Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This is a shutdown special because today is October 1st, 2025, and the government is officially shut down because Congress was unable to pass a bill to fund the government.

00:18.54

Sam Shirazi

And so that means as of the release of this podcast, the government is shut down. Now, I was thinking about this. I think technically this is an October surprise because we’re in October and it is, I guess, a surprise. Although the way I like to describe it, it’s the least surprising October surprise you could possibly imagine because everyone kind of saw this from a mile away that there could be a government shutdown.

00:43.02

Sam Shirazi

And I actually did a podcast in the spring when there was the shutdown fight that time and the shutdown was narrowly avoided. But I had flagged all the way back then that on October 1st, there could have been a shutdown. So again, not a huge surprise that we’re getting this shutdown.

00:59.01

Sam Shirazi

i think the big question mark right now is how long is it going to last? And what is the end game? How do we get out of this? Because it seems like the two sides in Congress are unwilling to move.

01:11.21

Sam Shirazi

So just to kind of lay out what’s going on. So the Republicans have been trying to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government. It included some extra language about tariffs and how the Congress couldn’t override President Trump’s tariffs, but otherwise was a continuing resolution.

01:30.04

Sam Shirazi

And the Democrats basically said, okay, well, you need our votes to break the filibuster in the Senate because you need 60 votes in the Senate to move legislation along, at least most legislation.

01:41.40

Sam Shirazi

And the Democrats said, if you want some of our votes, then you will need to negotiate with us. And the Republicans said no. So the Senate was unable to pass a bill last night. And so that means that the government funding ran out.

01:55.05

Sam Shirazi

And I think obviously both sides are going to want to blame each other. The Democrats are going to say that the Republicans are unwilling to negotiate negotiate with them and that the Republicans control Washington, all the levers of power. So how can they blame the Democrats for the shutdown when they’re in charge and when they weren’t willing to negotiate with the Democrats?

02:15.07

Sam Shirazi

I think the Republicans obviously want to point the finger back at the Democrats and say that the Democrats are not willing, are the ones who are shutting down the government because they didn’t pass this continuing resolution to fund the government and they’re being unreasonable in their demands. And in the past, they have said the Republicans shouldn’t be expecting to get any sort of policy wins with the government funding.

02:37.27

Sam Shirazi

So anyways, long story short, I think both sides try to blame each other. That’s typically what happens in a shutdown. and think the big question for the Virginia elections is one, the impact and two, who do the but voters blame?

02:49.40

Sam Shirazi

I think this time is a little bit more complicated for various reasons. So I use the example last time, 2013, there was a government shutdown right before the Virginia elections. The Republicans controlled the House of Representatives and in 2013 and they basically were unwilling to fund the government unless there were major changes to Obamacare. Obviously, the Democrats weren’t going to go along with that.

03:12.86

Sam Shirazi

I think in the public perception at that time, because the Republicans were in the majority in the House, there was this idea that the Republicans are shutting down the government over Obamacare, and the Republicans took most of the blame. And I think the perception was that helped the Democrats in the Virginia elections in 2013, where they were able to turn back the tide of history, where the Virginia Democrats won the governor’s election,

03:35.47

Sam Shirazi

even though there was a Democrat in the White House. So that was the first time that happened in a long time. So obviously, ah in hindsight, people say the shutdown was a major reason for that. All right, fast forward to the next government shutdown, which was at the end of 2018 going into the early parts of 2019. We often don’t talk about that in the Virginia elections context, but in 2019, there was a Virginia election.

03:57.50

Sam Shirazi

Now, it was all the way in November, and you could argue that voters probably forgot about the shutdown by the time the November elections in 2019 came around. that The elections in 2019 were for state senate and for the House of Delegates.

04:09.62

Sam Shirazi

So long story short, obviously the shutdown in that was the longest shutdown we’ve ever had. i think in hindsight, the Republicans and Trump took most of the blame for that one because President Trump was hoping to use the government shutdown fight to get funding for his border wall.

04:27.50

Sam Shirazi

And that didn’t end up happening. And in 2019, the Virginia Republican brand really took a hit. I think a lot of stuff happening in D.C. And you could argue that the shutdown at the beginning of the year was really part of the thing that led the Virginia Republicans to not be super popular in 2019.

04:43.81

Sam Shirazi

Democrats were able to win both the state Senate and the House of Delegates. That led to the first trifecta in a long time for Virginia Democrats. And as a result of that trifecta, they were able to pass a lot of laws. So all that’s to say is these shutdown fights in the past have had an impact on Virginia elections. And so now we got to think about, okay, how is it going to impact the Virginia elections this year?

05:04.09

Sam Shirazi

I mean, I think there’s a few different possibilities. And I would caveat all this by saying the length of the shutdown really matters. If it’s a one or two day shutdown, like sometimes we’ve seen not a big deal. No one will really remember. Everyone will move on.

05:16.64

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, if it’s like two weeks or a month shutdown where you’re really coming across, coming up up on the election day itself, that’s going to be a very big deal in the Virginia elections. It’s generally because that’s going to dominate the news, but specifically places like DC, Hampton Roads, a lot of federal workers, there’s going to be a lot of impacts.

05:36.25

Sam Shirazi

And so No doubt it’s going to have an impact on this election the longer it lasts. So I think there’s few scenarios. So one scenario is I would describe it as kind of the pox on both your houses scenario where voters are just fed up with Congress, fed up with what’s what’s going on in D.C.

05:55.49

Sam Shirazi

They blame everyone. And it doesn’t really impact the elections at the end of the day because you know Both the Democratic and Republican Party brands take a hit and voters blame both parties.

06:07.29

Sam Shirazi

And so it’s just kind of this thing going on in D.C. that voters find annoying, but it doesn’t really affect their decision this year in Virginia because, again, it kind of is a wash in terms of who’s to blame.

06:18.87

Sam Shirazi

I think that’s one scenario. The perhaps helps Democrats is is if The Trump administration takes more of the blame because there’s this idea that Trump is just inherently a divisive figure or he’s just not able to effectively run the federal government.

06:34.31

Sam Shirazi

And so it’s just kind of going back to the 2019 idea that the Virginia Republicans have kind of tied their wagon to Trump and Trump is not able to kind of really help Virginia because, you know, obviously the federal government is not functioning if the government’s not open. And so that’s going to hurt the Virginia economy. And so that kind of feeds into some of the themes that the Virginia Democrats have tried to push this year, that the Trump administration is hurting Virginia and hurting the economy.

07:00.63

Sam Shirazi

I think the thing that will really supercharge that or turbocharge that is if um government If the Trump administration figures within the Trump administration decide, okay, well, now this is our chance to do some mass firings because the government shut down, there’s less oversight, we’re just going to go ahead and start firing people.

07:19.33

Sam Shirazi

I mean, i think I think the story will shift from the shutdown to the mass firing, but I think that’s really going to potentially blow up in the face of... the Virginia Republicans, if there is some sort of thing where the Trump administration decides to do some sort of major overhaul or total change of the federal government, because it will just obviously impact a lot of people.

07:38.33

Sam Shirazi

And it will also bring back kind of the memories of Doge in the beginning of the year that have kind of died off. So I think there is that scenario where it could potentially help the Democrats politically this year in Virginia. you know, there’s also the possibility could help help the Republicans politically because, you know, realistically, let’s assume all these kind of layoffs don’t happen. It’s just a regular shutdown fight. I think if the Republicans hold firm in their minds and they don’t negotiate, at some point, the Democrats are going to cave because their constituencies care more about the federal government. So at some point in their mind, the Democrats are going to cave.

08:11.74

Sam Shirazi

And so they’ll just vote for this a bill that the Republicans tried to pass and everything will be fine eventually. But During the shutdown at the end, the Democratic base is going to get a little demoralized because they didn’t get anything out of it. And the Republican base is going to get enthusiastic because they they feel like they won the shutdown fight.

08:31.24

Sam Shirazi

And that’s basically kind of what happened in 2013 and 2019. So at the end of both those shutdown fights, the Republicans didn’t get anything, even though they were the ones kind of pushing the shutdown fight. And so you know I think that probably helped the Democrats a little bit just in the fact that they won the shutdown fight.

08:48.63

Sam Shirazi

And if the Republicans feel like they can do that this time, then at the end of it, they’re going to feel like they’re going to win the shutdown fight. I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s really unpredictable right now. It really depends how things play out. depends how long it is. depends on if there are a major restructuring of the federal government when this is happening.

09:07.36

Sam Shirazi

You know, My sense is that a lot of the things that hurt Trump sometimes are the perception that he’s not in control or there’s a lot of chaos or that Washington’s not working because he’s in charge.

09:20.89

Sam Shirazi

And so I think that is one thing to keep in mind, you know, even if the Democrats eventually decide, OK, we’ll we pass something or they wanted to make a stand here, but they And so at the end of the the day, the Republicans in their mind feel like, okay, we won the shutdown fight. I think there’s still this public perception that Trump is perhaps kind of this chaos agent and maybe some of his supporters like that, but maybe voters in the middle don’t want that. They basically won an orderly federal government.

09:48.34

Sam Shirazi

They want things to work. You know, in terms of the Biden administration, obviously, there were things that didn’t go right during the Biden administration. But one thing that never happened, there was never a government shutdown during the Biden administration. And so I think to the extent that President Biden had certain strengths that maybe weren’t always appreciated, one of them was making these deals in Congress and making kind of last minute compromises with the Republicans to keep things like the government open. And obviously, President Trump has a very different attitude. He’s much more confrontational. He’s unwilling to kind of compromise sometimes. And so I think in the public perception, that could potentially hurt the Republican brand. Now, obviously, his hardcore supporters like that. They like that he is kind of a fighter and he’s unwilling to maybe negotiate with the Democrats sometimes.

10:34.74

Sam Shirazi

But again, voters in the middle typically like compromise. They like politicians working together. They like last minute deals. And so I think in that sense, it could potentially hurt the Virginia Republicans, even at the end of the day, they kind of come out on top, quote unquote.

10:50.43

Sam Shirazi

And again, i think the big unknown is the length of the shutdown. I think ah you know if this ends by next week, probably no one in November will really remember about this anymore because there’s so many other things that are goingnna happen between now and then.

11:04.72

Sam Shirazi

and it’s not really enough time for there to be any sort of major impacts of the shutdown. But the shutdown that happened last time Trump was in office, I think it was like 35 days, which is just like a crazy amount of time if you think about it.

11:16.87

Sam Shirazi

And that’s pretty much the amount of time left until the Virginia elections. And so, I mean, it I don’t think this is going to happen, but it would be pretty crazy if the Virginia elections happened while the government was shut down.

11:28.15

Sam Shirazi

imagine that’s going to really create a lot of chaos. And I do think there’s a possibility that... this will become the dominant issue if it if it doesn’t get resolved. Like this will dominate the closing days of the campaign.

11:39.20

Sam Shirazi

So, you know, in that sense, it might shift the message away from some of the things Republicans want to talk about. Remember, typically the party out of power likes to make this a national election, talk about what’s going on in D.C. The party that is in power in the White House likes to make this a Virginia specific issue, talk about local issues.

11:57.04

Sam Shirazi

And so we’ve seen that this year, the Virginia Republicans don’t really want to talk about what’s going on in D.C. They don’t want to talk about Trump. They want to make it a local issues race. And we saw Winston Merle Sears do that, talking a lot about the trans issue.

12:09.50

Sam Shirazi

Uh, The Democrats with Abigail Spanberger, they want to make this more of a national race, talk about the firings, talk about inflation and the impact of tariffs and those types of things to basically talk about what’s going on in D.C.

12:22.26

Sam Shirazi

And if if the campaign does become dominated by shutdown stuff, then basically the Democrats are going to get it be able to talk about what’s going on in D.C. all day long. And obviously the Republicans are going to try to blame it on the Democrats. But Still, the focus of the campaign is going to be on D.C. and not necessarily on Virginia-specific issues. And typically, that helps the party that is you know not in the White House. We’ll see what happens this year with this election.

12:48.08

Sam Shirazi

And yeah, I mean, i think i think the other thing to keep in mind, I’m also humbled to know that i don’t I don’t know what the impact is going to be. I think there’s a lot of unpredictability in elections. And obviously, it looked like things are going pretty well for the Democrats.

13:00.68

Sam Shirazi

I’ve tried not to make any sort of assumptions. I’ve tried not to say, oh, Democrats are going to win 100%. And there’s nothing that could change the outcome at the end of the day. Like, I don’t know. there Elections are unpredictable. Events are unpredictable.

13:13.09

Sam Shirazi

There’s still a decent amount of time left where things could change. And I don’t want to say that, and it could go but both ways. Like, I mean, this could help the Republicans. So the race narrows or perhaps the Republicans end up winning. It could also help the Democrats to the point where, especially if, you know, things go really differently in Washington where there are mass layoffs. I mean, that’s the kind of environment where the Democrats could get a huge win in Virginia. So we just don’t know. We don’t know right now. There’s a lot of unknowns. I don’t want too speculate too much. I just want to kind of lay out some of the things I’m seeing as the Virginia elections are underway and early voting has been going on and we have over 200,000 early votes already. So those votes can’t be changed, but obviously a vast majority of votes are still going to be cast in the final few weeks. So we’re just going to have to wait and see. I think it’s always interesting what’s going on in the Virginia elections. I hope everyone can stick around with me as we are in the homestretch and it’s really unpredictable, but, you know, I’m going to try my best to cover it all and see, see where things take us in the Virginia elections, but I appreciate everyone for listening. And this has been federal fallout. I’ll join you next time.

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