saw a TikTok that said like, you know, there's no young people at this. Was it the hands off protest?

36:09.01

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. No teenagers, no Zoomers, no nothing. So that's that's my fat, like one of my two fascinations uh or i would say it's it's my big fascination with or what i'm looking for for virginia 2025 like those are those are the districts i'm keeping my eyes peeled on and i i'm kind of surprised that you know like that liberty district you know the lynchburg district wasn't on like the house dems list of uh of targeted districts because

36:40.56

Chaz Nuttycombe

Walker underperformed Trump by like three points. And, you know, the fact of the matter is that I think i think Walker is going to have a difficult time getting those Liberty students out.

36:52.72

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, but, you know, yeah, it voted for Trump by 11 points and that's probably all we see. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see those districts, but obviously, yeah, the 41st, I would say is I would say the 41st is the most competitive.

37:07.96

Chaz Nuttycombe

So.

37:08.86

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, well, I appreciate your thoughts on that. Welcome to the old man club. And you know now we'll have to figure out what the kids decided to do this year. I did want to leave you just, I did have one last question before we let you go.

37:22.94

Sam Shirazi

And it's actually a question about 2026. And I know this podcast is about 2025, but I want to get your thoughts on Virginia's first district. So I thought it would be closer in 2020.

37:35.43

Sam Shirazi

But Rob Whitman, the current incumbent Republican, was able to win by 13 percent, even though Trump

37:40.24

Chaz Nuttycombe

You mean 2024? You're all good.

37:41.74

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, so in 2024, 2024, that Rob Whitman was able to win the district by 13%, even though Trump won it by around 5%.

37:44.78

Chaz Nuttycombe

yeah i

37:55.28

Sam Shirazi

So Whitman really overperformed Trump, which I didn't think he overperformed that much, but... He was able to do it. I want to get your thoughts because it seems like Democrats might be thinking about targeting the first in 2026. I mean, given that Whitman won by 13 percent in 2024, mean, do you think that's realistic or you think it's a reach district? I mean, the other thing, too, is like by the time Democrats, if they win this district, they've already have this massive massive House majority. So I don't i don't know if it's really worth going after, but it seems like they're interested in going after him. What are your thoughts on the first in 2026?

38:30.00

Chaz Nuttycombe

Well, Dave Brat also won against a paper candidate in 2016 in Virginia 7 while Trump was nearly winning that district. Right. I mean, Whitman has never run against a Democrat that was trying to beat him in his life.

38:46.79

Chaz Nuttycombe

he's never run in a targeted race, I guess you could say. You know, we can say like, OK, the Democrat, you know, that ran against him in 2018 or 2020.

38:56.44

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, they were trying to beat him, but they didn't have the resources. You can, you can say that, but either way, he hasn't run against a, a strong democratic campaign. I had, was I had a great conversation with a democratic consultant, uh, earlier this year.

39:15.17

Chaz Nuttycombe

And I was asking, you know, who do you think the Democrats should recruit, for that district? And he said, and I think, I think it is the right answer.

39:26.33

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, I saw, I saw Virginia political meme tweet, like, you know, a lot of names that we know, but I think that, this, this consultant's answer of it's probably gotta be someone that we don't know right now. Right. So we haven't heard of like Abigail Spanberger, right. Nobody had heard of her.

39:44.21

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, when, you know, she was running for the district, right. And, and the seventh and. uh, 20, 2018. and the question is like, what is, what is the profile?

39:56.09

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think that it, I think that like Whitman is probably in danger if it's maybe someone from the peninsula or or, one of the, let's, let's say one of the peninsulas, but I would say probably the peninsula, right.

40:12.22

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, the historic triangle is probably where Democrats would probably most likely find a recruit and probably a good recruit. cause that's a big thing that, that Whitman has is, you know, he wins a lot of crossover voters in that district because he's, or in that area because he's represented that area during his, you know, for, for 20 years.

40:31.88

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, but I think that like, you know, if Democrats can get someone out in Hanover from outside of Ashland, right. So like someone in Mechanicsville, that bites into Whitman a lot.

40:45.75

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, Or yeah, they can maybe get like a rural Democrat from, you know, the Middle Peninsula. The the consultant said Middle Peninsula, but I think Northern Neck would be a good answer as well.

41:02.06

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. Maybe like Colonial Beach or something. You know, that was that was a town that voted for Cane in 2018, if I recall correctly, and and now is very Republican. So I think like if Democrats can get someone from one of the peninsulas, or Hanover, and you know, said candidate can raise money.

41:24.55

Chaz Nuttycombe

i think Whitman is in a lot of trouble. But if Democrats are like recruiting someone from Henrico or Chesterfield, I think that's a good sign for Whitman because like there's there's only so much room, I think, that Democrats can get out of those two counties.

41:43.63

Chaz Nuttycombe

I mean, yeah, Whitman you know ran ahead of Trump and in both of those segments of the district in 2024. But I think all you have to do is put a feather on it and then you get it to presidential levels, maybe a little bit better, you know, to do a little bit better than presidential levels.

42:01.31

Chaz Nuttycombe

So I think Democrats, if they've got a nominee from Henrico or Chesterfield, I think that's a mistake on their part. so I think that's the thing to watch for is it's just who candidate there, or who the Democrats recruit as a candidate, because that's going to determine, how competitive this race is going to be is where is that democratic candidate from?

42:22.77

Chaz Nuttycombe

Um, Um, but you know, for the fact that, yeah, this is going to be what means, I think regardless, this is going to be Whitman's real race in 2026. The question is, is it like a toss up or is it, you know, like he's got like a 70 or 80% chance of winning somewhere in that ballpark.

42:41.82

Chaz Nuttycombe

And I think that really is going to come down to candidate quality on the Democratic side. So that's something we've got to watch for the next several months. You know, Spanberger was on the campaign trail in 2017. She was knocking doors for Skyler, knocking doors for Dawn and Dawn Adams and Deborah Rodman. I'm I'm pretty sure Larry Barnett as well, right, going to those events.

43:04.47

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, you know, it could be someone in the very room that, is is out there on the House Delegate campaign offices this year.

43:14.98

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, you know, we'll see.

43:17.42

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, even though and we got to get through 2025 first, it's going to be important for 2026 as well. So Chaz, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. I'm sure everyone's going to like hearing in about all your thoughts and check out State Navigate if you haven't had already. And thank you again, Chaz. And I'll see you next time on Federal Fallout.

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

00:00.76

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode we will review the Virginia primary filing deadline and then we'll explore if the June primary might be the real contest this year in Virginia.

00:16.20

Sam Shirazi

So to kick things off, on the Democratic side, no other candidate filed for governor other than former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger. So she will be the Democratic nominee.

00:27.72

Sam Shirazi

There was not much suspense leading up to the Democratic filing deadline for governor.

00:34.66

Sam Shirazi

Congressman Bobby Scott had toyed with the idea of running, or at least didn't shoot down the idea, but it was pretty clear at the end that he was not going to be filing because he did not gather signatures.

00:47.79

Sam Shirazi

And so as expected, former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger is the Democratic nominee for governor. On the Republican side, things are not so simple.

00:59.24

Sam Shirazi

Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears had already filed her paperwork as soon as she could, and she has qualified for the primary ballot on the Republican side for governor.

01:08.58

Sam Shirazi

And there were two candidates also attempting to make the ballot, former delegate Dave LaRock and former state Senator Amanda Chase. And Dave LaRock on the filing deadline on Thursday,

01:21.49

Sam Shirazi

He said that he did not have enough signatures, so you need 10,000 signatures, valid signatures from voters registered in Virginia, including 400 from each congressional district.

01:34.26

Sam Shirazi

And Dave LaRock said he got about 9,000, which is obviously less than 10,000, so he did not end up filing. So he will not be on the primary ballot in Virginia.

01:45.80

Sam Shirazi

But Amanda Chase did file her paperwork. And so that means it's possible there could be a primary. And I wanted to just break down the process of what's going to happen next, because just because someone files the paperwork doesn't automatically mean that they're going to be on the ballot.

02:02.72

Sam Shirazi

So the biggest obstacle to be on the ballot in Virginia for statewide office this year is the 10,000 signature requirement. And I thought I'd take some time to really break down how to get those signatures and what they have what has to happen in order for those signatures to be counted as valid.

02:20.48

Sam Shirazi

So right off the back bat, the signatures have to be from registered voters in Virginia. You cannot just have random people signing the ballot. They do have to be registered to vote in Virginia.

02:33.36

Sam Shirazi

On top of that, 400 signatures have to come from each of Virginia's 11 congressional districts, basically to ensure that you have some geographic support across Virginia and it's not just concentrated in one part of Virginia.

02:48.20

Sam Shirazi

So those are kind of the basic requirements. But then the actual mechanics of filling out the signature form require some other things to have happen. First, the voter has to print their name.

03:01.68

Sam Shirazi

They have to sign their name. They have to give their full legal address where they reside, and they have to sign and date the signature petition. And if any one of those things are off, then that individual will not be counted towards the 10,000. And one of the things that can go wrong, people don't date it. People don't sign it. People give their partial address. People give their partial name. I mean, you know if you've ever done signature collection you know that there's a lot of ways that this could go wrong, particularly if people are in a rush, they're hurrying.

03:36.36

Sam Shirazi

The person collecting the signatures is doing a lot of different things and is not maybe focused. And and it it often there are many signatures when a candidate submits that are not valid.

03:49.05

Sam Shirazi

And it's often a good idea to submit way over the minimum to ensure that for whatever reason, if any of your signatures are knocked off, you still have the minimum to meet the requirements.

03:59.73

Sam Shirazi

And then on top of that, let's say you fill out a petition petition signature form all correctly, all the signatures are correct. The person who gathered the signatures has to get the petition signature form notarized.

04:11.30

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, that's not a huge barrier, but it does require someone who is authorized to be a notary in Virginia to sign that. And so that is, all those things have to be right. And if anything's wrong on the petition signature form,

04:27.30

Sam Shirazi

form, then the form can get thrown out, the signatures can get thrown out. And so all that's to say is there's a lot of things that could go wrong if you are just trying to get the bare minimum number of signatures.

04:39.14

Sam Shirazi

And the thing with Amanda Chase is she was trying to do this very quickly with a lot of volunteers who may or may not be familiar with all these different requirements. And so there's a lot of room for error.

04:50.66

Sam Shirazi

And I will say this about Amanda Chase. I think she put in her paperwork acknowledging that she does not exactly know how many signatures are valid. she does She's not gone through and validated them all because she said she didn't have the time to do that. So long way of saying...

05:08.03

Sam Shirazi

We're still not sure if she would be able to make the ballot even after she submitted her paperwork. And so what happens now is the signatures are in and they will be reviewed to see if they are actually valid signatures of registered voters in Virginia.

05:24.64

Sam Shirazi

And that can take some time because you have to go signature by signature. And we'll see what ends up happening. I don't think we are going to find out for few days what the final call is in terms of determining if Amanda Chase made the primary ballot.

05:40.96

Sam Shirazi

And Keep in mind, if she is determined not to make the ballot, we'll see if she pursues any appeals or legal remedies to try to get on the ballot. So this could still drag on a little bit longer, even though Amanda Chase has filed the paperwork to get on the ballot.

05:58.54

Sam Shirazi

So having said all that, we will just have to wait and see what happens. I think obviously if there is a primary on the Republican side for governor, I will probably do a whole episode on it because it's a big deal.

06:09.77

Sam Shirazi

And it will take a lot of the attention on the Republican side away from former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who's the Democratic nominee, and shift that to the Republican primary and Republican Winston Sears and Amanda Chase will have to go after each other and and try to win that primary.

06:26.75

Sam Shirazi

Now, again, it may not happen. We just have to wait and see. So I don't want to spend too much time on it right now, but wanted to just give everyone an update of where things stand for the Republican primary for Governor.

06:38.68

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so now let's move on to lieutenant governor. So just because there isn't a primary for governor on the Democratic side, we already know that Abigail Spanberger will be the nominee, doesn't mean there is not going to be a Democratic primary.

06:51.14

Sam Shirazi

There will be a Democratic statewide primary in all parts of Virginia for lieutenant governor and attorney general. And lieutenant governor is the race that has a lot of candidates who have filed and all the candidates have that have made it, I will list them out.

07:08.47

Sam Shirazi

And we can just quickly talk about that. So the Democratic Party has confirmed that Alex Bastani, Ghazala Hashmi, Babur Lateef, Aaron Rouse,

07:19.96

Sam Shirazi

Victor Salgado, and LeVar Stoney have all made the primary ballot. So that is six candidates running on the Democratic side for lieutenant governor.

07:30.60

Sam Shirazi

It will be a crowded race, lot of different people running. I should note that Carl Eggleston had been running for lieutenant governor, but he indicated that he had to withdraw to due to to health reasons, so he will not be on the ballot. But still, we got six Democrats running for lieutenant governor.

07:48.50

Sam Shirazi

So a full ballot of Democrats, and it should be a pretty interesting race. I'll talk a little bit later on about what the primary might look like. So I might as well round up round out the Democratic primaries, at least for statewide office.

08:03.06

Sam Shirazi

For Attorney General, as I mentioned before, there will be a primary. Jay Jones and Shannon Taylor have both made the primary ballot. That will be a one-on-one contest. So the Democrats will have two statewide offices on the primary ballot, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.

08:19.11

Sam Shirazi

On the Republican side, it appears there will also be a Lieutenant Governor primary. for the Republicans. So Pat Harity had already filed his paperwork and he has been confirmed to be on the ballot. And then right before the filing deadline, John Reed also filed his paperwork and that will be processed. I assume that he will likely be on the ballot. So I think the Republicans will have a statewide primary as well on the ballot in June.

08:49.17

Sam Shirazi

I should note that John Curran had also been running on the Republican side for lieutenant governor. I haven't heard a whole lot. I don't think that he filed his paperwork, but I'm sure I'll find out if I'm wrong about that. But it looks like it will be a one-on-one primary on the Republican side for lieutenant governor.

09:06.24

Sam Shirazi

And then for attorney general, there will not be a primary on the Republican side because Jason Miyares was the only candidate that filed. He's an incumbent. Obviously, it was unlikely that anyone serious would run against him.

09:20.21

Sam Shirazi

And so Jason Miyares will be the Republican nominee for attorney general. Okay, now I should talk about what the primary might look like and if it's it's the real contest this year in Virginia. And what I mean by that is a lot of people focus on November and there's going to be a lot fewer voters who come out on June 17th to vote in these primaries. Now, there'll probably be a several hundred thousand when you take both the Democrats and Republicans, but In the November election, there'll be at least 2 million, I'm guessing, if not more, probably well over 2 million people voting in the general election.

09:57.34

Sam Shirazi

But for the primaries, you might get, you're going to get less than 25% that. Probably, I'm guessing. I'm guessing we may get up to half a million in both primaries.

10:11.49

Sam Shirazi

And so we'll see. We'll see what those races look like. You know, on the Republican side, a lot depends on if there's actually going to be a primary for governor. If there's a primary for governor, you're going to see a lot more turnout.

10:24.01

Sam Shirazi

And we could see a lot more people showing up in June for the primary. If it's just lieutenant governor on the Republican side, I mean, it's hard to know how many people are going to come out for that.

10:36.16

Sam Shirazi

It's probably only and only going to be pretty hardcore Republicans who are going to show up for lieutenant governor primary in June.

10:42.24

Sam Shirazi

On the Democratic side, I think you're going to have more turnout because in the lieutenant governor's race, there's a lot of people running and there's also an attorney general race on the ballot. So you're going to have two of these races.

10:54.55

Sam Shirazi

And the reason I say, you know, is this the real primary? I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but as I talked about in my special bonus episode about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, I mean, things are looking kind of dicey for the Republicans.

11:10.97

Sam Shirazi

And so there's a decent chance that if former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger wins and she wins by a decent margin, she's just going to take the entire ticket with her. And so if that ends up happening,

11:23.53

Sam Shirazi

then but the primary in June is going to basically determine who's going to be the next Lieutenant Governor and the next Attorney General because they're going to win.

11:33.89

Sam Shirazi

They'll get on the ticket with Abigail Spanberger and then she's going to carry the ticket. And realistically, there isn't a whole lot of ticket splitting these days. And so the Democrats are just going to sweep the statewide offices. That's what's happened in the last four Virginia elections.

11:46.86

Sam Shirazi

The party that's won the governor's race has swept every other statewide office. So I say that because I think there's a lot on the line in the June 17th primary. Oftentimes people focus on the general election. a lot of people don't vote in these primaries.

12:00.12

Sam Shirazi

But I think it's really important that people vote both in the primary and the general election because obviously the and the person who wins the general election has to win the primary first. And so – You can't become lieutenant governor or attorney general without winning the primary.

12:14.62

Sam Shirazi

So I just think it's it's important that people not just focus on November. I think June 17th is going to be an important date as well. I should also quickly note that there will be a number of primaries for the House of Delegates. I will go over all that in a separate episode because that's a lot of different races.

12:32.44

Sam Shirazi

A lot of the House of Delegates races, however, will not have primaries because only one candidate has filed for either the Democrats or Republicans. So there's actually going to be a fair amount of House of Delegates races that won't have a primary in June.

12:45.77

Sam Shirazi

There will be some that that do have primaries, and obviously I'll go over that in another episode. I'm still waiting on the final list of primaries, which the Department of Elections will put out, but I'm guessing the majority of House of Delegates districts will not have a primary. So it's actually going to be the minority of districts that will have primaries, and that's because – incumbents A lot of them are in safe districts. They haven't faced primary challengers.

13:10.36

Sam Shirazi

And then the people who are running against them often, especially if it's a safe red or blue district, there isn't going to be a lot of people who want to run. And so there might not be a primary.

13:21.18

Sam Shirazi

Long story short, we'll have to wait and see what's going on with the House of Delegates. I'll obviously do an episode on the House of Delegates primaries once the final list of candidates who will appear on the primary ballot comes out.

13:33.88

Sam Shirazi

Okay. I wanted to just pivot a little bit and talk about one other thing before I wrap this episode up, and that is about the Republicans' chances this year. As you can tell, I've kind of taken the view that things are not going super great right now for the Republicans in Virginia.

13:51.01

Sam Shirazi

few reasons for that, obviously the firing of federal workers and their continued restructuring of the federal government – The name of this podcast is Federal Fallout. A lot of the premise of the podcast has been that that is going to have an impact in Virginia.

14:05.37

Sam Shirazi

So you have that. And then... This week, we also saw what President Trump called Liberation Day with an announcement that there was going to be a lot of tariffs.

14:16.81

Sam Shirazi

The stock market was not super pleased with that and stocks were down and there was a lot of turmoil in the financial markets. And a lot of companies are starting to get nervous because of the risk that that could lead to an economic downturn.

14:31.24

Sam Shirazi

And so that is also not in the background, and it is not necessarily great news for Virginia Republicans that people are also getting nervous about the overall economy while the Virginia economy is being delta blow by what DOGE is doing in DC. So there's a lot going on right now for Virginia Republicans.

14:53.29

Sam Shirazi

Now, having said all that, I don't want to pretend like the race is over. There's no chance that they could win. And so I did want to just talk a little bit and think through, you know, how they could potentially make a comeback in this race.

15:06.62

Sam Shirazi

I think one possibility is that DOGE wraps up its work. There have been reports that at the end of May, when Elon Musk's temporary employment with the federal government comes to an end, he may move aside.

15:19.60

Sam Shirazi

And there's a world where DOGE kind of does its thing and there's some restructuring in the federal government. And then that's kind of the end of it. And everyone moves on. So while it's a big story right now, maybe by November, it's not as big of a deal.

15:33.52

Sam Shirazi

That's possible. I think the danger in that is that obviously... The people who are affected, if you were laid off, you're still going to be probably upset about that in November. And the fact that the project might have ended is not really going to be that much comfort to you. So I'm not sure how much of a change game changer that would be for the Virginia Republicans, but it's something that could take it out of the news. And in theory, the less that there is news about layoffs of federal workers, the better it would be for Virginia Republicans.

16:03.89

Sam Shirazi

And I think the tariffs are tricky because right now they're causing a lot of havoc in the financial markets. Again, it's possible that either of the markets just take the take the tariff but the hit right now and then they kind of go on and and the economy continues. It's also possible. I think one of the reasons the stock market is a little bit in flux right now is people don't know what's the end game because on the one hand, President Trump seems really serious about these tariffs and he has always wanted to do tariffs and this is his chance to do tariffs.

16:35.83

Sam Shirazi

But on the other hand, you're also seeing hearing some of conflicting things like, well, these tariffs are just being used as a negotiating position and I think there's a hope that maybe – Countries will come and make deals with President Trump and then he'll lower the tariffs. And so in the long run, the tariffs aren't really going to be a huge deal because it's just going to cause some changes to some of the trading relationships and some of the rules between the U.S. s and other countries.

17:03.15

Sam Shirazi

But it's not going to fundamentally cause a huge shift in things. And again, i think that's a really open question. It's hard to know right now. I think the markets are starting to realize that maybe President Trump is serious about the tariffs. And I think some of the losses recently have been because the markets are coming to that realization. There was a hope that maybe and this was more of a negotiating tactic or that it wouldn't cause that big of an impact to the economy.

17:28.59

Sam Shirazi

think now we're seeing that it is going to have an impact on the economy. The question is, Is the impact in April and then things kind of recalibrate and everyone continues on and then the economy is pretty much okay in November? Or is this really kind of a long-term readjustment of the U.S. economy?

17:47.70

Sam Shirazi

It may cause short-term recession while things change. It's hard to know. Obviously, that's going to be one of those things that is going to be in the background of the Virginia governor's race.

17:58.54

Sam Shirazi

And so what are some of the issues that the Virginia Republicans are going to go be running on this year? And I think it's a little bit scattered. So sometimes you'll see them post about immigration. Sometimes you'll see them post about trans issues. Sometimes you'll see them post about COVID.

18:12.37

Sam Shirazi

Sometimes it's about President Biden. And so you have all these different things that the Virginia Republicans are throwing out there to just see what sticks.

18:24.83

Sam Shirazi

And I get it from a political standpoint that you're you're obviously trying to focus on other things, but I just don't know how much it's going to break through in a way that will connect to voters because obviously the Republicans had a fair amount of success when former President Biden was in office, but it's always easier to be in opposition. And now that the Republicans are in power in DC, they have a record they have to defend and

18:49.79

Sam Shirazi

I think posting about all these other things, while I get it, you're trying to fire up your base. I'm not sure how much that's going to resonate with voters in the middle who are expecting Republicans to be in charge of things and take some responsibility for some of the things that are going on.

19:04.86

Sam Shirazi

But I also wanted to to say that there is a universe where let's say Governor Youngkin gets really involved in the race this year, or maybe Elon Musk decides to donate a lot of money. Maybe he steps back after what happened in Wisconsin and isn't the face of the Republican Party, but he still is giving his money to the Republicans. And while obviously the Democrats will tie up try to tie the money to Musk, it's a little bit harder if he stays off the campaign trail to make the race about Elon Musk.

19:34.72

Sam Shirazi

And then you can see President Trump coming in, maybe campaigning in rural areas. And so the Republicans find a way to get their base excited and they turn out. And that'll at least you know put them in contention.

19:48.20

Sam Shirazi

I think the big question or the issue for the Republicans is if you look at 2021, things were going well for them. They basically had the political winds at their back. In the summer, there was the withdrawal from Afghanistan and all the issues that happened there.

20:03.82

Sam Shirazi

There was COVID. People were getting tired of all the COVID restrictions and the masks, and the Republicans really were able to use that energy. And then you had Governor Youngkin running He had his own money and he was getting a lot of support. And so you had a really good environment for Republicans in 2021.

20:21.38

Sam Shirazi

And still he only won by two, even though the Republicans had everything going for them in 2021. and He was able to reach independent voters and more moderate voters and convince them to vote for the Republicans.

20:35.42

Sam Shirazi

And the question is, like, how do the Republicans do that this year? and i mean, obviously, they're going to be talking about the issues they like to talk about immigration, crime, immigration. is And, you know, I'm sure that there will be some people who support that, their positions on those things.

20:50.72

Sam Shirazi

Question is become it becomes, is is this the year where they're going to be able to get enough moderate voters to come out and to get the rural turnout that they're able to win like they did 2021, which it was a close election, even with all the things going right for them in 2021?

21:08.83

Sam Shirazi

I wish we can get a good high quality poll of the Virginia governor's race. I think it's been a while since we've gotten a poll and i just it would be nice to get a little bit of a pulse check.

21:18.74

Sam Shirazi

to see where things are. i think the last polling had showed former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger up by a little bit. We can kind of see if shes that lead has grown. Is it roughly where it was?

21:31.80

Sam Shirazi

And I think that would be helpful. Obviously, we just have to wait for the next poll to come out. But i do I do think it's a valid question to just think about you know what is the coalition that Republicans are going to put together to get to roughly 50% to win this race?

21:48.18

Sam Shirazi

And you know I guess the one reason I should try to tampen down some expectations for Democrats, I think I remember in 2021 around this time, around this time So I remember 2021 around this time when there were some suggestions, well, maybe Republicans are going to have a shot in Virginia in 2021.

22:07.03

Sam Shirazi

And a lot of people kind of batted that down. No, Virginia is a blue state. Biden just won Virginia by 10 points. And obviously by November, the Republicans were able to turn things around and then they won that race in 2021.

22:21.14

Sam Shirazi

So I don't want to pretend like that's impossible. But again, what's the difference between 2021 and 2025?

22:28.53

Sam Shirazi

2021, we had a Democratic president. 2025, obviously, we're Republican president. And so i I think we'll just have to see if that historical pattern of the party that's not in the White House just gets a big boost in the Virginia governor's race, and that's just too hard to overcome.

22:42.20

Sam Shirazi

I don't want to belabor the point. I think we'll just have to to wait and see. But it's going to be an interesting year this year in Virginia. i will try to talk about the general election every once in a while, but I did want to just draw people's attention to the primary. It will be on June 17th.

23:00.33

Sam Shirazi

Early voting starts soon, about a month away. Early May will be the start of early voting in Virginia. So really not that far away.

23:09.55

Sam Shirazi

I think the primary this year in Virginia is going to be really important and it's not going to get the same amount of attention as the general election and the governor's race, but I do think it's really important. So follow along. Next few episodes, we'll be talking about different aspects of the primary. And so I appreciate everyone listening.

23:25.97

Sam Shirazi

I will join you next week on Federal Fallout.

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

00:00.71

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This is a special bonus episode that will look at the Wisconsin Supreme Court race and what it means for Virginia this November.

00:16.38

Sam Shirazi

So it was a really crazy race in Wisconsin for the Supreme Court election there. Wisconsin always has really competitive elections, and this was no exception. Both sides came in. They spent a lot of money.

00:29.41

Sam Shirazi

They really emphasize this seat on the Supreme Court because it would decide the balance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Currently, there's a four to three liberal majority. And after the election, there will continue to be a four to three liberal majority because the candidate that the Democrats backed for the Wisconsin Supreme Court won that election, it looks like between nine and 10 points.

00:52.21

Sam Shirazi

And this was a a really big win for Democrats in Wisconsin because obviously Both sides had invested a lot in this race, but also Elon Musk had come in and he had spent a lot of money to try to help the Republicans flip this state Supreme Court seat, but they weren't able to do that.

01:11.67

Sam Shirazi

And overall, it was just a really good night for Democrats. There were two special elections in Florida in deep red seats. And while Democrats didn't win those elections, They did a lot better than they did in 2024.

01:26.02

Sam Shirazi

So really across the board, we're seeing a really strong environment right now for Democrats. And I think there's a combination of factors. One of them is just the reality that anytime a party comes into power, the opposition party tends to gain both with their own base that gets fired up because of what's going on in Washington, but also because people start moving over to the other side because they might not be happy what with what the ruling party is doing.

01:52.94

Sam Shirazi

And then there's also the reality that Democrats now are doing really well with with what are called high propensity voters. So high propensity voters are those voters who always come out, vote in every election. Doesn't matter if it's a school board, or they will vote in every single election. Typically those voters skew to be more college educated, wealthier voters. And those voters have during the Trump era really become a lot more democratic.

02:19.95

Sam Shirazi

The Republican coalition has become what's known more as low propensity voters. So those are voters that typically don't vote a whole lot other than for president. And President Trump was able to bring them out in 2024.

02:34.12

Sam Shirazi

But the downside for Republicans is those voters do not always show up in these elections that are not presidential elections. Obviously, this Wisconsin Supreme Court race was in April right after the presidential election.

02:48.61

Sam Shirazi

and it was just difficult for the Republicans to get out their base. And I think that was one thing that Elon Musk was trying to do. He was trying to come in and really reach those voters that are hard to reach.

02:59.65

Sam Shirazi

But the reality is, it seems like really President Trump is the only one who's able to turn out those voters, and he can really only do them for presidential elections. And so I think that there was a lot going on in Wisconsin. And you know obviously, I'm not an expert in Wisconsin, but But clearly the Democrats had a good night.

03:19.22

Sam Shirazi

And so the question becomes, what does all this mean for Virginia? So, I mean, it it's hard to extrapolate to November because this was one election in one state in April.

03:32.98

Sam Shirazi

But I think one thing to keep in mind is the turnout was relatively high in this election. I think some of the observers said that it was going to be close to midterm level turnout. And when you're seeing that level of turnout, the Democrats are still able to win.

03:48.00

Sam Shirazi

think the Republicans have to ask themselves, you know, what's going to happen in November in Virginia. And, you know, realistically, most people think that Democrats started off with an advantage just because they were not in the White House. and And I've talked about it before. The party that's not in the White House typically does well in Virginia elections. So I think most people would say that Democrats started off with that advantage.

04:12.72

Sam Shirazi

And you know Given that Virginia governor's races are almost always competitive, even if the Democrats have an advantage, I think most people also said that it was still going to be a competitive race this year in Virginia.

04:25.02

Sam Shirazi

I think once the inauguration happened and the scale of what President Trump and Elon Musk were are going to do in terms of Doge and the restructuring of the federal government, the laying off of workers, cutting federal funds,

04:40.19

Sam Shirazi

I think you know most observers quickly realize that obviously Virginia is dependent on federal jobs and federal money. And so it has to have an impact on what's going on on the campaign trail in Virginia, and it's going to have an impact on the election.

04:56.29

Sam Shirazi

the The question now becomes, you know is this a race where the Republicans are in a tough spot, but they might be able to to find a way to win? Or is this getting to the point where there's not a whole lot the Republicans can do to win this election in 2025.

05:13.39

Sam Shirazi

twenty twenty five Now, obviously, it's very early. There isn't a whole lot of data in terms of polling. So I don't want to draw big conclusions. I don't want to say, you know, Democrats are definitely going to win in Virginia this year. But I think the risk for the Republicans is, you know, the perception is things are getting pretty dicey for them. And while it seems like the election is a is a long way off,

05:34.22

Sam Shirazi

We really aren't that far from Election Day. Election Day is seven months away. Early voting in Virginia will start in late September. So that is not an eternity away. and And once people have kind of a perception of how things are going, it's hard to turn around the ship and kind of right the ship for the Republicans. And so the question they have to ask themselves is, you know, what is their strategy going into November to try to win this race? Because the danger for them is it just keeps slipping away.

06:04.24

Sam Shirazi

and And there's a few examples of this happening in recent Virginia history. Like I said, most Virginia elections end up being pretty close, but I think the two exceptions were 2009 and 2017. So 2009, the economy was really struggling.

06:19.93

Sam Shirazi

Virginia Republicans really were had a lot of momentum and there was really nothing the Democrats could win could can do to win that race in 2009. And nine and the democrat and excuse me the Republicans had a huge win in two thousand and nine in virginia 2017 was a little bit similar dynamic, I'd say, to 2025 in Wisconsin. In 2017, Democrats were really fired up because of the first Trump administration.

06:46.98

Sam Shirazi

and while it seemed close for most of that campaign, at the end, the Democrats really just got a big win and were able to win that race by about nine points.

06:56.91

Sam Shirazi

And so I think there's a risk for the Virginia Republicans that this could be a repeat of 2017 if there isn't some sort of change game changing moment.

07:07.12

Sam Shirazi

and And I should just caveat all that by saying, look, the reality is seven months is not a huge amount of time, but there's an old adage that a week is a long time in politics. So there's a lot that can still happen.

07:19.07

Sam Shirazi

I don't want to make it seem like this is not going to be a competitive election in Virginia. I think there are a lot of different factors you have to look at. You have to look at obviously Virginia being a more competitive state at for state elections versus federal elections. You have to look at polarization. a lot of voters just end up voting for their, the red team or the blue team. And it's hard to persuade a lot of voters to change their minds. You have to look at the possibility that Elon Musk can come in and spend a lot of money in Virginia. Although as we saw in Wisconsin, that didn't really make too much of a difference. And if anything,

07:57.13

Sam Shirazi

the Wisconsin Democrats were really able to use Elon Musk as a foil and to tie the Republican candidate for spring the state Supreme Court to Elon Musk and were able to you know energize their voters by going after Elon Musk. So it's kind of a question mark how much of impact he could have in Virginia.

08:17.53

Sam Shirazi

But regardless, obviously, he has a lot of money. And if he wanted to come in, he could he could come in. So those are all things that we have to think about when it comes to Virginia that it's not a given that Democrats are going to win and they're going to have a huge win.

08:32.96

Sam Shirazi

But I think with each day, as things are kind of going the way they're going, the odds of a kind of decent democratic victory in Virginia go up. And there has to be some sort of game changing moment at some point, if the Republicans really want to get back into this thing, because the reality is it's unlikely that Democrats are going to have a primary for governor and,

08:55.75

Sam Shirazi

it's you know it's almost certain that former congresswoman Abigail Spanberger is going to be the democratic nominee we'll see if the republicans have a primary we'll find out on tuesday on thursday with the filing deadline and we'll see if the two candidates who are trying to get on the ballot dave larock and amanda chase are able to get the 10 000 required signatures to get on the ballot but know democratic nominee is has been set for a while she's been fundraising for a while And she's got her message going. She's been opposing, former Congresswoman Spanberger has been opposing what's been going on in DC with Elon Musk and Doge and the attempts to fire federal workers.

09:38.90

Sam Shirazi

And so that's a pretty clear message. And the Republicans have not been able to come up with a kind coherent response other than to say that it's just basically necessary to have some of these workers laid off.

09:51.29

Sam Shirazi

And so, you know, I, I think it's it's going to be tough for the Virginia Republicans, to be honest. Now, having said all that, I do want to have some humility because i think November of 2024 taught a lot of people, particularly Democrats, that the reality is, you know, there there are a lot of voters that support Donald Trump. There are a lot of voters who believe in kind of that vision of America. And it's easy when you're in more of a bubble in certain areas to think, you know, that's how everyone in the country thinks and and look how how great the Democrats are doing in these elections. And obviously Democrats are going to continue winning and nothing is determined politics. Politics tends to surprise me. So I don't, I don't want to make it seem like there's no way the Republicans have a chance this year in Virginia.

10:45.78

Sam Shirazi

Having said all that, I mean, i think the big difference between November 2025 and November 2024 is going to be that these low propensity Trump voters, I don't know if they're going to necessarily come out for the Republicans.

11:00.98

Sam Shirazi

It's still an open question. i will say we do have an example from 2021 when when Governor Youngkin was able to win that election and and his campaign was able to turn out a lot of those people, particularly in rural areas.

11:15.64

Sam Shirazi

And that was kind of part of his secret to success in 2021 was he did relatively better in the suburbs, but he was able to really juice turnout in the rural areas. So in theory, the Republicans could do something similar like that in Virginia, where they basically juice the turnout in rural areas, keep the margins relatively close in suburban areas, and then, you know, get a narrow victory like Governor Youngkin did in 2021.

11:43.57

Sam Shirazi

You know, the issue is 2021 was a very different environment. Obviously, we had a Democratic president. We had kind of COVID fatigue at that point. i think it's going to be hard to see the Republicans cutting the margins in the suburbs right now. It could happen, but it it just doesn't seem like the environment where that would happen.

12:02.20

Sam Shirazi

you know Obviously, if President Trump comes in and campaigns or Elon Musk comes in and spends a lot of money, it's possible the rural areas in Virginia will have strong turnout and the Republicans can count on that. But it's also possible those areas will not have a lot of turnout because it's an off-year election and Democrats will get an even bigger win because the turnout just isn't there for the Republicans. So a lot of unknowns. I wanted to just do this podcast to give you some of my thoughts after the Wisconsin elections. And and I think it's easy to overread one election results.

12:36.44

Sam Shirazi

But the reality is both parties were looking at Wisconsin because it was the first big statewide contest, a lot of voters showing up. And they gave a pretty clear answer in Wisconsin with the Democrats winning the state Supreme Court race.

12:52.52

Sam Shirazi

And so I'll be curious to see if there's any sort of recalibration on the part of the Virginia Republicans. I think obviously Virginia Democrats are going to be happy. They're going to just kind of chug along, do their plan of opposing the changes to the federal government, which they seem to think is going to work, obviously, given how much Virginia is dependent on the federal government.

13:14.56

Sam Shirazi

And I guess the last thing I should note, I didn't want to spend too much time on the Florida special election because... The Democrats didn't end up winning those. And, and you know, obviously Florida is is a different political environment than Virginia.

13:28.47

Sam Shirazi

But there were two separate elections, and one of them was more in the Daytona Beach area, and then one of them was more in the Pensacola area. And the Democrats did relatively well in the Pensacola area, which is obviously home to a large military installation.

13:46.100

Sam Shirazi

lot of federal workers, both civilian and military, who are dependent on the federal government for their jobs and, or even if they weren't laid off, would still be affected by some of the changes that are going on in DC.

13:59.97

Sam Shirazi

And so I thought it was interesting that Democrats did pretty well in Pensacola military area. And, you know, you have to think, is that also going to happen in Hampton Roads?

14:11.62

Sam Shirazi

I think the Virginia Republicans are often describing the federal workers as just being in Northern Virginia. You know, Republicans don't do well in Northern Virginia anyway, so the changes to the federal government aren't going to be a big deal because most of the people affected are in Northern Virginia and they're already going to vote for the Democrats.

14:28.40

Sam Shirazi

I think the danger in that thinking is that if military the military workers, either a civilian or uniform military, start getting nervous about maybe losing their jobs or maybe they're unhappy with some of the things that are happening and happening in D.C.,

14:45.04

Sam Shirazi

they may also turn to the Democrats. And typically, more military-aligned voters historically have been more Republican, but we have seen times when they've swung towards the Democrats. And Hampton Roads is known for being a real swing swing area where one election will vote for Democrats, the next election will vote for Republicans, and I'll just kind of keep going back and forth.

15:05.33

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, there are some competitive House of Delegates races in Hampton Roads. And so, you know, if if the issue with the federal workers reaches Hampton Roads, I think the Republicans are going to be in even more danger than just the issues they're already having in Northern Virginia. So anyways, lots of things going on with these special elections. I will probably still talk about it during the regular podcast, which will come out Saturday morning. But I did want to talk about it right now because obviously it's on people's minds. And then also on Thursday will be the filing deadline. So I think there's going to be a lot of

15:39.78

Sam Shirazi

things that we can talk about with the filing deadline and potential primaries. And I also wanted to talk about the Democratic primary some more, given the results in Wisconsin. So anyways, exciting times in Virginia elections.

15:53.24

Sam Shirazi

keep Keep paying attention. And I hope that you will listen to the podcast that will come out on Saturday morning. And thanks, everyone, for listening. And I will see you next time on Federal Fallout.

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

00:00.77

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode we will look at the most competitive races in the Virginia House of Delegates this year.

00:12.77

Sam Shirazi

The main focus will be a preview of the general election. I will do a separate episode about the primaries in the Virginia House of Delegates after the filing deadline passes. So, why should you care about the Virginia House of Delegates elections in Virginia?

00:27.52

Sam Shirazi

Well, here is a fun fact. If Democrats flip the governor's mansion this year in Virginia, it will be the first time an incoming Democratic governor will have a trifecta since 1989 when Doug Wilder won.

00:41.41

Sam Shirazi

So a trifecta means that the Democrats have the governor's mansion, they have the state Senate, and they have the House of Delegates. And so right off the bat, whoever is it is the governor, if they're a Democrat, most likely at this point, it looks like the nominee will be former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, if she gets elected, she will be able to pass bills very quickly because the Democrats have the State Senate, they have the House of Delegates.

01:04.89

Sam Shirazi

She can send her priorities over to the General Assembly and they can work on them. The only time the Democrats have had a trifecta since Doug Wilder was elected was a brief period between 2019 and 2021 when Northam had And when ralph northam had one and Just keep in mind, he didn't come in with a trifecta. That was after the Democrats won in 2019.

01:26.86

Sam Shirazi

So there was only a two-year period in the last 35-plus years where the Democrats have had a trifecta in Virginia. And one of the big problems Governor Youngkin faced while he was governor is that he never had a private trifecta.

01:40.09

Sam Shirazi

And so the Democrats were able to block his bills, and he wasn't able to pass much of his legislative agenda. So in addition, besides being able to pass bills, which is obviously very important, if Democrats win the House of Delegates this year in Virginia, they can place three constitutional amendments on the ballot next year for the voters to decide on amendments and changes to the Virginia Constitution. And the three amendments would be one on reproductive rights, one on marriage equality, and one on

02:11.86

Sam Shirazi

Restoring voting rights to people after they're released from prison serving a felony sentence. Currently, Virginia is one of the only states that bars a prisoner, if someone convicted of felony for the rest of their lives from voting. Unless the governor restores it, the amendment would automatically restore rights once someone is finished with their sentence. So there's a lot on the line, not just...

02:34.47

Sam Shirazi

for the next governor that's coming in, but really for the Virginia Constitution, if those ballots get on the, and if those amendments get on the ballot, I mean, that has long-term implications and it's very difficult to amend the Virginia Constitution. So I think the Virginia House Delegates doesn't get a lot of attention or you know there's some talk that Democrats might be able to pick up seats, but no one really talks about the stakes and why it's important.

02:58.79

Sam Shirazi

for the Virginia House Delegates elections to happen and and what they mean in the grand scheme of things. So I think it's important to not just focus on the horse race, even though most of this podcast is going to be looking at the horse race and who's up, who's down, which districts look competitive.

03:14.57

Sam Shirazi

I did want to mention that you know there are real things on the line and real policies that will be affected by who's elected in the Virginia House of Elections. Having said that, let's turn to the current lay of the land because I know people want to know what are the districts that are really going to be competitive this year.

03:30.30

Sam Shirazi

And so to keep in mind, all 100 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates are up for election. And currently Democrats have a 51-49 majority. But only a handful of those seats will be competitive.

03:44.02

Sam Shirazi

And there are currently eight seats that but former Vice President Harris won in 2024 that Republicans currently hold. And obviously, Democrats are going to be on the offense trying to potentially flip those eight seats.

03:57.20

Sam Shirazi

I think realistically, at this point, there are a few Democratic seats that might be competitive, and I'll talk about them. But I think given the environment, where the party out of the White House typically does well in Virginia elections and some of the issues we've talked about with the firing of federal workers, I think there's a sense that Democrats start off with an advantage in the House of Delegates elections and that if anything, they have the opportunity to flip some seats and we'll we'll talk about which seats might be in play.

04:24.35

Sam Shirazi

Having said that, it's not a given that Democrats will win all the Harris seats that former Vice President Harris won in 2024, or even that they'll flip the majority of them. I think there's a lot of factors you have to look at.

04:36.94

Sam Shirazi

You have to look at the fact that Virginia is more Democratic-leaning in federal elections than state elections. So I think people are more likely to vote for Republicans for state elections in Virginia as as compared to federal elections.

04:49.75

Sam Shirazi

Most of the seats that are competitive have incumbent Republicans who've won before. So that's always more difficult to defeat an incumbent. And there's always the possibility of ticket splitting. So there's something called you know ancestral Republican areas, typically in the suburbs where people used to vote for Republicans.

05:05.76

Sam Shirazi

Maybe they didn't love that Donald Trump was a Republican nominee. They might might not have voted for Donald Trump for president in 2024, but for local offices or for state offices, they would be willing to vote for a Republican.

05:19.55

Sam Shirazi

So all that is to say, like when you see the Harris number, I wouldn't kind of fixate on it. The fact that Harris won a district doesn't automatically mean that the Democrats are going win it this year.

05:30.20

Sam Shirazi

And we saw that in twenty twenty three where there were a lot of districts that former President Biden won in 2020 that the Democrats weren't able to win. So just wanted to keep that in mind as we go through these districts.

05:43.64

Sam Shirazi

So let's do a deep dive into the most competitive districts. And I'll kind of go in the order of what I think is more competitive to least competitive. Although, you know, honestly, it's hard to tell right now in some of these districts, we don't necessarily know who the Democratic nominee is going to be yet.

06:01.04

Sam Shirazi

So I will start off and and I'm starting off with the seats currently held by Republicans. I will kind of briefly talk about a few Democratic held seats at the end, but I really do think most of the competitive seats are going to be on the Republican side and they're going to have a lot of defense to do, even though they're already in the minority.

06:20.01

Sam Shirazi

So let's begin with what I think is probably the most likely seat to flip in 2025. And that is House District 57 in Western Henrico and Eastern Goochland.

06:34.35

Sam Shirazi

And so the current incumbent is Republican David Owen. He won that seat in 2023 by about two points. And the thing that I think most people think, the reason why most people think that this is gonna be a pretty competitive seat is the fact that former Vice President Harris won the district by almost nine points.

06:59.14

Sam Shirazi

And so we're talking about Richmond suburbs, very quickly moving towards the Democrats. This was a district that used to be much more friendly to the Republicans, but every cycle is becoming more and more friendly to the Democrats to the point that the Democrats, you know, generally 2024 was not a great year, but in this district, Vice President Harris actually did better than President Biden in 2020. So she improved on President Biden's performance, even though she did four points worse in Virginia overall. So it just gives you a sense of how much more democratic the seat has become

07:32.63

Sam Shirazi

And a couple things to keep in mind. I just wanted to mention that in 2023, this district was the one where Susanna Gibson ran. And obviously there was a story that came out about her doing some online videos that were consensual with her husband that were meant to be private, but eventually...

07:51.67

Sam Shirazi

The recordings were made of them and they were released. And so obviously that was a big story. I think a lot of people kind of fixate on that story. And, you know, that's the reason the Democrats lost the seat.

08:02.43

Sam Shirazi

I think it's very hard to know. It ended up being a pretty close election. And, you know, you never know when something like that comes out, like, it could have been that the seat was going to be close regardless and and she may have lost some voters here but she gained other voters who were sympathetic to she was what she was going through. So long story short, I think there were a lot of structural issues with the district.

08:26.16

Sam Shirazi

The fact that part of the district is in eastern Goochland, which is a very republican area, it kind of outweighed the fact that most of the district in Henrico County was more democratic. So I think it was a it was going to be a tough seat for the Democrats to win in 2023. Now, having said that, I think the district has come, even in these two years, a long way particularly eastern Goochland. So Goochland County is like a really red county.

08:52.67

Sam Shirazi

in the Richmond suburbs, but every cycle it's becoming a little less Republican. And I think it's just gotten to the point where this cycle, if it's a good year for Democrats statewide, I mean, it's gonna be hard for the Republicans to hold this seat, particularly because if former Congresswoman Spanberger is the Democratic nominee. She comes from this area in Western Henrico, so you think she's going to be doing pretty well at the top of the ticket.

09:16.73

Sam Shirazi

And it's you know if if she carries the district by, let's say, five points, which is being you know pretty cautious, she's likely going to carry the district by more than five points. But even five points, it's hard to see ticket splitting to the extent that David Owen is going to be able to win the seat. So Anyways, long story short, I think that this district, House District of East 57, is the one that's most likely to flip.

09:41.46

Sam Shirazi

There are two Democrats currently running. We'll see who ends up winning the primary. I'll talk about that in a different episode. But I just wanted to know that there could be a Democratic primary in this district.

09:52.78

Sam Shirazi

so let's move on to the next district, which is also in the Richmond suburbs in Chesterfield and Hopewell, House District 75. The incumbent is Republican Carrie Conyer. And I think the Republicans feel that she's a pretty strong incumbent and has a good brand in the area. So they're hoping that she might be able to...

10:10.81

Sam Shirazi

Hold on to the seat, even though Vice President Harris won this seat by about six points in 2024. Conyer carried the district by six points when she ran in 2023. So you see how there was a lot of ticket splitting, probably a lot of decent amount of folks who came out and voted for Carrie Conyer in 2023.

10:30.24

Sam Shirazi

Some of them ended up voting for Vice President Harris. Obviously, Democrats strategy is to just get those people to become straight ticket Democratic voters. Carrie Conyers is going to hope that she can win some of those people back, even if they voted for Vice President Harris.

10:44.34

Sam Shirazi

The district's interesting. So it has a pretty sizable African-American population. It's about one third African-American. Obviously, Democrats need to get out those voters. That's the bulk of the Democratic base.

10:55.56

Sam Shirazi

I think the thing that that is interesting is there is also a pretty hefty suburban portion of the district. And those voters are really moving away from the Republicans and towards the Democrats, similar to House District 57.

11:10.30

Sam Shirazi

Another House District 75 is in the Richmond suburbs. And the question becomes, you know, are those voters just abandoning the Republicans in the state elections because they're frustrated by what's going on in D.C.? Or do they kind of make a difference and say, well, we may not like what President Trump's doing, but we like our local delegate.

11:30.01

Sam Shirazi

I mean, obviously the Republicans are hoping there'll be some ticket splitting and and people will who voted for Carrie Conyer in the past will vote for her again. Democrats are hoping people will just vote straight ticket.

11:40.79

Sam Shirazi

We'll see. We'll see what ends up happening. I did want to note there's also likely going to be a Democratic primary in this district, so we'll talk it about it at another podcast when I'm going over the House of Delegates primaries.

11:53.64

Sam Shirazi

Okay. Let's move on to a district that is in primarily Williamsburg area. So this is House District 71. seventy one So it's basically Williamsburg and some of the suburbs of Williamsburg.

12:08.87

Sam Shirazi

And in 2024, former Vice President Harris carried the district by about four and a half points. In 2023, the current incumbent Republican, Amanda Batten, won the district by about two points. And I think in 2023, that was a lot closer than people had expected.

12:27.78

Sam Shirazi

So Amanda Batten is another incumbent where the Republicans think that she has a good local brand and she's able to win some voters who might vote Democratic for president. She might be able to convince them to vote for her.

12:38.85

Sam Shirazi

But I think the fact that she only won by 2% 2020,

12:42.82

Sam Shirazi

2023 was interesting because that wasn't necessarily considered a top tier battleground in 2023. But obviously this year with the presidential number and also the 2023 number, House District 71 will be a top tier battleground.

12:56.29

Sam Shirazi

And the Democrat that lost in 2023, her name's Jessica Anderson. She's running again in 2025. twenty twenty five So, you know, Democrats, a lot of their base will be college students and other people in Williamsburg, who are kind of more of a college town type vibe area, that's who they need to get out.

13:17.14

Sam Shirazi

Amanda Batten, she's going to focus on the rural parts of the district, which are pretty red, and then she'll have to win over some of the suburban voters who may have voted for Vice President Harris, but she's going to hope that they're going to, even if they vote for former Congressman Spanberger, they might split their ticket. So again, a district where she's hoping there might be some ticket splitting and the Republicans are hoping that their incumbent, Amanda Batten, would it be able to win in this district.

13:43.19

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so we will move on to another district with an incumbent Republican. This is House District 82. So this is primarily based in Petersburg and some of the rural areas surrounding Petersburg.

13:56.09

Sam Shirazi

The incumbent is Kim Taylor. in 2021 then she was reelected in twenty twenty one and then she was reelected in 2023, in a very close election, she won by just 78 votes after a recount.

14:12.06

Sam Shirazi

And the Democrat who ran against her in 2023, Kimberly Pope Adams, is running again in 2025. twenty twenty five So another race where we're seeing a rematch.

14:23.70

Sam Shirazi

You'll notice that a few of these races, there's rematches from 2025, and there's not going to be a primary in either this district or the 71st district. So House District 82, Vice President Harris won it by about 4%.

14:39.47

Sam Shirazi

And the dynamics of this district are interesting. So you have Petersburg, which is known to be a a area with more African American voters. So that's the base of the Democratic Party in this district.

14:51.92

Sam Shirazi

And then the rural areas surrounding Petersburg, are much more working class white voters, which is more of the base of the Republican Party. So you you really kind of see this dynamic where it's it depends on which party is able to turn out their voters.

15:03.83

Sam Shirazi

I think the Republicans are feeling okay about this district because one, they think Kim Taylor is a pretty strong incumbent. And then two, this district, unlike some of most of the other districts we're going to be talking about, has been moving towards the Republicans. So that Republicans are gaining with white working class voters and they're making you know marginal gains, I would say with African American voters. So they, and this is a more working class district. So I think the Republicans feel this is the type of district we can win in the Trump era. It's not some of these,

15:31.72

Sam Shirazi

suburban districts that are really more well off that the Democrats are doing well in. This is more of a traditional working class district. I think we'll just have to see which party is able to turn out their voters.

15:45.89

Sam Shirazi

I guess the one thing I should note about this district is that there are a decent amount of military installations in and around the district. So I think The fact that some of the workers might be in the district might be affected.

15:59.76

Sam Shirazi

That's something that the Democrats would be able to use. And we'll see if Kimberly Pope Adams is able to win this time in this district with a rematch against Kim Taylor. Okay, let's move on to House District 89. This is in Hampton Roads based in Suffolk and Chesapeake.

16:17.99

Sam Shirazi

This is one of the few districts where a Republican is retiring. So incumbent Republican delegate Baxter Ennis is retiring. He won by 2% in 2023, but the Vice President Harris, former Vice President Harris, was able to win the district in 2024 by about three points.

16:35.65

Sam Shirazi

So again, type of district that's a little bit more working class, has a decent African-American population. There are a few Democrats running, so we'll see if there's a primary and who might win the primary.

16:46.58

Sam Shirazi

And there's also likely going to be a primary on the Republican side, so we can talk about those dynamics in another episode. but Again, it just depends how much of a swing there is against the Republicans based on some of the changes to the federal government and Hampton Roads area, military, they're going to be affected by some of the changes that are going on in D.C. So another district that I think is going to be interesting to watch how things shake out there.

17:14.61

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so all the districts I've talked about so far, I would say those are probably the top, top tier battlegrounds. Not to say that there aren't other districts that are going to be competitive and are going to be battlegrounds and and that could flip, but those are the real top ones.

17:29.48

Sam Shirazi

The next districts I'm going to talk about are more reach districts. And it a lot depends on who the candidates are and how much the parties end up investing in these races. So I will start with House District 86.

17:44.83

Sam Shirazi

So this is in Hampton and Pocosin in Hampton Roads. The current delegate is Republican A.C. Cardoza, and he won by a lot in 2023. He won by almost 13%, but there was a big swing in 2024. Democrats carried this district by about one point, or former Vice President Harris carried the district by about one point.

18:06.90

Sam Shirazi

And part of the difference in those numbers is because the district has a decent African-American population, I think, There was more turnout in a presidential year, and that helped the Democrats in this district in 2024. AC Cardozo also benefited in 2023 by the fact there was a really competitive state Senate seat in part of the district. And so that turn that led to a lot of Republican turnout.

18:30.33

Sam Shirazi

So just keep that in mind. I don't know how competitive this will be. It really just depends on... One, can Democrats turn out African-American voters in this district? And two, is there any sort of backlash to some of the changes to the federal government? And do we see that in Hampton Roads? So we'll see how competitive this race is.

18:50.20

Sam Shirazi

i did want to talk about another district in the Richmond suburbs. So this is House District 73. This is in Chesterfield. And I think a lot of people were surprised by this district specifically because it really...

19:05.49

Sam Shirazi

Most people did not expect the Democrats to carry this district in 2024. So former Vice President Harris won this district by one point. And that was after in 2023, the current incumbent Republican, Mark Early, won the district by 9% in 2023. So again, we're seeing we're seeing a big swing.

19:23.25

Sam Shirazi

Why? Because Chesterfield is a suburban district and it's just moving towards the Democrats.

19:29.65

Sam Shirazi

It used to be known as known as one of the most Republican counties in Virginia, But in the Trump era has become more democratic.

19:37.36

Sam Shirazi

And this part of Chesterfield, you have more upper income people, college educated voters, they're really swinging towards the Democrats.

19:50.28

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so speaking of suburban districts that have traditionally been Republican, I wanted to talk about House District 64. That is in Middle Stafford County, and this is the first Northern Virginia seat that we're going to be talking about.

20:03.95

Sam Shirazi

The current Republican delegate is Paul Milde, and he won in 2023 by 9%.

20:10.56

Sam Shirazi

In 2024, it was much closer and President Trump won the district by around 2%.

20:15.60

Sam Shirazi

So the reason i I want to talk about this district is Northern Virginia. So if you think about Northern Virginia, that is kind of the epicenter of where a lot of the federal fallout is happening and a lot of federal workers are are affected. And this district in Middle Stafford likely, and don't know the exact numbers, but imagine has a decent amount of federal workers.

20:34.65

Sam Shirazi

So this is a type of district that if we're seeing a big backlash to what's going on in D.C., Even though it's traditionally a Republican district, I think could be in play. And it's really one of those districts to keep an eye on if there's going to be a backlash to what the Republicans are doing in D.C.

20:53.58

Sam Shirazi

All right. I know I'm going through a lot of districts. I will go through the last ones a little bit more quickly just because I think it's not as clear how competitive these are going to be. I think a lot really just depends how big of a backlash there'll be to what's going on in D.C. So I'll talk about a couple Northern Virginia seats.

21:11.68

Sam Shirazi

So there's House District 30. This is in Western Loudoun and Western Falk here. The incumbent Republican delegate is Gary Higgins. He was elected in 2023. The 2024 margin was about Trump plus one.

21:27.99

Sam Shirazi

And this is more of a traditionally Republican part of Loudoun County. But again, Loudoun, Northern Virginia, lot of federal workers. If you're seeing a backlash, this is the type of place where there could be a backlash.

21:40.18

Sam Shirazi

And so we'll just have to wait and see how big of an of a backlash is there to what's going on in D.C. And, you know, as I mentioned, that the title of this podcast is Federal Fallout.

21:50.68

Sam Shirazi

And I think a lot of these districts will will have to see basically how big the federal fallout is to what's going on in D.C.

21:59.76

Sam Shirazi

The last thing I should mention about this district is the Democrat running. His name's John McAuliffe. I don't think he's going to face a primary. He's raised a decent amount of money. And I think if he's able to kind of mobilize voters in Western Loudoun who are maybe affected by what's going on in D.C., he'll have a decent shot in this district, even though it's traditionally been more of a Republican district.

22:22.73

Sam Shirazi

All right. So stick with me. We got another Northern Virginia seat. This is House District 22. And this is in middle Prince William County, which is one of the few remaining, and I would say, traditionally Republican areas of Northern Virginia.

22:37.63

Sam Shirazi

The current delegate is Ian Lovejoy. He won in 2023 by about five and a half points. But the 2024 margin roughly... was roughly Harris plus one.

22:50.38

Sam Shirazi

And so I think this is a type of district that on a kind of good night, again, Democrats would be able to flip. Really depends on are the Republicans having a tough night with what's going on in D.C.? Are federal workers fed up? Are they coming out?

23:07.14

Sam Shirazi

And the one thing to keep in mind with this district is you have former delegate Elizabeth Guzman. She ran for state Senate. And then last year she ran for Congress and she came up short in both those efforts at the primary.

23:22.09

Sam Shirazi

But she's trying to make a comeback and try to win this district that is fairly diverse and has a decent Hispanic population. So we'll see how that goes. Having said that, again, it is a more traditional Republican district.

23:33.66

Sam Shirazi

So I wouldn't assume it's necessarily going to flip, but I do think type of district, if there's a blue wave, could flip in November. Okay, two more Republican districts, then we'll talk about a few Democratic districts.

23:48.34

Sam Shirazi

I wanted to talk about House District 66. This is in Spotsylvania, just south of Fredericksburg. You have Republican Delegate Bobby Oroch. He was elected in 2023 with 11 half However,

24:05.75

Sam Shirazi

however President Trump only won the district by about 2% in 2024. twenty twenty four So you're seeing that this is a district that is traditionally Republican, maybe on for the state elections voted Republican, but for whatever reason, the federal elections is more Democratic and President Trump isn't as popular in this type of district, particularly because there probably are so some federal workers here that are also affected by what's going on. And the Democrats have Nicole Cole, who is a on the Spotsylvania school board. So I think she's an elected official and and would bring her previous experience to the to the campaign trail. So think it could be competitive.

24:48.04

Sam Shirazi

A lot of these districts, it's really hard right now to know because we don't quite have all the information about where the parties are spending their money. I think that's one thing to look at is our party spending here.

25:00.60

Sam Shirazi

and are they allocating their resources to this district versus the other district? you know I know I've talked to about a lot of these districts. A lot also depends on how much of a backlash there is to what's going on in DC. you'll You'll hear me saying it as kind of a broken record, but it really is true because so many of these districts are dependent on federal government for jobs and spending.

25:22.72

Sam Shirazi

Okay, last district that's a Republican held one and is a different district, different part of Virginia. It is House District 41 that's based in Blacksburg and some rural parts of Southwest Virginia. It's really the only competitive seat in Southwest Virginia.

25:39.10

Sam Shirazi

The current delegate is Chris Obenshain. He was elected in 2023 by about one point, a very close race where he defeated Democrat Lily Franklin by 183 votes.

25:53.58

Sam Shirazi

But Lily Franklin is back this time and she is seeking a rematch. The district is about it's kind of this strange district because you have the college town of Blacksburg, which is pretty Democratic, and then you have these rural red areas.

26:06.80

Sam Shirazi

And so President Trump actually carried the district in 2024. But I would caution a little bit. 2024 was a little bit weird in that Republicans did better than expected with young people. And it's unclear if they're going to be able to keep doing that.

26:20.82

Sam Shirazi

So I think if there's a backlash among young voters, this is the type of district that's going to be put into play. And then the other thing I should mention, both with this district and the Williamsburg district, is that there are lot of college students in these districts. And oftentimes they're not super engaged in politics. They may be aware there's a governor's race.

26:40.17

Sam Shirazi

And the thing with Virginia is it has same-day voter registration. So even if a voter doesn't meet the voter registration deadline, they can go down to their local precinct.

26:50.50

Sam Shirazi

They can fill out a voter registration form. It will be a provisional ballot, so it doesn't automatically get counted. the registrar would review the voter registration. If the person is eligible to be a voter,

27:05.99

Sam Shirazi

Then the voter's ballot will be counted. And we saw that in 2023 where Lily Franklin was able to turn out a lot of students. A lot of them use same day registration. It wasn't quite enough for her to win in 2023, but it was a very close race. And I think a lot of people were surprised by the margin.

27:23.50

Sam Shirazi

And Lily Franklin did better in 2023 than most people expected. And I think that's why in 2025, even though this is a Trump district, it's going to get a lot of attention because if she's able to get, if Lily Franklin is able to get students to come out and vote, this is the type of district that could flip. So As you can see, we've talked a lot about Republican districts. I think realistically, those are go the seats that are going to be most in play this year. And the Republicans are in a tough spot because they have a lot of incumbents. They have a lot of incumbents they have to defend.

27:54.20

Sam Shirazi

They have a lot of Republicans in areas where there are a lot of federal jobs and are dependent on federal spending. And so if there's a backlash, like those those Republicans may be feeling the heat in November.

28:04.37

Sam Shirazi

Having said all that, I don't think it's necessarily impossible for... the Republicans to win a majority. I think it's going to be difficult, but I don't think it's impossible. There are a few seats in play if the Republicans have a good night, where if they have if they're able to flip two seats, they'll be able to get a majority.

28:23.94

Sam Shirazi

So I'll talk first about House District 21. This is in Western Prince William County. The incumbent is Josh Thomas. And I think This is the seat that probably the Republicans have the best shot at flipping.

28:39.02

Sam Shirazi

And Josh Thomas in 2023, he was able to win in the closest race by a Democrat. He won by, but it was still a three and a half point win in 2023. And then former Vice President Harris won the district by about five and a half points.

28:53.59

Sam Shirazi

I think why the Republicans feel they might have a shot here is this is, it's a kind of a combination district where there's some suburban, more well-off voters, and then there's working class and also Hispanic areas. And I think the Republicans feel like they're doing better in the working class Hispanic areas.

29:08.92

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, in theory, they might be able to flip the seat. I think the issue for the Republicans is Josh Thomas is pretty strong incumbent. And then obviously, Western Prince William County in Northern Virginia. A lot of workers affected by what's going on in DC.

29:21.92

Sam Shirazi

So I don't know how much momentum the Republicans are going to have in a district like this to try to come in and flip it. Similar story with House District 65. This is in Fredericksburg.

29:32.82

Sam Shirazi

the Incumbent is Delegate Josh Cole. He won by 6% in 2023. Former Vice President Harris won the district by almost nine points 2024.

29:45.42

Sam Shirazi

Pretty tough numbers for the Republicans. Again, Northern Virginia, federal workers, and Fredericksburg is also a college town. So I think all those things make this a difficult seat for the Republicans to try to come in and flip.

29:56.32

Sam Shirazi

Last district I will talk about, thanks for everyone who's cook gone through all these districts with me, is House District 97. That is in Virginia Beach. The incumbent is democrat Democratic Delegate Michael Fegans. He won by about 5% in 2023.

30:13.04

Sam Shirazi

Former Vice President Harris won the district by about 8% in 2024. And if you think about it, Virginia Beach, sometimes the Republicans are able to win these difficult seats because turnout might not be there or because they're able to convince voters because Virginia Beach is more of an area that sees swings between elections. I think the problem, again, for the Republicans is that Virginia Beach, military-dependent district, federal A lot of federal employees, federal dollars in this district. So again, I just think where the Republicans have to win this year are tough districts where they're just impacted by what's going on with the federal government.

30:50.74

Sam Shirazi

So I don't want to say it's impossible for the Republicans to win a majority, but I do think right now it is a a pretty steep hill for them to climb. And as you as you saw, most of the districts I talked about have Republican incumbents.

31:05.19

Sam Shirazi

And realistically, you know one strategy Republicans could could say to themselves is, we have a lot of incumbents. The incumbents are going to expect to get support from the party. And we should just focus on protecting our incumbents and possibly minimizing our losses so that next election, we will have a chance to win back the House of Delegates. Because I mean, it's very early. It's hard to know what's going to happen. But I think one of the dangers for the Republicans is if there's a big wave, Democrats pick up a lot of seats.

31:36.06

Sam Shirazi

you know Once you get into a hole in the House of Delegates, it might be hard hard to dig out of that hole. It might take a few cycles. And I think Republicans don't want to be in that position where there they're in a pretty big hole in the House of Delegates.

31:48.65

Sam Shirazi

And the reason I'm sounding a little bit more optimistic for the Democrats is because on Tuesday of this week, there was a special election in Pennsylvania for a state Senate seat, and the Democrats were able to flip that seat. And that was a pretty Republican district.

32:08.22

Sam Shirazi

I think President Trump won the district by about 15 points in 2024. Now, special elections are always weird, but I mean, when you're seeing Democrats flip seats like that, I think that should give Republicans some warning signs.

32:21.96

Sam Shirazi

I think another warning sign for the Republicans was that the nomination of Elise Stefanik to be ambassador to UN was pulled. So Elise Stefanik, she's a house member from New York.

32:34.95

Sam Shirazi

She was nominated to be UN n ambassador, but the Republicans started getting a little nervous about the special election for her house seat in New York. So they pulled the nomination, which is pretty drastic thing to do. And they wouldn't have done it unless there was a reason to do it. And so I think,

32:52.25

Sam Shirazi

you know If national Republicans are looking at that environment and getting nervous, you know obviously Virginia Republicans shouldn't be super comfortable because Virginia is much more impacted by what's going on at the federal government.

33:03.83

Sam Shirazi

Having said all that, on the next podcast, I do want to talk about something that's going to important that's going to happen this upcoming Tuesday in Wisconsin. Wisconsin will have a Supreme Court race. And oftentimes these races become very polarized and the national parties come in.

33:18.72

Sam Shirazi

The Wisconsin race, Elon Musk is spending money through his PAC. So I think it's basically going to be a a little bit of an early preview of what might happen in Virginia later on this year.

33:31.09

Sam Shirazi

And I think both sides are really going to be looking at this Wisconsin Supreme Court race to see what the political temperature is right now. So there's a lot going on. I'm going to try to do my best to cover it.

33:42.03

Sam Shirazi

I think keep an eye out for Tuesday with the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Who knows if the Republicans do well? Maybe I'll have to revise some of my thoughts on the House of Delegates. But right now, I would say Democrats are looking pretty good to keep their majority and possibly gain some seats.

33:59.63

Sam Shirazi

Having said that, it's not impossible for the Republicans to get a majority, but I do think it's going to be a pretty uphill climb for them to do that this year. so That's the Virginia House of Delegates. I tried to do my best to quickly go over the races. I will do more podcasts on the primaries for the House of Delegates, and I'm sure we'll talk more about the Virginia House Delegates later this year.

34:18.96

Sam Shirazi

So for now, that's it for Federal Fallout. Thank you for listening, and I will 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

00:01.55

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia Elections. This is a bonus episode that we'll be looking at a new poll about Doge and also how Virginia politicians on both sides of the aisle are dealing with the issue right now.

00:20.47

Sam Shirazi

So, I should guess I should first start that sometimes I will do these bonus episodes if there's something that is interesting that's in the news, that's topical, might not require a full podcast, but I wanted to just give my thoughts on something that I saw and have a little bit of a shorter version of that. I will do a bonus episode.

00:40.07

Sam Shirazi

And so I noticed this Fox News poll that came out and it was a national poll about different things, including President Trump's approval, but it had some specific questions about Doge and the actions that it had been taking. And I thought it'd be interesting to try to extrapolate what it means for Virginia. So this is a national poll and former Vice President Harris won Virginia by six points. So you would think that Virginia generally is a little bit more

01:12.31

Sam Shirazi

Democratic leaning than the rest of the country. So that's one thing to keep in mind when you you see these numbers. And the other thing, I think sometimes Democrats are a little bit skeptical of Fox News polls, because obviously Fox News generally tends to lean towards the right.

01:27.68

Sam Shirazi

However, I find that their polls are often pretty accurate and generally they have a pretty good reputation in the polling industry. And I think in 2024 they were generally in the ballpark. So I tend to pay attention to Fox News polls and don't really worry about the fact that it comes from Fox News.

01:44.89

Sam Shirazi

So in terms of DOGE, this national poll that found that 51% opposed reducing the federal workforce, 65% are concerned not enough planning has gone into spending cuts,

01:59.89

Sam Shirazi

And Elon Musk's job performance at Doge is 40% approved, 58% disapproved. And again, these are national numbers. So that seems a little bit, if you extrapolate out to Virginia being a more democratic state, and also the fact that Virginia is being hit hard by some of the federal job cuts, you would think that those numbers are even more drastic in Virginia.

02:21.92

Sam Shirazi

And so I think the poll is interesting because it gives us a sense that the electorate while they generally want efficiencies in the government, I think there's also a sense that they want these efficiencies to be brought through an efficient process and not necessarily the sledgehammer or chainsaw approach that has been taken and more of a scalpel approach is probably what the electorate is looking for.

02:48.06

Sam Shirazi

And I would say generally job cuts and layoffs are not super popular with the broader electorate, particularly when There are other options that have worked in the past, such as hiring freezes where just natural attrition will lead to a lower federal workforce. I think the way the job cuts have gone about, sometimes they've been done on a mass scale and also sometimes there hasn't been a lot of warning given to the workers. And I think generally in the news, the reception has not been great to that in terms of different people when they they look look at the news.

03:26.40

Sam Shirazi

So what does this all this mean for Virginia? I think the Republicans are in a difficult position because if you think about it, President Trump's the leader of their party. He's pretty popular among the Republican base.

03:38.06

Sam Shirazi

They really can't distance themselves from President Trump in this area. And so they have to kind of walk this fine line of supporting President Trump.

03:49.39

Sam Shirazi

While at the same time, they probably most Republicans in Virginia understand that these are not super popular among the wider electorate and that Virginia is being a Democratic leaning state.

04:00.09

Sam Shirazi

They'll need to try to win over independent voters to win the election this year. And so they they have a very complicated task ahead of them trying to navigate this. And Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin put some statements out there this week about what's going on. And I'll just read to you what he said.

04:19.81

Sam Shirazi

He said, quote, striving to gain efficiencies and reduce costs in the federal government is at the heart of regaining our fiscal responsibility as a nation. And I recognize that what comes with this is dislocation.

04:34.48

Sam Shirazi

End quote. So, and I think, obviously, Glenn Youngkin comes from the corporate world. He used to be a CEO. And I think the term dislocation is interesting because that's basically corporate talk for layoffs, firings, unemployment.

04:48.96

Sam Shirazi

And so, obviously, he's trying to put a spin on it, saying that the dislocations, in his words, are required. I did find it interesting that when... Governor Yonkin made those statements. It was at a bill signing ceremony for a number of bills that were passed by the General Assembly.

05:05.57

Sam Shirazi

And Lieutenant Governor Winston Sears was there as well. And obviously, Lieutenant Governor Sears is running for governor. And so you see this kind of...

05:16.51

Sam Shirazi

statements that Governor Yunkin has to put out to try to walk that fine line of supporting the cuts that are being made to the federal government. At the same time, I think he's trying not to be overly harsh or or celebratory in the fact that people are getting fired, which sometimes you see maybe on more pro-Mega accounts that people are you know more gleeful that people that federal employees are getting fired. I think Governor Youngkin doesn't want to take that tone.

05:44.87

Sam Shirazi

He's viewing it more as kind of a cold business calculation. But I don't think that's a whole lot of comfort for Virginians who are losing their jobs or who are scared of about losing their jobs.

05:55.75

Sam Shirazi

And so i think the Republicans are in a difficult position this year in Virginia having to deal with this issue. On the flip side, obviously, the Democrats are going to exploit this issue as much as they can because it affects a lot of Virginians.

06:13.30

Sam Shirazi

And it's also something that is more of an economic issue that I think the Democrats feel that they can win back that issue. And if you think about 2024, obviously,

06:25.29

Sam Shirazi

economy was on top of mind for a lot of voters. And even though the federal government changes and the firing of certain federal workers in the grand scheme of things may not be affecting as many Virginians as other economic issues, I think the news is still out there. And so if you're not super political you're not super attuned to all this stuff you're still seeing news about layoffs and generally people don't want to see news about layoffs in the news and they might not know how widespread the layoffs are or if it's going to come to the private sector and so i think in that sense the democrats have an opportunity to really exploit this issue for lack of a better word and you saw that with likely democratic nominee

07:09.68

Sam Shirazi

former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, she said, Virginians deserve leaders who create, not attack jobs in the Commonwealth, and they deserve a governor who's willing to stand up to the president to protect Virginia's economy and the families that rely on these jobs. So,

07:27.76

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, she's taking a pretty clear message there where she is supporting pushing back on these job cuts, and it's not something that she would ever endorse.

07:39.15

Sam Shirazi

And I think that creates a real clear distinction between the parties. And I think the Republicans are going to have to figure out what their message is on this. And if if you look at what might be coming down the pipeline for the Republicans, so i I've said this before, we don't know if there's going to be a Republican primary for the governor's race. April 3rd is the filing deadline and two candidates, former Delegate Dave O'Rock,

08:05.18

Sam Shirazi

and former state senator Amanda Chase are attempting to get the 10,000 signatures required to get on the ballot. And obviously we'll see if they're able to get on the ballot. But if there is a primary, and that's gonna be driving Lieutenant Governor Sears more towards the camp of endorsing or at least not pushing back against these cots. And one of the candidates O' Former delegate Dave LaRock has come out full throat in support of what Doge is doing and he has gone a step further and pro proposed to the creation of a Virginia State, state equivalent David O' Doge. so

08:41.10

Sam Shirazi

presumably if he ends up being governor, he would create the Virginia Doge that would go in and look at ways David O' Doing similar things to the state government.

08:52.06

Sam Shirazi

that DOGE has been doing to the federal government. Now, obviously, that may have support among the base of the Republican Party. i think that will be a much harder sell to the electorate, generally, given there's already cuts at the federal level. i'm not sure there's a huge stomach for cuts at the state level.

09:10.34

Sam Shirazi

And so there's a lot going on with with these, I will say, here in Northern Virginia, so I live in Arlington, it is a big issue. There's a lot of people who are affected either directly or indirectly by it. and It's something you'll see on the local news, on the local social media.

09:26.38

Sam Shirazi

And it's hard to kind of get away from it if you're in Northern Virginia. And I suspect that's true in other parts of Virginia, maybe somewhere like Hampton Roads, where there's also a lot of federal jobs. and And Hampton Roads is more of a military area.

09:42.39

Sam Shirazi

But there have been reports that the Department of Defense will also be cutting its civilian employee staff. It's unclear if that's going to be through firings or maybe just attrition during a hiring freeze, but that will also impact Hampton Roads.

09:58.19

Sam Shirazi

It's possible parts of Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Southside Virginia may support or generally may be more supportive of these cuts, but One thing to keep in mind is federal employees are everywhere, so it's not just Northern Virginia. In some of these areas, the federal government might be a large employer, and so the cuts, even if they aren't huge in number in certain parts of Virginia,

10:23.04

Sam Shirazi

That could be actually a big deal if, for example, there's a VA facility that is seeing some cuts because it's a smaller community and it's a fair amount of jobs in that community. So I think the politics of this is earth are tricky for the Republicans because they have to do their rest and and stand behind President Trump.

10:42.04

Sam Shirazi

But they, at the same time, are facing a lot of negative headlines in the news about the the job cuts. And I think one thing that was interesting in the Fox news poll is president Trump's approval nationally. What's almost even, I think it was slightly something like 51 49 negative approval.

11:03.25

Sam Shirazi

But as I mentioned, the, Popularity of Elon Musk and his actions with Doge are less popular than President Trump. And so the Republicans are in this tough spot where they have to support President Trump because he's generally popular with the Republican Party.

11:18.27

Sam Shirazi

But then you have someone like Doge and Elon Musk who are less popular with the general population. And so they have to walk this line where they're supporting President Trump.

11:27.88

Sam Shirazi

And so this issue, obviously, this podcast is called Federal Fallout. I think most of the premise of the podcast has been that the job job cuts in Virginia are going to have a toll on the Republicans this year.

11:40.68

Sam Shirazi

could Could not happen, but I think most people are assuming The more this issue continues, the more it's in the news, the more job cuts there are the better it is going to be for the Democrats this year in Virginia.

11:52.49

Sam Shirazi

There is a possibility in theory that Who knows? Perhaps the whole project kind of loses steam. The job cuts aren't really there anymore.

12:03.01

Sam Shirazi

And it isn't as big of an issue come November as it is right now. That's a possibility. i think we'll just have to wait and see. But it seems like it's still going to be around.

12:15.39

Sam Shirazi

for the rest of the year. And I think we're just going to have to see how much of an impact ends up having on this year's Virginia elections. So I just wanted to give a quick rundown of that Fox News poll. I'm not going to try to obsess too much over polls. We'll probably get more Virginia polls. And if I see any interesting ones, I will talk about it on the podcast.

12:36.83

Sam Shirazi

I don't intend to always be doing podcast specifically about one poll. This one was more to just kind of touch base about where things are in terms of the popularity of Doge, and then also the impact it's having on the Virginia governor's election.

12:50.67

Sam Shirazi

And if there are other polls did i that come out that either talk about the Virginia election specifically or about some of these issues generally in terms of Doge, I will cover them.

13:01.76

Sam Shirazi

But for now, that is it for this bonus episode of Federal Fallout, and I hope you join us 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

Transcript

00:01.13

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode will focus on the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General races, both the primaries and the general election.

00:13.91

Sam Shirazi

Who's running and what the races could look like. First up, the Lieutenant Governor's race. Both parties will have primaries and we'll start off with the Democratic primary.

00:24.86

Sam Shirazi

But first, I wanted to give you you a brief overview of what the Lieutenant Governor does and why it's important.

00:32.21

Sam Shirazi

So the Lieutenant Governor, if something happens to the governor, will step in and act in that role. So obviously that's important. It's analogous to the vice president in the federal government.

00:45.95

Sam Shirazi

But there's another role for the Lieutenant Governor. The lieutenant governor is the presiding officer of the Virginia Senate. So just like the vice president provide presides over the U.S. Senate, the the lieutenant governor has that role in the Virginia Senate.

01:02.06

Sam Shirazi

And the lieutenant governor has the ability to break ties, just like the vice president has the ability to break ties in the Virginia Senate has 40 members. Currently, there's a 21-19 majority.

01:14.25

Sam Shirazi

And the Virginia State Senate is not up for election in 2025. It will be up for election in 2027. But I think it's important that the party that controls the tie-breaking vote, it obviously gives them a little bit of an advantage if there's ever a tie. And with majority,

01:34.22

Sam Shirazi

Democratic majority, there is the possibility that there could be ties. So I think Lieutenant Governor's race is important in that regard. And there are a lot of Democrats running on the Democratic side. So I will just first off go through each candidate and then we'll talk a little bit about the dynamics of the primary.

01:51.98

Sam Shirazi

So in alphabetical order, the people who are currently running, there is Alex Bastani, he is a lawyer and a former union official. There's Carl Eggleston, he is a businessman.

02:05.78

Sam Shirazi

There is State Senator Ghazala Hashmi.

02:09.62

Sam Shirazi

There is the Prince William County School Board Chair, Babur Lateef. There is state Senator Aaron Rouse. There is former DOJ attorney Victor Salgado.

02:22.15

Sam Shirazi

And finally, routing it out for the Democrats, there is former Richmond Mayor LeVar Stoney. So as you can see, there are a lot of people running. And I think it's hard for me to pick who would be a favorite at this point because of all the people running. And I don't think there's a clear front runner.

02:39.07

Sam Shirazi

And one thing to keep in mind when there are that many people running is Virginia doesn't have ranked choice voting or anything like that. So the person who gets the most votes will win, even if that means the winner only gets one third of the total votes.

02:52.49

Sam Shirazi

That person will end up winning because you don't need a majority and there's not not any sort of ranked choice voting or runoff or anything like that. And I think with all these people running, this is somewhat similar to the 2021 Democratic lieutenant governor primary.

03:07.68

Sam Shirazi

In that race, there were there were a number of Democrats running. At the end, it kind of became a two-way contest between Hala Ayala and Sam Rasoul, and Ayala was able to win with little over 37% of the vote. So I think we could see something similar this time where the winner gets less than 50% of the vote, and I think that's pretty likely given all the candidates.

03:29.63

Sam Shirazi

And you know I think they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I think they they all come from different communities within Virginia. And I think that's going to be a little bit of the dynamic in the race is which candidates can bring out their supporters, both geographically and from the communities they they come from. So for example, Aaron Rouse comes from Hampton Roads. He's the main candidate from Hampton Roads. I think he's going to have...

03:56.08

Sam Shirazi

an advantage there and that'll be an area where he can kind of run up the vote but that's not the entire primary that's one part of Virginia there's obviously other parts so I don't think he can just win off of Hampton Roads similarly LeVar Stoney was a former Richmond mayor So you would think he might have more support in the Richmond area.

04:15.46

Sam Shirazi

But then State Senator Ghazala Hashmi also comes from the Richmond area. She's in the Richmond suburb of Chesterfield. You have Barbara Lateef, who is from Northern Virginia, and Prince William County is the second biggest county in Virginia. So he obviously has a lot of people who have voted for him before there. And then you have maybe the other candidates like Alex Bistani might be trying to get support from the labor movement. You have Victor Salgado maybe trying to get support from the Hispanic community.

04:47.12

Sam Shirazi

And so, know, you have a lot of different parts of Virginia at play, lot of different candidates. Oftentimes, you last minute endorsements and or money can help sway things. So if any of these candidates gets a big endorsement at the last minute,

05:02.71

Sam Shirazi

for example, from a member of Congress or from a major organization gives them a lot of money so they'll start to run ads, I think that could make a difference. But right now, it's very hard for me to kind of pick who is going to win. And obviously, there's still a lot of time before, not a lot of time, but there's still a decent amount of time before the primary. And a lot of voters aren't going to be super tuned in right now to the lieutenant governor primary.

05:29.81

Sam Shirazi

But I do think people will start to get more engaged and we might have a little bit of better sense of who has more of an advantage on the Democratic side. Now, let's focus on the Republicans. So the Republicans will also have a primary for Lieutenant Governor.

05:48.17

Sam Shirazi

The field is a little bit smaller, so there aren't as many people running. There is businessman John Curran, Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Harrety,

06:02.48

Sam Shirazi

And then there is radio personality, John Reid. And so this has a little bit of a different dynamic where you can kind of see the lanes of each candidate. And I would say he's kind of more of a traditional Republican primary. So you have Pat Herity, who is the on the Fairfax County Board. He's one of the few Republican officials left in Northern Virginia. And I think that's one of the selling points is that he's been able to win tough elections in Northern Virginia.

06:26.22

Sam Shirazi

I would say he's probably a slight front runner at this point because he's he's more of the establishment favorite for lack of a better word, because I think he, that he has an image of being more electable and you have a familiar dynamic in the Republican primary where John Reid could try to come in as a little bit of a outsider trying to bring more of a, you know, non-politician type vibe with him. And that often works in Republican primaries. So he might be able to pull that off.

06:58.14

Sam Shirazi

And then you have John Curran who, has donated his campaign about a million dollars. So he has a fair amount of money to work with. And so we'll see where're how far that takes him. So it's going to be interesting. If I had to guess, I mean, I'm guessing Herity is going to do well in Fairfax County, which is obviously the largest county in Virginia. It's become more Democratic, so it's unclear how many Republicans are actually going to vote in.

07:22.84

Sam Shirazi

the Republican primary, but he will get a lot of support from Fairfax County. And the question mark becomes how much support does he get in the rest of Virginia?

07:35.18

Sam Shirazi

particularly more conservative parts of Virginia, like Southwest Virginia. and again, this race, it's a little bit depends on who gets endorsements. Does Governor Youngkin wade into this race? We'll see. it's It's a little bit hard to tell.

07:48.41

Sam Shirazi

And I guess one thing I should have mentioned earlier about these primaries is any voter in Virginia can pick which primary they want to vote for. So Virginia does not have party registration for voter registration. So Basically, anyone can pick up either ballot on primary day or during early voting. Obviously, you can only vote in one of the two primaries, but that'll be interesting to see. Usually, there isn't a lot of crossover options.

08:14.04

Sam Shirazi

Typically, Democrats vote in the Democratic primary, Republicans vote in the Republican primary, but it will be interesting to see how many independents end up voting in these primaries. And it's possible that independents, if it's going to be more of a Democratic leaning year, will decide to vote in the Democratic primary, either because they're leaning that way or they think that candidates on the Democratic side are more likely to win.

08:38.34

Sam Shirazi

It's probably hard to right now have an idea of who's the front runner on either side. I would say on the Republican side, probably Pat Haratey has a little bit of an edge, but definitely could see John Reid as well coming up and pulling an upset.

08:53.95

Sam Shirazi

as often happens with Republicans, with outsiders being able to come in. I do think the Democrats, it's a lot more wide open, and it's hard for me to really be able to pick who's ahead right now.

09:05.83

Sam Shirazi

I did want to just quickly pivot to the general election. Obviously, we don't know who candidates are on either side, but what a lieutenant governor's race will look like in the general election, I think it's going to be interesting because Typically, nowadays, people just vote straight ticket.

09:23.84

Sam Shirazi

And in the last four Virginia elections, the party that won the governor's race has also won the lieutenant governor's race and the attorney general's race. You have to go all the way back to 2005.

09:35.84

Sam Shirazi

Tim Kaine was elected governor, and then you had a Republican lieutenant governor who was elected. And back then, there was more ticket splitting. i think nowadays, it's very hard for people to really...

09:49.22

Sam Shirazi

split their ticket that much for whatever reason people are becoming more polarized they just vote for one party down the ticket and realistically I think whoever wins the governor's race.

09:59.89

Sam Shirazi

there's a good chance that that purse that party is going to win the lieutenant governor's race unless it's really close, but I think if it's you know.

10:13.96

Sam Shirazi

well also win for the same party that won the governor's race i will say i think republicans have a little bit of hope that if pat harty is the nominee he can run ahead of the top of the ticket, particularly in Fairfax County. So just to give you a little background, his dad was also on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

10:34.27

Sam Shirazi

he The Herity name is has a long history in Fairfax. So I think there's a sense that you know maybe that can win some crossover support from people who might vote for the Democrats at the top of the ticket and in Fairfax, but they might end up voting for Pat Herity for Lieutenant Governor.

10:51.83

Sam Shirazi

you know, realistically these days, you know, Fairfax is a big county and it's important that to have a candidate from Fairfax if if you're the Republicans.

11:02.14

Sam Shirazi

But at the same time, I mean, it's only one part of Virginia. And even if he does a little bit better in Fairfax County, it's unclear if that's actually going to make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things, unless it's a really close election.

11:15.22

Sam Shirazi

But, you know, Pat Harity has been able to win a tough district for a Republican, a district that's voted for Democrats. for other offices by fairly large margins. So he has shown that he has crossover appeal.

11:30.60

Sam Shirazi

Having said that, county supervisor is a very different role than lieutenant governor, and he's going to have to wade into some difficult issues such as abortion and other things that Republicans typically on the county board do not often have to talk a lot about. But obviously, if you're running for lieutenant governor, and you may have to break ties in the Virginia Senate, you're going to be asked about a lot of things from gun control to voting rights to all these things that he may not have had had to answer questions about previously. And obviously he has a primary, so he has to say things that will get him support in the Republican primary, which I'm sure the Democrats are going to use against him if he ends up being

12:11.16

Sam Shirazi

the Republican nominee. So long story short, if if the conventional wisdom, again, is that Democrats have a little bit of an advantage at the top of the ticket with the governor's race, then you would think they have a little bit of advantage in the Lieutenant Governor's race.

12:25.65

Sam Shirazi

And it's going to be interesting to see how the numbers shake out when all the votes are in during the primary. So that's the Lieutenant Governor's race. Let's move to the Attorney General's race. It's a little bit simpler in terms of the primary.

12:41.39

Sam Shirazi

So right off the bat, there's no Republican primary for Attorney General. The only Republican running is the incumbent, Jason Miyares, and obviously there is not going to be a primary against him.

12:54.36

Sam Shirazi

On the Democratic side, there are two candidates running. There's former delegate Jay Jones, and there's the Henrico Commonwealth's attorney, Shannon Taylor. And so we can talk a little bit about that race.

13:04.75

Sam Shirazi

The good thing about it is it's a one-on-one race, which is not as complicated as a lieutenant governor's race where you have all these Democrats running. But before I talk about the primary, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about what the attorney general does and why it's an important role.

13:18.78

Sam Shirazi

And I think, you know, I talked about this in the first episode, there's a lot of focus on the governor's race, particularly by national media. And in in most people, when they think of 2025, they think of the Virginia governor's race. And that makes sense.

13:34.36

Sam Shirazi

But I do think the attorney general's race should not be overlooked, particularly in this moment. So if you think about it The Democrats in Congress don't have a whole lot of power. we i did the episode on the shutdown fight and basically how the Democrats decided not to put up a big fight in the Senate over the budget and so or the continuing resolution to fund the government.

13:58.28

Sam Shirazi

And so that that didn't really end up going anywhere. And so we're seeing a lot of the pushback to the Trump administration by Democrats happening in the courts, both private organizations and state attorney generals filing lawsuits.

14:09.44

Sam Shirazi

And a lot of these lawsuits are are at least successful at the district court level. And we're seeing a lot of injunctions being granted. It's important to keep in mind, none of that is coming from Virginia.

14:20.23

Sam Shirazi

The Virginia Attorney General, Jason Miyares, is not joining any of those lawsuits. And so those are all coming from either private organizations or the Democratic Attorney General.

14:31.17

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, obviously, if the Democrats win the Attorney General's office, that's going to change and whoever becomes the Democratic Attorney General next year will file A lot of lawsuits, presumably, or they'll join a lot of lawsuits against the Trump administration.

14:46.36

Sam Shirazi

Whereas if Jason Miyares is reelected, he will continue to basically not go after the Trump administration because realistically, that's what happens. The Republican attorney generals at the state level don't go after a Republican president. And usually a Democratic attorney general at the state level doesn't go after a Democratic president. That's just the reality of how these offices work.

15:06.90

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, there are a lot of other attorney general offices that are going after the Trump administration, notably Maryland. Maryland has a Democratic attorney general who's been filing lawsuits against the Trump administration.

15:18.46

Sam Shirazi

But there may be Virginia specific issues that only the Virginia attorney general may be able to bring. There's also an issue called standing, which means does a party have the legal ability to bring a lawsuit? And sometimes if something is really directly directly affecting Virginia, perhaps only the attorney general in Virginia could bring the lawsuit.

15:37.45

Sam Shirazi

And generally, as I mentioned, there's a lot of litigation going on and there's you know there are a lot of lawyers, but there's not an infinite supply of lawyers. And to have another office of attorney general another attorney general office with a decent amount of lawyers who might be able to bring these lawsuits, I think is important at the federal level.

15:56.66

Sam Shirazi

And as I mentioned, this podcast is called Federal Fallout. I'm trying to kind of explore the intersection of what's going on in DC with the federal government and the Virginia state election. So I don't want to belabor the point, but as you can tell, i think there is a decent amount on the line for the attorney general's race in terms of what will happen next year.

16:15.37

Sam Shirazi

If there's a changeover in the attorney general's office, or if the incumbent Jason Miyares is able to get reelected. All right, with all that out of the way, let's talk about the two democratic candidates running for attorney general.

16:30.57

Sam Shirazi

And I think they each kind of come from a different geographic area and they bring a different dynamic to the race. So former delegate Jay Jones, he was a delegate representing Norfolk.

16:41.09

Sam Shirazi

He has a decent amount of name recognition because he ran for attorney general in 2021 against the incumbent Democrat Mark Herring. Jay Jones ended up losing that primary.

16:52.45

Sam Shirazi

Mark Herring went on to lose the general election in 2021 because it was a tough year for Democrats, but Jay Jones has run for attorney general before. So he has the name ID there and he has, you know, his base of support in the Hampton Roads area.

17:05.65

Sam Shirazi

He also comes from the African American community. And I think that also gives him a level of support. So when you add all that together, you know, I think there's an argument that he's slightly considered the front runner for the attorney general nomination on the Democratic side.

17:20.08

Sam Shirazi

However, I think his opponent, Henrico Commonwealth's attorney, Shannon Taylor. So she comes from Henrico County, which is in the Richmond suburbs. It's a big county.

17:31.08

Sam Shirazi

Commonwealth's attorney is just a fancy name for a prosecutor. So she's the top prosecutor in Henrico. So she obviously has that part of Virginia that might come out to support her. And, you know, realistically, sometimes these primaries come down to different communities. And I think The wild card here is going to be Northern Virginia and how that breaks. So if you think about Jay Jones might have more of the support in Hampton Roads, maybe Shannon Taylor has more support in the Richmond suburbs.

18:02.25

Sam Shirazi

What's gonna happen in Northern Virginia? Are they gonna split it? Is one candidate gonna do better than the other? And I think you know if Shannon Taylor is able to maybe mobilize women and she she gets more of that community to come out for her, that could be a pathway for her to win.

18:17.89

Sam Shirazi

But if instead, know, Northern Virginia split pretty evenly, that Jay Jones is able to consolidate Hampton Roads, and he's able to get more of the African American vote, then you can see him having more of a pathway to then win. So regardless, we'll find out one way or another, which candidate is going to win.

18:36.65

Sam Shirazi

I think that should be interesting. It's, it's as I mentioned, a one-on-one contest. Whoever gets to 50.1% is going to win. So it's going to be interesting to see which candidate will be able to pull it out.

18:51.64

Sam Shirazi

So that's both the LG and Attorney General's races. I did want to briefly talk about the general election for the Attorney General. So as I mentioned, Jason Miyares is the only incumbent statewide who's running for reelection.

19:07.44

Sam Shirazi

I think his strategy is going to be a typical, you know, tough on crime Republican campaign, basically running on that. And there's a possibility he may run a little bit ahead of the ticket just because he's an attorney general.

19:22.69

Sam Shirazi

However, as I mentioned, I think nowadays there's less ticket splitting. So I wouldn't necessarily count on that.

19:30.69

Sam Shirazi

I think the reality is if Democrats win by, let's say five points at least, then you know it's going to be difficult for any of the other Republicans down ticket to win.

19:40.85

Sam Shirazi

If we're talking about a one to three point win for the Democrats, that's in the range where maybe the Republicans may be able to hold the attorney general office. So I don't think it's a given that the Democrats are going to win the attorney general's office, particularly if it's closer than people anticipate.

19:59.00

Sam Shirazi

i did want to just briefly talk about the primary generally. So the primary will be on June 17th, but there is 45 days of early voting. So the early voting will start on May 2nd.

20:14.31

Sam Shirazi

So that's coming up. So that's not too far away in terms of the Virginia primary.

20:22.93

Sam Shirazi

So I think the big question is how much turnout there's going to be on each side. And it really comes down to on the Republican side, is there going to be a governor primary? If there's a primary on for governor, then obviously that's going to drive turnout.

20:36.21

Sam Shirazi

Most people are going to come out for the governor's race and then they'll probably end up voting for lieutenant governor. But if there's just a lieutenant governor's race on the Republican side, you know, it's hard to know how many people are actually going to come out for just the lieutenant governor's primary in Virginia.

20:51.44

Sam Shirazi

So we'll just have to wait and see. As I mentioned in previous episodes, there are two Republicans attempting to get 10,000 signatures to get on the Republican ballot for governor. We don't know right now if that's going to happen.

21:02.25

Sam Shirazi

They have until April 3rd to submit those signatures. So we'll just have to wait and see if there's a Republican primary at the top of the ticket. On the Democratic side, i think with each passing day, it's less and less likely that there is going to be a Democratic primary for governor.

21:18.46

Sam Shirazi

But we're fairly certain there's going to be one for lieutenant governor and attorney general. And I think the question comes down to who's going to turn out for those races. I think it will be, for the most part, pretty diehard Democrats.

21:30.92

Sam Shirazi

But I do think there's a possibility that there are going to be more people coming out this year just because more people are engaged in the Virginia elections.

21:41.86

Sam Shirazi

So if you look back to 2013, that was the last time there was just a lieutenant governor primary on the ballot without a governor's race on the ballot for the Democrats in a primary.

21:52.90

Sam Shirazi

And that time you had about 145,000 people turn out for that primary. I think almost certainly this time there's going to be more than that, partly because of population growth, partly because people are a lot more engaged than they were 2013.

22:07.07

Sam Shirazi

And I think one of the real wild cards in the primary, and I think this is something that like doesn't get a lot of attention in Virginia, and I might just do a whole podcast about it, but right now I'll just talk about it briefly, is the permanent absentee list.

22:21.39

Sam Shirazi

So the permanent absentee list is an optional list that anyone can sign up for where you sign up to get a ballot every single election without having to request it each time.

22:35.16

Sam Shirazi

And there's an option when you're filling out that form to request to either get ballots for the Republican primary or the Democratic primary or neither primary. And the reality is vast majority of people who sign up for the permanent absentee list typically are Democrats.

22:51.27

Sam Shirazi

And so there are a lot of Democrats on the permanent absentee list.

22:55.87

Sam Shirazi

And I went and looked at the 2024 Democratic primary for president in March 2024. And in that election, the record show there were two hundred over 217,000 Democrats on the permanent absentee list.

23:13.89

Sam Shirazi

And of those 217,000 Democrats, over 100,000 voted by mail. So you you had about a 50% return rate. and And I'm guessing for a primary, like for Lieutenant Governor, you're probably going to get another 50% return rate.

23:30.81

Sam Shirazi

but you know The permanent absentee list has probably only grown since then. So let's say there are 220,000 Democrats on the permanent absentee list, even if half those people return their ballots, that's 110,000 people just from the permanent absentee list that are voting by mail.

23:48.16

Sam Shirazi

And as I mentioned in 2013, the whole primary, there were only 145,000 people. And so this time, i think it's likely we're gonna get over 200,000 people voting in the Democratic primary,

24:01.08

Sam Shirazi

if not hit 250,000, just given the engagement and the permanent absentee list and the fact that it's easier to vote now in Virginia. So I think it's gonna be wild card to see who those people end up voting for, how do the campaigns reach them,

24:16.78

Sam Shirazi

Are they sending out mailers? I think those are all going to be really interesting questions because is the first big statewide primary since the permanent absentee list was rolled out. So the first year I think it was in use was 2022. There was no statewide in 2022.

24:31.75

Sam Shirazi

There was no statewide race in twenty twenty two there was a Presidential primary in 2024, so that was used for the first time, but realistically in 2024, the Democratic primary for president was not super competitive.

24:47.45

Sam Shirazi

So this is the first time we're gonna have a really competitive primary where there's gonna have this permanent absentee list being used. And so I just think it's an important little wrinkle as we see the results rolling in on primary night, that there's gonna be a fair amount of mail ballots coming in from this permanent absentee list.

25:05.75

Sam Shirazi

So that's a lot on the primaries. You know, it's only going to ramp up. Make sure you vote in the Democratic or Republican primary, whichever one you choose to vote in. Early voting will start on May 2nd, and then the primary is on June 17th.

25:22.39

Sam Shirazi

So I'm going to be covering it all. that's not even I haven't even gone to the House of Delegates. There's going to be a not a whole lot of primaries, but there will be some primaries in the House of Delegates. I will cover that. Obviously, there's a lot of developments every day outside of the primary, just on the regular campaign trail and in D.C.,

25:39.47

Sam Shirazi

a lot going on. I will try to do my best to cover everything. I wanted to use this podcast to talk about the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General primaries because those are very important and those are coming up.

25:50.62

Sam Shirazi

But I will follow up and do other podcasts on everything else that's going on. So thank you for listening and hope you will listen 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

Transcript

00:01.14

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This is a special Senate episode.

00:12.13

Sam Shirazi

Just like the Senate yesterday, the votes are there for cloture, so let us proceed. So it was a crazy week in the Senate, and I wanted to just quickly talk about what happened and then switch gears about how that what happened in the Senate might affect Virginia this year.

00:31.81

Sam Shirazi

And you might think, well, these are totally different things. But obviously, this podcast is called Federal Fallout because we're looking at how what's going on in D.C. and the federal government affects what's going on in Virginia this year with Virginia's state elections.

00:48.71

Sam Shirazi

So let's just set the scene. What happened?

00:53.52

Sam Shirazi

So, the funding for the federal government was going to end on Friday at midnight.

00:59.62

Sam Shirazi

And Republicans in the House had passed a bill and then they had left town because They wanted to punt the bill over to the Senate and they didn't want an opportunity to have to vote for a different bill.

01:11.55

Sam Shirazi

The Republicans obviously wanted their bill to get passed and it was sent to the Senate. And Republican senators had set up the vote for Friday because that obviously applies maximum pressure on the Democrats, because if the bill did not pass on Friday, then there would be a government shutdown.

01:31.56

Sam Shirazi

So that was kind of the the scene of what happened on Friday. Now, on Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer came out and said that he would support what's called cloture. He would vote for cloture to allow the bill to proceed, but he would not end up voting for the final bill. But essentially, if you vote for cloture, you're going to let the bill proceed and it was going to pass.

01:54.26

Sam Shirazi

Just to kind of explain some. Senate procedures, there is a 60 vote threshold to basically move a bill forward, most bills.

02:05.34

Sam Shirazi

And sometimes you'll hear people refer to it as Democrats could have filibustered the bill. Sometimes you hear it as the Republicans are trying to invoke cloture and proceed to voting on the bill.

02:18.33

Sam Shirazi

Long story short, in order to pass most bills in the Senate, you need 60 votes. Democrats have 47 seats in the Senate.

02:28.63

Sam Shirazi

And as a result, obviously Republicans need some Democratic votes to pass bills. And what happened was... There were some Democrats and frankly, most Democrats felt that the Democrats should use their votes to block this bill. Essentially filibuster the bill, don't allow the Republican plan to fund the government to move forward.

02:54.35

Sam Shirazi

Well, what would happen would be obviously there would be a government shutdown because the funding would expire. And the Democrats thinking was, well, most Democrats were thinking, well, all right, there's a shutdown, but Republicans could come back.

03:09.64

Sam Shirazi

They can negotiate with us. We can pass what's called a clean CR, which means it would just continue filling the federal government without some of the other things Republicans put into this bill. And so that was, I would say, what most Democrats ended up voting for. They voted to block the bill, but there weren't enough votes. So after Schumer came out and said that he would vote to advance the bill, there was a question mark. A lot of grassroots organizations started making calls, started really pushing back, saying, no, we can't push this bill forward.

03:41.59

Sam Shirazi

But eventually enough Democrats on Friday voted to advance the bill. It passed. So the bill was moved forward 62-38 and then it eventually passed with fewer Democrats supporting it at the final stage.

03:58.13

Sam Shirazi

But as I mentioned, really, the battle is about whether the bill could get 60 votes and it got 62 votes. And so there was a huge kind of upheaval within the Democratic Party because a lot of people felt that Democrats should have stood firm. They shouldn't have allowed this bill to move forward.

04:13.65

Sam Shirazi

There were a lot of different opinions on it. I think the the Democratic senators who voted to advance the bill, their thinking was, well, we're in a difficult position. if If there's a government shutdown, we might get a lot of the blame.

04:27.28

Sam Shirazi

Also, who knows? This won't be a normal government shutdown with Donald Trump and Elon Musk. We don't know what they're going to be doing. And so the safer option would be to just allow this bill to move forward. The government would be funded And we can kind of pick other battles to to stand up to the Trump administration.

04:46.29

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, a lot of Democrats felt that that doesn't make a whole lot of sense because there aren't a lot of opportunities to stand up. And this was really one opportunity where the Democrats had the ability to push back with the 60 vote threshold I should note that Virginia's two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both voted no on cloture. That means they voted no to advance the bill.

05:11.15

Sam Shirazi

But said Democratic senators from other states move voted to advance the bill. Enough of them, at least, that the bill was able to move forward. Now, again, this is a podcast about Virginia state elections. So why does this matter? Well, a couple reasons.

05:25.30

Sam Shirazi

First, This bill essentially funds the government through the end of September. And guess what happens at the end of September? That is the beginning of early voting in Virginia.

05:37.30

Sam Shirazi

So the government funding deadline will expire, I believe it's September 30th, which will be right when early voting is going on in Virginia. And obviously there's a high likelihood that there will be some sort of shutdown deadline looming.

05:54.20

Sam Shirazi

And part of the reason some Democrats said they had to be really strong and and take a hard line this time and not allow this bill to move forward is Republicans are just going to do the same thing next time, except next time they know that Democrats are going to blink and never allow a shutdown.

06:11.20

Sam Shirazi

So next time the Republicans are going to put even more things in the bill to essentially make it very difficult for Democrats to vote for it, but get what they want out of Democrats to be able to advance a bill.

06:24.61

Sam Shirazi

And so I will have to wait and see. Obviously, September 30th is a long way off. It's always possible there could be some compromise. They could pass a normal budget. But I think there is risk that there could be some sort of CR battle, and CR stands for continuing a resolution, where basically what happened on Friday will happen all over again at the end of September.

06:48.41

Sam Shirazi

I should note that the reason why this might actually matter in September is something like that very similar to this happened both in 2013 and in 2023. So in 2013, there was a government shutdown right at the end of the Virginia governor's campaign.

07:05.66

Sam Shirazi

And the conventional wisdom is that helped Democrats and Democrat Terry McAuliffe was able to win that election. And the thinking was that it was because there was a blowback to the Republicans at that time shutting down the government over Obamacare.

07:22.75

Sam Shirazi

And 2013 was the only time since 1977 when a Democrat was able to win the Virginia governor's election while there was a Democrat in the White House. And you could argue part of that was because of the shutdown.

07:37.75

Sam Shirazi

Now, in 2023, there were state elections. It wasn't a governor's election, but every seat in the Virginia House of Delegates and State Senate was up for election.

07:47.96

Sam Shirazi

There was a lot of pressure behind the scenes to avoid a shutdown because the Republicans were worried about how it would affect the Virginia elections. That time, the fight was over funding for Ukraine.

08:00.70

Sam Shirazi

There was a compromise at the end where the the government was funded without the Ukraine funding, and it didn't really affect the Virginia elections. But it just all goes to show you that these government funding fights do...

08:12.70

Sam Shirazi

sometimes potentially affect the Virginia elections because they are happening in odd years. Usually in election years, the parties don't have shutdown fights because they know it's going to be bad for politics and their election chances.

08:26.98

Sam Shirazi

But The members of Congress aren't up for election in odd years like they are in Virginia. So they're more likely to have a shutdown fight in these odd years. And that often creates issues in the Virginia elections.

08:40.23

Sam Shirazi

This time, the shutdown was avoided. We will see what happens the rest of the year and if there will be another shutdown fight in September right before that funding deadline.

08:54.27

Sam Shirazi

Now, the other thing I should mention... about the Virginia elections and what happened in the Senate is that we saw a huge backlash from the base of the Democratic Party.

09:07.37

Sam Shirazi

And I don't think it was just an ideological thing. So it wasn't just progressives that were upset by what happened. It was interesting to see that more moderate and establishment figures within the Democratic Party were not super happy with how some of the Democrats in the Senate voted, such as Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. And you saw someone, for example, like Senator Mark Warner, who's more in the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. He voted no on cloture.

09:35.89

Sam Shirazi

And it just shows you this isn't necessarily an ideological battle within the Democratic Party. I think it's more about tactics and when and how to stand up to the Trump administration for Democrats.

09:49.10

Sam Shirazi

And you know why does that matter in Virginia? I think there's a large amount of grassroots organizations that have started to come out as a result of what's going on in D.C. on the and the Democrats.

10:03.32

Sam Shirazi

The base of the party is frustrated with what's going on. They don't see a really coherent Democratic response in Washington. And some of these grassroots organizations are organizing separate from the Democratic Party to put pressure both on the Democratic Party and on the Trump administration to protest, to do things that are not necessarily always endorsed by the Democratic Party because they feel like there isn't enough going on in Congress to to push back on the Trump administration.

10:35.12

Sam Shirazi

And it might affect Virginia because those groups are going to get involved in the campaign. I think it injects a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of volunteers, a lot of potential donations for Democrats.

10:47.70

Sam Shirazi

At the same time, I think a lot of those people who are getting involved are going to expect the people running in Virginia this year to have a plan to stand up to the Trump administration. They aren't just expecting you know a normal campaign. I think they are they do want to hear more about how the state government, if Democrats get in are going to push back against the Trump administration. Obviously, the state government, there's limited things that they can do in Richmond.

11:13.79

Sam Shirazi

But I mentioned in the first podcast episode, the attorney general has the ability to sue the administration in power if they choose to. There could be a Democratic attorney general after this year's elections.

11:27.52

Sam Shirazi

The governor of Virginia often has a national profile to speak on some of these issues. We saw that with Governor Youngkin during the Biden administration. He would often wade into national politics.

11:39.01

Sam Shirazi

There's obviously other ways the state government can try to push back on the Trump administration. And I think some of these more grassroots democratic organizations are going to expect the politicians this year in Virginia to not just talk about hyper local state issues. I think there is a sense that they want more and want to hear more from politicians.

12:01.38

Sam Shirazi

all Democratic politicians, but obviously the ones who are on the ballot this year about how they can potentially stand up and do do more to to push back on the Trump administration. And I think, as I mentioned in previous episodes, the firing of federal workers is having a big impact on Virginia.

12:20.71

Sam Shirazi

And I think there's a lot the state government could do, both providing resources for those employees, but also trying to just push back on some of the things that Trump administration is doing.

12:32.15

Sam Shirazi

Now, the last thing I wanted to mention on this topic is the topic of primaries. So after what happened in the Senate, a lot of people talked about, well,

12:43.62

Sam Shirazi

It's time to change leadership and even more drastically maybe change the members of Congress through primaries. And you've heard the term thrown around like a progressive or democratic Tea Party. So the Tea Party movement started after Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and started pushing the Republican Party more to take right wing positions.

13:08.50

Sam Shirazi

And that included primary in some members of Congress who they perceived as not being sufficiently right wing. And I think There could be a similar movement, more so in the 2026 midterms for some of these members of Congress on the Democratic side who may not be doing enough in the minds of progressive activists to stand up to the Trump administration that they might face primaries.

13:33.51

Sam Shirazi

I think what's interesting this year in Virginia, relatively, there have not been a lot of primary challengers. in the House of Delegates. So the House of Delegates, all 100 seats are up for reelection.

13:45.10

Sam Shirazi

There are 51 Democratic delegates right now in Virginia. There has been a lot of enthusiasm. So there's been a lot of Democratic candidates filing. There's been a lot of Democratic candidates filing in Republican seats, even seats that are realistically probably not going to be winnable in November. But you see candidates out there who want to contest the seats and give voters an option.

14:10.01

Sam Shirazi

and that's not super surprising because that that basically happened in 2017, we saw a similar thing where Democrats were able to flip a lot of seats in the Virginia House of Delegates. So it's not surprising a lot of Democrats are running and they're running in Republican seats.

14:23.20

Sam Shirazi

I think the only thing that's a little bit surprising is there haven't been a lot of Democrats running in Democratic seats currently held by Democrats. And especially there haven't been a lot of primary challengers.

14:35.31

Sam Shirazi

Now, I will do an episode on primaries and in the House of Delegates, the filing deadlines, April 3rd. I'm just going to wait for that to pass. Realistically, most of the candidates have already filed, and I don't think there's going to be a lot more coming out of the woodwork because April 3rd is coming up.

14:53.85

Sam Shirazi

there'll probably be a few primary challengers to incumbent Democratic delegates. And again, I'll cover that in a future episode, but I thought that was a little bit surprising that we didn't see more of that this year in Virginia, particularly because in 2023, there were a lot of state senators, Democratic state senators who faced primaries and a number of them went down to defeat in the primary.

15:17.50

Sam Shirazi

And so there was a huge changeover in the Virginia Senate in 2023. In theory, there could have been something like that similar in 2025. in the Virginia House of Delegates. I don't necessarily think that's going to happen.

15:28.35

Sam Shirazi

And so anyways, we can talk more about the primary in a future episode. But I did want to just kind of give you this bonus Senate special election. It was a crazy week on Capitol Hill.

15:40.54

Sam Shirazi

I wanted to just kind of touch base on how that might have affected the Virginia elections. Anyways, there's a lot going on, lot of federal fallout from what's going on in D.C.

15:50.68

Sam Shirazi

on the Virginia state elections. I will do my best to cover it all. And thank you for listening. And I will join you next week for 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

Transcript

00:01.38

Sam Shirazi

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode, we will look at tariff troubles and how they might affect the 2025 Virginia Elections.

00:17.28

Sam Shirazi

Then we will switch gears and talk about how you can get get involved this year in Virginia. Now, to set things up, the name of this podcast is Federal Fallout. And its initial assumption was that the main fallout in Virginia from what's going on in Washington, D.C. would be based on the firing of federal workers and the impact of that to the Virginia economy.

00:40.15

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, that is a major issue here in Virginia. And that is something that will continue to be an issue all the way through the November election in all likelihood.

00:50.31

Sam Shirazi

But now we are seeing the effects of other federal changes, namely President Trump imposing tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China. And this has had a number of effects.

01:05.11

Sam Shirazi

Initially, there has been a lot of uncertainty in the economy about what might happen.

01:12.17

Sam Shirazi

So all of this has battered the stock market with the uncertainty. Stocks have had a rocky ride and have recently been going down. And I think part of that is due to the uncertainty when President Trump, sometimes he'll announce a tariff and then a little bit later he'll say something that seems to reverse the tariffs. The market's not exactly sure what's going on.

01:34.95

Sam Shirazi

Canada or Mexico or China will do retaliatory tariffs. And it's just kind of an endless cycle where we're not sure exactly what's going on with some of these tariff policies.

01:45.93

Sam Shirazi

So that's causing the markets to be a little bit in chaos right now. Then there's also the possibility that tariffs could raise prices. Obviously, in the last election, inflation was a big issue and Democrats were...

02:03.41

Sam Shirazi

largely blamed for the inflation and the cost of living issues that have happened in the past few years. And President Trump was able to win and take advantage of that. And one of the the things people expect is that he was going to, if not lower prices, at least keep prices where they are. But obviously, with these tariffs, there's a risk that prices can go up.

02:25.58

Sam Shirazi

And so all of this is creating an uncertain economic environment. Who knows what it's going to end up doing in the long run, but at least in the short term, there's definitely a lot of people of upheaval in the financial markets.

02:40.00

Sam Shirazi

And so I want to talk a little bit about how this is impacting the election now with the issue of tariffs, I think that is making its way onto the campaign trail.

02:50.03

Sam Shirazi

And we saw Virginia Democrats, including the likely Democratic nominee, former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, start talking about tariffs.

03:00.89

Sam Shirazi

She posted on social media, quote, Donald Trump's tariffs are a tax on Virginians. It's Virginia's families, small business owners and farmers who will feel the sting.

03:12.10

Sam Shirazi

So clearly trying to tie the tariff issue to Virginia and making it also tied to the cost of living issue in terms of costs going up for everyday Virginians.

03:26.80

Sam Shirazi

Now, Virginia Republicans have been more muted, I would say, on the tariff issue. They do comment on it from time to time, but it's definitely not the top issue that they want to be talking about.

03:36.67

Sam Shirazi

However, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin did go on in CNBC, and he was asked to talk about the tariffs, and he was generally supportive of what President Trump has been doing. And let's listen to an audio of that.

03:51.48

Sam Shirazi

And let me just start with tariffs. If anybody is surprised that President Trump has placed tariffs on countries like Mexico and and Canada and China, and by the way, the reciprocal tariffs that he has already pre-announced that will will be imposed in April, then they didn't listen to him during the campaign.

04:13.34

Sam Shirazi

So that was a little bit of audio of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. And i think it was a little bit surprising because Youngkin comes from the more pro-business wing of the Republican Party. He was known for being the CEO of Carlisle.

04:29.12

Sam Shirazi

And I think it was a little bit interesting to see him take definitely, I would call, a more populist tone when he was talking about these tariffs and and backing President Trump with the tariff issue.

04:41.71

Sam Shirazi

And I think that's just kind of the political reality that President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party and Republicans are going to be backing him, even if traditionally they might not have been big supporters of tariffs, they feel like they need to support the president.

04:55.26

Sam Shirazi

there are some parts of Virginia that might be receptive to the tariffs, more so in southwest Virginia and maybe southside Virginia, where they they have seen deindustrialization and the idea that the tariffs might be able to bring back manufacturing and jobs would be attractive in those types of places in Virginia. However, I would say that many other parts of Virginia, northern Virginia, Richmond area, Hampton Roads,

05:21.68

Sam Shirazi

They have benefited generally from greater free trade, greater availability of goods. You think of Hampton Roads, big port, big shipping, a lot of products from overseas coming in there.

05:34.78

Sam Shirazi

Tariffs may reduce the amount of foreign products that are coming in. And also American products that are going out if other countries are putting tariffs on the United States.

05:45.54

Sam Shirazi

So I think it's it's a bit of a risky proposition to be going in on the tariffs in Virginia because my guess would be that the majority of Virginians would not be supporting tariffs, at least on Canada and Mexico. I think the tariffs on China are more popular generally.

06:02.79

Sam Shirazi

But we've seen that the tariffs on Canada have largely been moving forward and there's been a lot of back and forth. And traditionally, Canada has been, if not the closest ally, one of the closest ally of the United States. So I'm not sure how that tariffs on Canada are going to be playing in a in Virginia during this election.

06:25.01

Sam Shirazi

So now let's talk about what might happen if the tariffs really start taking a toll on the economy. And we've already seen that they've had an impact on the stock market.

06:40.44

Sam Shirazi

And I think there is a risk based on what we've been seeing that there could be a larger economic downturn. I don't know if there's gonna be a recession. I think there's a lot of different factors that would lead to that, but certainly there is a risk that there could be an economic downturn.

06:55.38

Sam Shirazi

And I think there's a risk for Virginia Republicans and Republicans across the country that that could become really toxic because there were a lot of different things going on in 2024. You could talk about the immigration issue. You could talk about some of the wars that were going on in Ukraine and Gaza. Obviously, those things played a factor. But I think a lot of Americans, the economy was top of mind.

07:18.21

Sam Shirazi

2024.

07:20.94

Sam Shirazi

Democrats were blamed for the rise in prices that occurred in recent years, even though there were probably a lot of factors behind that. Ultimately, they were in the White House and and they bore a lot of that blame. And so President Trump was able to win because he talked about the economy. And I think there's a real risk for Republicans if the economy starts to go south.

07:41.43

Sam Shirazi

There isn't a whole lot else that is really holding things together for them at this point in terms of their coalition. something that all their voters support is is a strong economy. And so if you you see the economy falling apart, either because of tariffs or other issues, that's going to be a real danger zone for Republicans.

08:01.89

Sam Shirazi

And there is a similar situation that happened in Virginia in 2009. So if you think about what happened in Virginia in 2008, there was a financial crisis at the end of that campaign that really helped the Democrats and Barack Obama win a big victory in 2008, including Barack Obama winning Virginia, being the first Democrat to win in 44 years.

08:24.48

Sam Shirazi

And I think there was a sense of, well, maybe Virginia is going to become this blue state. And then the next year 2009, Governor Bob McDonnell was able to get a big victory. he won by 18% in a state that former President Obama was able to carry by almost five. So you saw a huge swing between 2008 and 2009. And that was largely driven by the economy, even though former President Obama was not in office when the Great Recession started.

08:53.06

Sam Shirazi

He took a lot of blame because people were still not going back to work and the economy was not great. And Bob McDonald ran a really smart campaign. He had a clever slogan, which was Bob for Jobs. And he talked about bringing more jobs back to Virginia. And that was a message that resonated in 2009.

09:11.44

Sam Shirazi

So Virginia Republicans got a really big win that year. i think realistically, given how much more polarization there is these days, I don't think it's possible for the Democrats to get a win that big.

09:21.74

Sam Shirazi

But I do think if things really start falling apart at the economic level, I do think there's a risk that... for Republicans that Democrats are going to have a bigger win that they did in 2017. So 2017 economy was pretty strong, but obviously that was the initial blowback and at first to the first Trump administration.

09:42.47

Sam Shirazi

And Democrats were able to win almost by nine points in the governor's race. And so I think it's not out of the question that Democrats hit perhaps a 10 point win this year in Virginia.

09:53.85

Sam Shirazi

If, and it's a big if, if the economy really goes south combined with the firing of federal workers, I think that's going to create this perfect storm where Democrats could have a really good night in November in Virginia if all those things happen. Now, I will say that I've made a lot of assumptions.

10:12.23

Sam Shirazi

based on some recent market turmoil. I do think there's a possibility that either President Trump pulls back from the tariffs or maybe the tariffs are just kind of built into the market. The market kind of stabilizes.

10:25.42

Sam Shirazi

They accept some of these tariffs. There's a little bit back and forth. They don't cause too much damage to the economy. And things just kind of chug along like normal. And maybe the economy by November is looking pretty good.

10:38.84

Sam Shirazi

If that's the case, I think the election could be a lot closer. Obviously, the firing of federal workers is still going to be an issue. But if you think about the firing of federal workers, no doubt in Virginia is a huge issue.

10:50.61

Sam Shirazi

And it affects hundreds of thousands of people. If you talk about people's kids and spouses and family members and friends, you know a lot of people are affected by what's going on.

11:01.32

Sam Shirazi

So I'm not trying to downplay that issue at all. But I do think the risk for the Republicans with the tariffs and with the overall economy going downhill is that basically affects everyone because...

11:13.26

Sam Shirazi

if costs go up, that affects everyone. If people are losing jobs in the private sector, that affects a lot of more people than just the federal government. And I think if you look back at 2024, part of the reason it was so difficult for Democrats is the inflation issue hit everyone. I mean, basically, didn't matter if you were working class, middle class.

11:33.08

Sam Shirazi

upper class, you still felt some of those price pressures no matter what when you went to the supermarket. And I think there's a risk for Republicans that if they don't fix that, because that's what a lot of people voted for President Trump to do, they wanted him him to fix the the economy and the price issues.

11:49.23

Sam Shirazi

If that doesn't get better, and in fact, if he gets that gets worse, there's a real risk that people will start abandoning the Republican Party and going back towards the Democrats.

12:00.34

Sam Shirazi

And I think Former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, if she ends up being the but for Democratic nominee, which seems fairly likely at this point, she can really start exploiting that issue, not just in terms of the federal workers, but talking more broadly about the economy.

12:15.03

Sam Shirazi

And that's going to be a message that resonates. And it's a little bit unclear. how the Republicans and if Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears is the nominee, how is she going to respond? What is her message going to be?

12:27.49

Sam Shirazi

Because if the economy is going south, there's not a real great message you can have. And we saw that in 2009 when Creigh Deeds was the Democratic nominee and he didn't have a lot to say in terms of the economy struggling other than trying to blame the previous Republican administration. And you you will probably see Republicans maybe trying to blame a lot of things on former President Biden. And I understand that from a political standpoint, but I do think the reality is a lot of voters...

12:59.60

Sam Shirazi

expect the party in power to take responsibility and try to fix things. And I think blaming a president that's no longer in power usually doesn't end up working. And so I think that's going to be a real challenge for Republicans this year if the economy starts to have issues.

13:16.22

Sam Shirazi

And again, I think that's a big assumption. I don't want to, you know, dwell on it too much because I i don't know what's going to happen and it's possible that the economy stabilizes. So I wanted to talk about it right now because I do think it's in the news a lot and we are seeing some issues in the stock market and there there are a lot of there's a lot of news about the tariffs. So people are seeing it in the news.

13:40.22

Sam Shirazi

and it's starting to make its way to the campaign. So I don't think we can kind of ignore it at this point. But I do think it's a little bit too early to make a final call and to see how big of an impact it's going to have on the Virginia elections.

13:53.81

Sam Shirazi

So that's a lot on tariffs and the economy. I did want to kind of switch gears to a totally different topic that I think a lot of people are interested in. I think one of the big questions that people like me who are political and interested in politics hear from people who are less political is how do I get involved? What do I do? What's going on?

14:17.20

Sam Shirazi

And there's a million ways to get involved. There's a million different things to do. I kind of wanted to walk people through what makes sense in terms of the Virginia elections this year and and the different ways you can get involved.

14:30.09

Sam Shirazi

There's a lot of different causes and campaigns. It's totally up to you what you want to do. My goal is to kind of give people a little bit of a starting point so no matter where they want to go, they can make the first step because often the first step is the hardest and it's hard to figure out where to go, who to talk to.

14:47.46

Sam Shirazi

And my goal is not to tell you who to vote for or necessarily which side you should go to, but more how you can get involved if you want to get involved. So in terms of how to get involved or what organizations to get involved in, I think it's important to keep in mind some of the local structures in any sort of community to try to get involved politically. So I often tell people who want to get involved in politics, one of the good places to start is your local political party. So in Virginia, typically, every city or county will have a local Democratic or Republican committee.

15:23.69

Sam Shirazi

Some areas will also have third parties. And these are kind of the local organization that's always around in the good times and the bad times. They have a certain structure. They have certain rules.

15:36.83

Sam Shirazi

There's people that typically have been involved in those organizations for years. They're usually open to new people. They want people to get involved. So I think that's a good starting place if you're interested in politics to to maybe go to some of those meetings or some of the events that those organizations are having.

15:53.58

Sam Shirazi

I will say, I think sometimes the disadvantage of those organizations, they have decent amount of resources and and organization, which is good. But it's also a little bit structured and they have to follow a certain hierarchy in the party and they have to take orders from people sometimes in the party structure.

16:13.14

Sam Shirazi

And I think sometimes people get a little bit disenchanted with that. Just something to keep in mind, if that's not exactly what you're looking for, I think at the local level, there are often good grassroots organizations, either on the left or right, liberal, conservative, who are not necessarily tied to the local Republican or Democratic parties.

16:35.44

Sam Shirazi

And these organizations often have more flexibility. They often are able to be a little bit more creative in some of the approaches that they take. Now, having said that, they often have less resources and are less structured, but they offer an alternative. And so, for example, there's been a lot of organization with indivisible groups. And they have been working with some of the protests that have been taking place in recent days, both in Virginia and Washington, D.C. So those are some of the groups if you wanted to get involved.

17:08.31

Sam Shirazi

Less in a formal party structure, but at a local level with some grassroots organizations. I think those are always interesting organizations to get involved with, either if you are more on the left or on the right.

17:21.93

Sam Shirazi

Now, The other thing I should add is those organizations are typically around long term. And then there are the campaigns for this year in Virginia, which are much shorter term affairs.

17:35.62

Sam Shirazi

And typically I've heard it but be described that campaigns are almost like startups. They start. they do their thing and then they end up closing shop either if they're successful or not.

17:47.75

Sam Shirazi

And I think that creates a lot of opportunities to get involved at the ground level and to get more involved. And one thing to keep in mind is The lower down on the ballot a campaign is, the more opportunities to get involved. So if you wanted to get involved in a local school board race, there's a lot of opportunities and there's a lot of opportunity to get a lot of responsibility because honestly, probably your local school board candidate doesn't have a huge staff, doesn't have a lot of people helping them.

18:17.79

Sam Shirazi

The higher up you go on the ticket, the more organization there is, the the more hierarchy. Obviously, if you want to get involved in the governor's campaign, those are going to have a lot of resources, but you may not be able to necessarily get get a super high up position.

18:33.88

Sam Shirazi

And some people, that's not what they're looking for. They're looking to just volunteer and knock on doors. That's great to get involved in the governor's campaign. But if you want to get really much more involved in a campaign, I would recommend going a little bit lower on the ballot.

18:47.41

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, there's a lot of House of Delegates races this year. There are county board races. There are school board races. So a lot of different ways to get involved in a campaign. And I think it's really meaningful because that is not necessarily a long term commitment.

19:03.31

Sam Shirazi

It'll one way or another, it'll be over in November. And so that's a good way to get involved in the short term if you're interested in that.

19:10.58

Sam Shirazi

Now, I should also talk about how you can get involved. I think some feedback I got about the 2024 election was individuals would go to the campaign and they were told to either knock on doors or make phone calls, kind of old school ways of campaigning.

19:27.56

Sam Shirazi

And honestly, they didn't always feel like that worked with the current environment. Obviously, with phone calls, it's difficult for people to talk to someone. Oftentimes people don't pick up the phone. There are a lot of spam calls, so it's difficult to make phone calls. Even door knocking, I think people are hesitant to go to the door.

19:46.64

Sam Shirazi

They often don't want to be interrupted. i will say, i think in a 2024 presidential election, it was often a lot more polarizing. And I think most people had made up their minds. So it's kind of hard to knock on a door And talk about the presidential election because most people probably knew who they were going to vote for and it was hard to persuade someone.

20:07.08

Sam Shirazi

I do think in a state election like this, door knocking can be a little bit more effective because a lot of people don't know there's a state election. They might not have made up their mind. You may be able to persuade them. So I do want to do that plug that even if you didn't love door knocking in 2024, it's possible that in 2025, you're going to have a better experience just because the voters are not as tuned into this election and you have more of an opportunity on the doorstep to talk to them.

20:35.25

Sam Shirazi

But having said all that, I do think it's a valid point that campaigns are changing. The old methods are not working as well as they used to. And so much more of campaigning is done on social media.

20:48.25

Sam Shirazi

Frankly, a lot of is done on podcasts. Part of the reason I wanted to start this podcast is I know a lot of people are starting to get political news through podcasts. There's a lot of social media, as I mentioned, and not just

21:02.40

Sam Shirazi

the old social media, but new new things like Blue Sky and TikTok and a lot of different ways people are getting their information. And I think it's a challenge for campaigns to to figure out how to break through.

21:14.40

Sam Shirazi

I think you as an individual, obviously, posting on social media, if you want to do that, is one way to kind of spread the word. I do think within a a state election like this in 2025, there's an opportunity to almost do really, really old school campaigning person to person work.

21:32.88

Sam Shirazi

So if you have friends that are not super political or you might have seen them recently get interested in politics but have not previously talked to them about politics, I think it's a good idea to maybe just have a conversation with people, tell them, hey, there's some state elections this year.

21:49.60

Sam Shirazi

do you know what's on the ballot? Here are some people running. I think those conversations an election like this can be a lot more meaningful than in a presidential election. As I mentioned, in presidential elections, people already know who they're voting for.

22:02.42

Sam Shirazi

It's hard to persuade people. People have really set views on things. State elections, it's not as strong. And I do think we're at a moment partially in Virginia because of the firing of federal workers, where people are starting to get more politically engaged. They might not have thought politics really affected their lives that much. Now they're seeing that politics is affecting their lives in a more dramatic way than they thought.

22:26.09

Sam Shirazi

There are a lot of ways to get involved, whether you want to do it formally through a campaign, whether you want to just do it on your own through social media and talking to friends, whether you want to join the local political party, whether you want to join a local grassroots organization.

22:41.22

Sam Shirazi

There is a lot of ways to get involved. Again, my message to everyone is I hope you do get involved this year because I do think there's a lot on the line. and I'm going to try to keep everyone informed. And hopefully if you listen to this podcast, you can know what to talk about with people when you're on their doorsteps or you're having those conversations.

23:01.74

Sam Shirazi

And I guess I should end with, if you do enjoy the podcast, I would appreciate it if you would tell people. I know a lot of people listen to podcasts. They're looking for podcast recommendations. They're looking for news, politics, podcasts.

23:15.42

Sam Shirazi

If you know someone who might be interested in the podcast, feel free to send them a link to this episode or any of the other episodes. Typically, I will try to do at least one podcast a week. My goal is to get them out on Saturday morning.

23:28.54

Sam Shirazi

I hope you will stay engaged in the Virginia elections this year. I know that I will. And I appreciate everyone listening. And I will join you next time on Federal Fallout.

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

Transcript

00:01.15

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi, a Virginia political analyst. This is the second episode of Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections.

00:11.72

Sam Shirazi

This episode will be a deep dive in the governor's race, who's running, their backgrounds, their potential strengths and weaknesses, and then what the general election might look like.

00:23.20

Sam Shirazi

Then I will briefly talk about why Democrats can't take for granted that they will win this year in Virginia, and then also look at if the New Jersey governor's race will actually be closer.

00:34.53

Sam Shirazi

Then i will finish up by talking about why you should care about the Virginia governor's race, whether you're in Virginia or not, both from a political and practical standpoint.

00:44.99

Sam Shirazi

Now, let's begin by looking at the candidates on each side, the main candidates, I will talk about the other candidates if there ends up being a primary in another episode. Right now, I'm going to assume that on the Democratic side, the nominee will be a former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger. On the Republican side, current lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears. If either of those two faces a primary, we will do an updated episode.

01:11.65

Sam Shirazi

The filing deadline April 3rd. And then after April 3rd, we can see if there will be a primary if any other candidates made the primary ballot. So let's begin with former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger.

01:25.23

Sam Shirazi

She was first elected to Congress in 2018, and she served three terms in Congress representing Virginia's 7th District. Prior to that, was was known for being a CIA officer and on the campaign trail, she often talks about that experience and also having served in the national security space, which obviously a lot of people in Virginia have a background either in national security or in the military.

01:51.92

Sam Shirazi

So that connects with voters in Virginia. Now, when she first ran in 2018, she was a political newcomer, didn't have much experience in the political space.

02:02.91

Sam Shirazi

And she decided to run against the incumbent Dave Bratt in what had been a traditionally Republican district at that time before redistricting was primarily based in the Richmond suburbs and then went out into rural Virginia in central Virginia.

02:18.51

Sam Shirazi

And i think when she first ran there, that district seemed like it would be a real reach for Democrats. But obviously 2018, particularly in Virginia, Democrats did well, and she was able to flip that seat.

02:33.79

Sam Shirazi

I wouldn't say it was a surprise because I think by the end it was becoming clear that, former Congressman Bratt was in trouble, but certainly I think, there was a lot of question marks about whether she might be able to flip that seat. And then she eventually was able to win.

02:49.14

Sam Shirazi

and I think that a name for her right off the bat because, that seat had been in Republican hands for a long time. And so after she flipped that seat, she came into Congress. She was known more for being moderate member of Congress, bipartisan.

03:08.76

Sam Shirazi

She often talks about that on the campaign trail. She ran for reelection in 2020, was a pretty close election again, but she ended up winning that time. And afterwards, she came back to Congress and I think it was known for being in the more moderate wing of the Democratic Party within the House of Representatives and sometimes would talk about how the Democrats needed to be able to reach voters who are in the middle and not necessarily be so ideological on certain issues, particularly when the Democrats had to trifecta during the first two years of President Biden's

03:51.96

Sam Shirazi

term. She did, however, work with Democrats to pass the major pieces of legislation, such as the bipartisan infrastructure bill, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act.

04:07.96

Sam Shirazi

so In the run up to 2022, there was redistricting in Virginia and her district changed a lot. So previously her district was based in the Richmond suburbs. The new seventh district kind of moved up I-95 and became more of a Northern Virginia seat based along the I-94 corridor from Prince William down to Fredericksburg.

04:29.66

Sam Shirazi

And then it also included some rural parts of Virginia. And I think there was a question mark about whether she would end up running in that district. She ended up running. She didn't face a primary. She faced a very competitive general election and again was able to win in 2022.

04:44.63

Sam Shirazi

And that was another close election in a battleground district that she was able to win. And then, she was reelected pretty quickly, there was talk that she might end up running for governor. And obviously she did end up running for governor and

05:01.70

Sam Shirazi

Democrats were able to win her seat in 2024 with Eugene Vindman becoming the new congressman.

05:10.25

Sam Shirazi

So shifting over to Lieutenant Governor Sears, and I just wanted to mention something. Sometimes you'll see her referred to as Winsome Earl Sears. Sometimes you'll see her referred to win some as Winsome Sears, and I actually looked this up.

05:24.18

Sam Shirazi

So on her official campaign website, she goes by Winsome Sears. And then on her, uh, government, Lieutenant governor website, she goes by Winsome Earl Sears. I'll typically refer to her as Winsome Sears. Cause I think that's what most people refer to as, but, But if you, if you hear Winsome Earl Sears or Winsome Sears, just keep in mind, she sometimes goes by both.

05:46.80

Sam Shirazi

she was born in Jamaica and came to this country when she was young. She ended up joining the military. And then in 2001, she ran for the House of Delegates in Virginia in the Hampton Roads area in what was considered a pretty Democratic seat, had a large African-American population and Winsome Sears was able to win that seat in what was pretty much an upset. Most people didn't expect a Republican to win that type of seat.

06:19.38

Sam Shirazi

But then she decided to run for Congress in 2004 against Congressman Bobby Scott, who was well known in the area. And that didn't go too well. She didn't win that race.

06:31.62

Sam Shirazi

And after that, she was somewhat involved in politics. She served on some boards, but was pretty much out of elected office for 20 years.

06:42.42

Sam Shirazi

there's a pretty big gap between when she was elected in 2001 and then she was elected lieutenant governor in 2021. So as I mentioned, in 2021, she made basically a comeback. She ran for lieutenant governor.

06:55.51

Sam Shirazi

The thing that's interesting in 2021, the Republicans had a convention to pick their nominee. So it was not a primary And at some point, maybe we can talk about this, but long story short, the Republicans, they don't have conventions as much anymore, partly because of changes in the law in Virginia. So this year, all the races are going to have primaries.

07:17.16

Sam Shirazi

It's kind of an interesting hypothetical to think what would have happened if the Republicans had a primary versus a convention, would she have been able to win? But regardless, she was able to become the lieutenant governor nominee in 2021. And know I would say a bit of an upset.

07:31.00

Sam Shirazi

I don't think most people... predicted that. And then she went on to win the general election, mainly because, Governor Youngkin won at the top of the ticket, and then she was able to essentially ride his coattails.

07:44.25

Sam Shirazi

And it was a sweep for the Republicans, and she became Lieutenant Governor. And as Lieutenant Governor, she has been serving as the presiding officer of the Virginia Senate. So that's a little bit of her political background.

08:00.66

Sam Shirazi

want to talk a little bit about the potential strengths and weaknesses of each candidate. And I think often in in politics, strengths can also be weaknesses in the sense of you might be able to appeal to one group of voters, but that causes you to potentially lose support among other voters.

08:16.54

Sam Shirazi

So just keep that in mind as we talk about some of these strengths and weaknesses. It's not necessarily... that it's these things are 100% good or 100% bad. It's just the reality that some things will help you in politics, some things might hurt you, and and that might be the same thing.

08:31.30

Sam Shirazi

with congress a former Congresswoman Spanberger, as I mentioned, i think she has a reputation for being more of a moderate, being in the, moderate wing of the Democratic Party, at times has been more critical of some of the more left-leaning members of the Democratic Party.

08:50.57

Sam Shirazi

And I think that's both a strength and weakness. So from the strength standpoint, you may be able to talk about it on the campaign trail. You may be able to reach more moderate voters who that appeals to middle-of-the-road voters.

09:06.30

Sam Shirazi

That's obviously something that she she likes to talk about, being bipartisan and being able to work with Republicans to pass bills. At the same time, that's kind of a two-way street. And there might be times when people who are more progressive, that doesn't necessarily create an image that they want. And there may not be enthusiasm from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

09:32.64

Sam Shirazi

Having said that, I think in this environment where the

09:39.79

Sam Shirazi

Democrats are fired up. They're upset by what's going on in D.C. I think that hesitancy among some progressives could be overcome because, frankly, they just want to send a message. They want to elect a Democrat. And if she's the nominee, they're just going to vote for her. might be some people who have a protest vote. But typically in elections like this, when the main motivator among the base is anger at the administration, i think that helps politicians who are maybe more moderate because the base of the party who's more progressive will still support them because they're able to, they want to send a message to the people who are in charge in DC that Democrats and progressives are upset at what's going on.

10:24.57

Sam Shirazi

So that's one strength and weakness. And on the flip side, Spangruger's more moderate potentials has helped her in rural parts of Virginia. So her district had rural areas. And while she never really won most of the rural areas, she did better than most Democrats would do in those areas.

10:46.72

Sam Shirazi

And in a lot of ways, there's a lot of talk about why Democrats are struggling in rural areas, what they can do to do better in rural areas. And at the end of the day, sometimes They don't necessarily have to win those areas outright, but just doing a little bit better can go a long way.

11:02.90

Sam Shirazi

And I think this year there's question about how much better Spanberger can do compared to Harris in 2024 in Virginia. And what I mean by that is if she's able to maybe do five, 10 points better in some of these counties, that starts to add up.

11:21.99

Sam Shirazi

So, even if she doesn't win rural Virginia, which I think is unlikely that she'll win much of rural Virginia this year, she does a little bit better than Harris was able to do, and she keeps the same margins in the more suburban urban parts of Virginia, then that starts to add up and she'll have a bigger win than Harris did because she's doing better in the rural areas.

11:44.88

Sam Shirazi

So we'll see how she does in more rural parts of Virginia, and if she's able to to cut the margins down, because parts of rural Virginia, Democrats are struggling in Southwest Virginia. they're Some of these counties, they're struggling to get 15%. difference between 15% and 20% might not sound like a whole lot, but if you can get up to 20%, 25%, that can add up if you're talking about a large area of rural Virginia.

12:11.26

Sam Shirazi

But I also wanted to talk a little bit of the flip side of that, and that is parts of urban Virginia and particularly parts where there are more of an African-American community,

12:23.08

Sam Shirazi

Spanberger going to do in that part of Virginia? And part of the reason I raised that is one, you had Congressman Bobby Scott, who has been talking about potentially running for governor. he As I mentioned in the last episode, he hasn't really taken any formal steps, but Congressman Scott was the first African-American congressman elected from Virginia since Reconstruction.

12:46.49

Sam Shirazi

And he obviously has support among many members of the African-American community in Virginia. And so I think the Republicans sense a little bit of an opportunity because Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears background, she may be trying to win some of those voters over and trying to go after traditionally Democratic voters.

13:11.10

Sam Shirazi

And we saw that last year in the presidential election. Part of President Trump's strategy to win was to go after voters from a diverse background that Republicans typically hadn't done well with and hadn't competed for.

13:25.94

Sam Shirazi

And so we'll see if Lieutenant Governor Sears might be able to replicate that this year. And I think one thing I should mention is that while President Trump did well with non-white white voters. He did the best, I would say, with Hispanic voters, also did well with parts of the Asian community.

13:48.57

Sam Shirazi

There wasn't a huge shift in the African-American vote. I think that was part of the voting bloc that stayed pretty consistent with the Democratic Party. There was a little bit of a swing, but it wasn't as dramatic as some of these other groups.

14:04.14

Sam Shirazi

And if you if you look in Virginia and some of the precinct data, former Vice President Harris still won the overwhelming majority of the African-American vote. And so I think that's going to be an interesting question this year.

14:16.41

Sam Shirazi

Both how is Spanberg going to be doing with that community? is Lieutenant Governor Sears going to be doing with that community? And I guess the last thing I should mention on this point is that in 2022,

14:27.99

Sam Shirazi

when Congresswoman Spanberger was running in the 7th District after the redistricting cycle, her new district had a fairly sizable African-American community, primarily based in Prince William County.

14:40.37

Sam Shirazi

And she did a lot of work to engage with that community and turn out that community. And they ended up backing her. And that was part of the reason that she was able to win in a relatively close election in 2022.

14:54.06

Sam Shirazi

Okay, now let's turn over to Lieutenant Governor Sears. And I already talked about one potential strength is her potential ability to reach out to African American voters.

15:09.15

Sam Shirazi

as I mentioned earlier, she had done that in 2001 when she won that House of Delegates seat. Now, I will say she was running against an incumbent that was having some legal issues and basically was not the strongest incumbent. And so that race was a little bit maybe of a anomaly just because of who she was running against.

15:30.88

Sam Shirazi

But she did win it in in a pretty surprising fashion in a district that was traditionally Democratic. But then, as I mentioned, we saw in 2004, she didn't end up winning the congressional seat against Congressman Bobby Scott.

15:45.62

Sam Shirazi

she ran for lieutenant governor, while Republicans, I would say, did a little bit better than they traditionally did with the African American community, it wasn't necessarily like she did amazing either.

15:58.59

Sam Shirazi

And so we'll have to see if how much she attempts to win over African American voters and then whether that will actually be successful this year. In terms of other strengths and potential weaknesses for Lieutenant Governor Sears,

16:14.49

Sam Shirazi

you know I've followed her since she was elected lieutenant governor people tend to us underestimate her. We saw that in 2001 when she was able to flip that seat and in 2021 when she was able to win the lieutenant governor's race, both the nomination and then the general election. I think both those times people didn't necessarily think she could win and that she did end up winning.

16:37.53

Sam Shirazi

So I think it's important for Democrats and us observing to not necessarily underestimate her. And I think part of her appeal is there are times when she can come off not as your typical politician.

16:50.85

Sam Shirazi

i think there are times when she is able to connect with voters in in a different way. i will say that's a little bit complicated. And the reason I say it's complicated is a couple of reasons. One, I think she has,

17:08.25

Sam Shirazi

clearly been trying to think about how she can win the general election. She hasn't been too focused on the primary. And there are times, particularly when she's on TV, where I think she's maybe thinking about the general election, comes off as more politician-y than I think she actually is.

17:26.41

Sam Shirazi

So it's going to be an interesting question to see how much they let her go out there and be herself versus maybe try to stick to more talking points and not to say anything that might get her in trouble for the general election.

17:40.50

Sam Shirazi

And that's often an issue with politicians is how much do you want to you know be contained and not go outside of your talking points because you don't want to create any sort of gaffes and how much do you want to be authentic and just kind of be yourself and not worry about that stuff.

17:54.73

Sam Shirazi

So we'll see. And I think She has a strategy of trying to, in some ways, emulate emulate how Governor Youngkin was able to win in 2021.

18:07.10

Sam Shirazi

We'll see how that ends up happening. I think this is a very different election than 2021. Obviously, in 2021, we had a Democratic president.

18:17.86

Sam Shirazi

It was it was the tail end of COVID, but and there was a lot of COVID fatigue at that point. But that was obviously a major issue and and we've kind of moved past that at this point.

18:27.33

Sam Shirazi

And this year, there are a lot of different issues. So we'll see if she can emulate that 2021 Youngkin campaign in a very different environment. So I guess I should move on to what the general election could look like. I think with Congresswoman Spanberger, former Congresswoman Spanberger, she's gonna focus a lot on what is going on in DC with the firing of federal workers and the downsizing of the federal government. She's talked about her experience in the federal government, how public service is a positive.

19:00.59

Sam Shirazi

She thinks that it's going to resonate in Virginia. Obviously, a lot of people have either served in the military or have worked for the government and what's going on may be affecting them. So that's kind of where she's going to want to focus the election in terms of November.

19:15.34

Sam Shirazi

With Lieutenant Governor Sears, I think she's got to Think about how she's running because you have Donald Trump as a leader of the party. Sears has never been super close with the MAGA wing of the party.

19:28.97

Sam Shirazi

i think, as I mentioned, she will try to emulate more of a Yunkin brand. She's, I would say, closer to Governor Yunkin than she is to President Trump. There's an open question about how much President Trump will get involved, how much he will endorse her will he campaign with her.

19:46.09

Sam Shirazi

All these things are kind of open questions. And I think the Republicans need to ask themselves, like what are they running on this year? Because the Democrats, it's pretty clear they're just going to be running on opposing what President Trump, the Trump administration is doing to the federal government, standing up for federal workers. That's a clear message.

20:04.98

Sam Shirazi

see if the voters respond to that or not. But either way, you kind of know what the Democrats are going to be doing. it's It's a little bit unclear with the Republicans, what's their big issue? There are few things, obviously, that Republicans have focused on. So in 2021, Governor Youngkin focused a lot on education and schools, partly because of the the shutting down of the schools for a while because of COVID.

20:29.83

Sam Shirazi

He talked about CRT, critical race theory, a lot. That has kind of morphed into anti-DEI stuff. And is that going to be the focus of the campaign? Uh, COVID's probably not going to come up a whole lot, because, you know, that's the 2021 campaign.

20:46.71

Sam Shirazi

are they going to talk about the trans issue again, that obviously riles up the base, but how much is that going to appeal to moderate voters? So I think the Republicans really need to ask themselves, like, what is their issue?

20:57.80

Sam Shirazi

in 2021, You could tell that Youngkin, he was running on COVID and he was running on the school education issue. What is the issue that Lieutenant Governor Sears is going to run on?

21:08.62

Sam Shirazi

And it's a little bit of a cold question. I mean, there's so there's crime, there's immigration. there's all these things you could list that, those are kind of what you see on Fox News as the Republican big issues.

21:19.37

Sam Shirazi

But you can't run on 10 different issues all at once because it's too much for the voters. So you need to pick one or two of those issues. and it's a little unclear right now what that issue will be.

21:30.71

Sam Shirazi

And obviously we have a long time till November. There could be things that we don't see right now. There could be a lot that that happens until November. But right now, I think that's the question the Republicans have to ask themselves.

21:44.25

Sam Shirazi

And not just about winning the base, because in Virginia, for a Republican, realistically to win, i think they need their base to come out, but they also need to be able to appeal to voters more in the middle in the suburbs.

22:00.67

Sam Shirazi

what is the issue that you're going to be able to convince those voters to come out and vote for you? and so anyways, I think we'll just have to wait and see what that looks like in November.

22:10.85

Sam Shirazi

So hopefully that was helpful. I'm sure I missed things about both candidates. they're both interesting, you have different backgrounds. And I think,

22:19.95

Sam Shirazi

will be a really interesting election if it ends up being a Spanberg or Sears general election. Again, if there's a primary, we'll talk about it in a future podcast. But I wanted to just kind of give that big picture overview of the two candidates and potentially what their campaigns might look like.

22:35.36

Sam Shirazi

Now, I wanted to talk a little bit about what this year in Virginia, who might end up winning and if New Jersey might actually be a closer election. And the reason I say that is I think among people who aren't in Virginia, there is often an assumption, well, Donald Trump's in the white house

22:57.13

Sam Shirazi

So Democrats should win really easily.

22:59.54

Sam Shirazi

I tend to agree that all things being equal, Democrats go in at least slightly favored. for those reasons. But I don't think you can just assume the Democrats are going to have this massive land side win.

23:12.24

Sam Shirazi

A few reasons for that. One, i think for state elections, Virginia tends to be less blue than federal elections. So in federal elections, Democrats have won every election going back till 2006. So Senate and president statewide elections, they've won every single one going back to 2006. So yes, at a federal level, I would describe Virginia is a pretty blue state.

23:37.46

Sam Shirazi

I think at the state level, it's been a little bit more of a mixed picture. Republicans were able to win the governor's race in 2009 and

23:46.18

Sam Shirazi

But typically, voters in Virginia at the federal level more willing to vote for Democrats at the state level might be a little bit more willing to vote for Republicans. So that's one reason why I think Republicans tend to do better in the state elections in Virginia.

24:00.27

Sam Shirazi

The other thing to keep in mind is that Virginia is a very diverse state, has a lot of different parts, and it's just hard for the Democrats to get this massive blowout victory in Virginia. Part of that, if you you know if you think about the demographics of Virginia, there's a lot of rural rural areas, lot of areas with White working class voters, Democrats have struggled with those voters.

24:23.35

Sam Shirazi

it's just hard for them to get some sort of massive victory in Virginia. It's just a state that's not really built for that. You know, the good news for the Democrats is their coalition of Suburban voters, college educated voters, African-American voters, it's pretty easy for them to get close to 50% and win an election in Virginia.

24:45.99

Sam Shirazi

It's just hard for them to get up to like 60%. It's just the state the the way that Virginia is made up, it's just not really built like that. And so all that's to say is i don't think you can just assume they're going to get this massive blowout victory.

25:01.04

Sam Shirazi

So there's that. And then the last thing I should mention, and this is a little bit of a wild card, is how Trump and Elon are going to and fit into everything.

25:11.33

Sam Shirazi

And the reason I mention Elon Musk is he obviously has a lot of money. He has can write a lot of big checks. Virginia doesn't have any campaign finance limits for its state campaigns. So you know at the federal level, there's only so much you can donate directly to a campaign campaign.

25:26.10

Sam Shirazi

The rest of it, you have to start running ads on your own independent from the campaign. In Virginia, there is no campaign finance limit. You could write a huge check to a campaign.

25:36.99

Sam Shirazi

And i think I think there's a possibility that might happen. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. But this traditional money advantage the Democrats sometimes have, and congresswomans former Congresswoman Spanberger has been able to raise a lot of money already. She's been known for her fundraising prowess.

25:53.31

Sam Shirazi

But I don't think you can assume that's going to necessarily last, given that there are some big GOP donors who have at least recently shown that they're willing to sign big checks and Virginia doesn't have campaign finance limits.

26:05.98

Sam Shirazi

So I just want to lay all that out there because I don't think we can just assume Democrats are going to get this massive win in Virginia this year, which sometimes you hear people talk about.

26:17.66

Sam Shirazi

And so I will say there, it's certainly possible that Democrats get a big win in Virginia. In 2017, Democrats got a pretty big win with Ralph Northam winning by around eight points.

26:32.06

Sam Shirazi

And it could be possible that there's a big win in Virginia, but I don't think Democrats should assume it.

26:38.53

Sam Shirazi

And I don't think they should take anything for granted. So that's Virginia. I briefly wanted to talk about New Jersey and I am not a New Jersey expert. Both Virginia and New Jersey have their elections on these odd years.

26:52.42

Sam Shirazi

And for a long time, Virginia tended to get most of the attention because, it was just more of a competitive state. Traditionally, Virginia was considered a purplish state, whereas New Jersey was a pretty...

27:11.26

Sam Shirazi

blue state, I would say. And Republicans had won New Jersey governor's races, most famously in 2009 and 2013 when Chris Christie was able to win. So it's not like Virginia was the only show in town There were competitive New Jersey governor's races.

27:28.57

Sam Shirazi

The reason I think there's maybe more focus this year on New Jersey is couple reasons. one In 2024, New Jersey was a lot closer than people thought.

27:37.85

Sam Shirazi

people just conceptually are starting to think of New Jersey as less of a deep blue state and maybe coming becoming more of a battleground type state. I will say, I think maybe that's more at the federal level. I think at the state level, New Jersey is still pretty democratic, but we'll see how much of a shift there is.

27:54.87

Sam Shirazi

you know the The states are moving in somewhat different directions. So Virginia, if you look back over the last 20 years, has become more democratic. New Jersey, maybe over the last 20 years, has become more Republican, although I think that's a more of a recent trend.

28:09.49

Sam Shirazi

And we'll see if it was more of a unique thing to 2024, maybe because of the high cost of living in New Jersey. Inflation was just a really important issue in 2024. Maybe this Hispanic gains that President Trump was able to make was unique to 2024, and it won't be able to be carried over, but maybe it will. And the other thing I should mention about New Jersey is they have had a Democratic governor for eight years.

28:35.92

Sam Shirazi

And typically, like at the federal level, at the state level, voters sometimes want to change. and might They've seen they've had a Democratic governor for eight years. They might want to try Republican governor.

28:48.16

Sam Shirazi

I think in Virginia, you have the opposite thing where we've had a Republican governor for almost four years and voters might want a Democratic governor. that's another reason why New Jersey might be competitive this year.

28:58.50

Sam Shirazi

and I think the other thing I should mention is that in Virginia, you have almost pretty likely former Congressman Spanberger as the Democratic nominee.

29:13.17

Sam Shirazi

And in New Jersey, there's a much more competitive a Democratic primary. There are a lot of people running. I would say the front runner at this point is

29:21.68

Sam Shirazi

Congresswoman, Mikey Sherrill. And I think she has a unique profile in having served in the military and then come in. she She came into Congress in 2018.

29:32.91

Sam Shirazi

Very similar in some ways to Congresswoman Spanberger. So it'll be interesting to see how those two are able to run their campaigns. They are...

29:43.35

Sam Shirazi

pretty close. They came in together. They had similar backgrounds. i think politically they have similar similar background. And so it's kind of interesting. We'll see if the Democrats nominate those two similar candidates for both races.

29:55.56

Sam Shirazi

Personally, obviously I am more of a Virginia person. I will be focusing on Virginia I think everyone should pay attention to Virginia because it is always important, but I don't want to pretend like it's the only election and the only game in town.

30:08.52

Sam Shirazi

I have heard some things where people are saying that New Jersey is going to be closer than Virginia. i don't know about that. i think I think they're both going to be democratic leaning years in both states, but we'll have to wait and see. And and it's hard to tell right now.

30:24.60

Sam Shirazi

And I can't guess... if New Jersey or Virginia is gonna be closer. But that'll be an interesting data point when we get all the results and we'll see how much of a blue state New Jersey has is still and how much of a blue state Virginia is and and has there been shifts in either state because of what President Trump has been doing.

30:45.94

Sam Shirazi

All right, so that's a lot. I did wanna just leave you with one other thing and that is why you should care about the Virginia governor's race.

30:56.01

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, if you live in Virginia, your governor is important. That person can sign laws, they can veto laws, they can send they can change the language of the laws and send them back to the legislature to vote on.

31:09.27

Sam Shirazi

They appoint a lot of people to different boards. Obviously, when you think of state government, they are the leader of state government. So when there's an emergency or something like that, you often look to the governor for leadership. So it's an important position in that sense.

31:22.70

Sam Shirazi

And I don't want to kind of emphasize the state government role of the governor of Virginia. But I think most people in this year in Virginia, they look to the governor's race as a little bit of a test to the political mood of the country and how popular both the the party in power is and the president is.

31:46.44

Sam Shirazi

And we often see that if a party is able to win the Virginia governor's race, it's a little bit of a political barometer of how things are going. So during the first Trump administration in 2017, Democrat Ralph Northam was able to win and he had a relatively larger victory than I think most people were expecting.

32:07.85

Sam Shirazi

And I think that was the first time when people were saying, hmm, maybe then President Trump was not as popular as people thought, or he wasn't necessarily unbeatable. Democrats showed in Virginia a way to beat him, or at least the Republican Party.

32:25.42

Sam Shirazi

That led to victories in 2018, particularly in Virginia. There was a blue wave in 2018 in Virginia, where Democrats were able to flip three House seats. And then in 2019, the Democrats took complete control of the General Assembly. And then obviously in 2020, Democrats were able to win the White House and get a trifecta in Washington, D.C.

32:46.14

Sam Shirazi

In some ways, you could say that all started in Virginia in 2017. Also in New Jersey, the Democrats were able to flip the governor's mansion in 2017. I think you have the flip side of that in 2021, where, President Biden gets this 10 point win in Virginia. the next year, Republicans were able to come in and get a, relatively smaller victory. It was a two point victory, but a win's a win. And obviously,

33:11.49

Sam Shirazi

with Virginia becoming more democratic, it was impressive that that there was like a 12 point swing in just one year. And it also created kind of a national profile for Glenn Youngkin. And he's been able to you know stay in the news and create that profile for himself by having won in 2021.

33:29.49

Sam Shirazi

And then in 2022, Republicans were able to flip the second district in Virginia. 2023 wasn't as great of a year for them because they they ended up losing the General Assembly majorities.

33:43.70

Sam Shirazi

But in 2024, Virginia was closer. There was a six-point win for former Vice President Harris. Obviously, Republicans did well nationally.

33:54.44

Sam Shirazi

And you could say it kind of started in 2021 in Virginia and then in 2021 in New Jersey. Republicans didn't win, but they did better than expected in New Jersey. So all that's to say is I think a lot of people around the country and even around the world will be looking at Virginia in November, what's going on.

34:12.02

Sam Shirazi

there a big blowback to what the Trump administration is doing with the federal government? Is there a lot of people who are frustrated and organizing and and there's a big win in Virginia and potentially a win in New Jersey for Democrats?

34:25.04

Sam Shirazi

Does that mean anything for 2026? I think those are all interesting questions, and it's a reason why Virginia in some, there's always been a debate, should Virginia switch its election to even years as opposed to odd years? But a lot of people like it keeping them in the odd years because it gives Virginia a voice, people pay attention.

34:46.19

Sam Shirazi

And if it was in the even years, it'd just be another race. But this year is really kind of an opportunity for the political world to focus on Virginia. I'm going to try my best to cover it because I i do think it's important. I do think people around the country look at Virginia and New Jersey to see what the political temperature is like.

35:05.90

Sam Shirazi

Hopefully this deep dive into the governor's race was informative. I'm going to try to cover a lot of the other races. Obviously I'll talk about the governor's race more, but part of my focus in the podcast will also be to talk about these other races that people aren't as familiar with.

35:20.67

Sam Shirazi

So keep an eye out for that. And, you know, I hope you'll continue listening to the podcast because I think it's really important that people know as much as they can about the Virginia elections this year. I obviously think they're super important.

35:32.23

Sam Shirazi

So I hope you'll continue listening and thank you for joining me and we'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