Nice job by Sam Shirazi with “Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia Elections, a new podcast series that will provide updates this year as the elections play out in Virginia.” In this episode, Sam provides “a big-picture overview of what’s on the ballot this year.” My only quibble is that I’m not sure whether historical precedent is going to hold this year in Virginia, given how abnormal and unprecedented the entire situation in the country is, the fact tha we’ve got a virulently anti-democracy administration in the White House, the impacts of Trump’s/Musk’s war on the federal workforce also being unprecedented, etc.
In the end, though, assuming we have relatively “normal” Virginia elections this November, there’s no doubt that Democrats should have a marked advantage, particularly if Trump’s approval rating is low (e.g., in the mid to upper 30%s as it seems to be now, or even lower). Also, we’ll see who Republicans end up nominating for governor; my feeling is that Dave LaRock would probably be Republicans’ weakest candidate, with Amanda Chase the second weakest and Winsome Earle-Sears the “strongest” (in air quotes, because I don’t think she’d be particularly strong either, but less bad for Republicans than LaRock or Chase!). We’ll also see how the overall tickets end up looking – will there be ANY “moderation” on the Republican side, or will it be hard right all the way? And will the Democratic ticket have three strong candidates on it, a good “balance” in various ways (geography, gender, race, etc.)? We’ll see…stay tuned her and also to Sam Shirazi’s Substack!
Anyway, check out the podcast, and I definitely recommend that people follow Sam on Substack here.
Hi everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi, a Virginia political analyst. This is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections, a new podcast series that will provide updates this year as the elections play out in Virginia.
00:15.54
Sam Shirazi
This first episode will give a big picture overview of what’s on the ballot this year. Future episodes will delve into all the key races. Today, we’ll also talk about a potential GOP governor primary,
00:28.44
Sam Shirazi
And finally, we’ll talk about the role of DOGE in the election and the fallout from the changes in the federal government. So to begin with, I’ll want to give a brief overview of what’s on the ballot and also what’s going on in terms of the state of play.
00:45.73
Sam Shirazi
So the conventional wisdom is that the party out of power, that means the party not in the White House, tends to win the Virginia governor’s election. And that’s been true in every election going back till 1977, except in 2013 Democrat when Democrat Terry McAuliffe was able to win even though Obama was in the White House.
01:07.21
Sam Shirazi
And the last time a Republican has won the governor’s race with a Republican in the White House was all the way back in 1973 when Richard Nixon was president. So a long, long time ago.
01:20.87
Sam Shirazi
So all that’s to say is the conventional wisdom is that Democrats start off with an advantage this year just purely because of the fact that they are not in the White House. And then you could add on top of that the fact that there currently is a Republican governor in the governor’s mansion with Governor Glenn Youngkin.
01:40.76
Sam Shirazi
Voters tend to like to see changes between the parties in in the governor’s mansion. Not always, but you do see that swing where if there’s a Republican in the governor’s mansion, Democrats might want to switch over to a Democrat and vice versa. So that’s kind of how things start off, I think, right?
01:59.81
Sam Shirazi
Most people would say the Democrats have a slight edge right now. So I’ve talked about the governor’s race. I think most people, when they think about the 2025 Virginia elections, they think about a governor’s race.
02:11.11
Sam Shirazi
And obviously that’s the top of the ticket. That’s the most important race. It’s important. That’s the one national media pays attention to, but that’s not the only race on the ticket. And I’m going to talk about some of the other ah races as well, but let’s start with the governor’s race. So the governor’s race, currently there are,
02:27.72
Sam Shirazi
Two front runners for each party. There is on the Democratic side, former Congressman Abigail Spanberger. And on the Republican side, there is current Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears.
02:39.72
Sam Shirazi
We’ll talk a little bit about potential GOP primary in a little bit, but but those are the two main candidates right now. And obviously, whoever wins that election is important, but I think the margin will also matter. And what I mean by that is, obviously, if the Republicans win, even if it’s a close win, that’s going to be a good night, especially with a Republican in the White House.
03:00.47
Sam Shirazi
I think, as I mentioned, most people expect the Democrats to win. So if Spanberger wins by, let’s say, a narrow margin, i think – It’ll be good, but I think some people will be surprised that she might not have won by more. And I think that’s really the big question is how much is the margin going to be if the Democrats are able to win?
03:23.53
Sam Shirazi
Is it going to be a one-point win, a two-point win, or could it we see something similar to what happened in 2017 when Trump was last in the White House where Ralph Northam was able to win by almost eight points?
03:36.05
Sam Shirazi
So that’s the governor’s race. I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time on it right now because I think we’ll talk about it in future episodes and even later in this episode. I want to just quickly touch on the other races that are on the ballot. So There is also a Lieutenant Governor’s race and both sides are going to have a primary in that race. I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time on it right now because I’ll probably do an episode on that in the future.
03:57.63
Sam Shirazi
Lieutenant Governor doesn’t get as much attention as a Governor, but is the presiding officer of the Virginia Senate and also is able to to break ties in the Virginia Senate. And currently ah there’s a narrow 21-19 Democratic majority.
04:12.15
Sam Shirazi
So there are times when there might be a 2020 tie in the state Senate. And so it’s important for the parties to be able to break the tie. So it is important in that sense. And then obviously if something happens the governor, the Lieutenant governor would step in. So that also plays an important role with the governor, with the Lieutenant governor’s office.
04:31.99
Sam Shirazi
The final statewide office on the ballot is the attorney general’s race. I think the attorney general’s race doesn’t always get as much attention as it should. So currently, Virginia has a Republican attorney general in Jason Miyares. He is running for a re-election. He is the only statewide official we’re running for re-election this year.
04:52.38
Sam Shirazi
And there will be a Democratic primary. There are two Democrats running, former delegate Jay Jones and Henrico Commonwealth’s attorney Shannon Taylor. And the reason I say the the attorney general’s race is important is because this office is one that can affect at least a little bit of what happens in D.C. in the sense that the attorney general is able to sue the current administration if they just choose to. And we saw under the Biden administration, Attorney General Jason Meares joined several lawsuits against the Biden administration.
05:27.33
Sam Shirazi
However, since President Trump has taken office, he has not joined, Jason Miyares has not joined any of the lawsuits against President Trump. And obviously, if we get a Democratic attorney general, much more likely and almost certain that they will join whoever the Democratic attorney general in Virginia would be.
05:47.07
Sam Shirazi
would be able to join some of these lawsuits that have been brought against the Trump administration. And so, I spent a little bit of time in the Attorney General’s race because I think it doesn’t get the same amount of attention as the governor’s race. But obviously, with everything going on and all the lawsuits, it does play an important role in what’s going on in DC. And and later in the episode, I’ll talk more about how what’s going on in DC will affect the Virginia governor’s race.
06:13.89
Sam Shirazi
So that’s already three races on the ballot, but that’s not it. There will also be 100 House of Delegates seats up for re-election. That’s every seat in the House of Delegates.
06:25.44
Sam Shirazi
The state Senate is not up for election. So it is just the House of Delegates, but it’s every seat. And currently the Democrats hold a narrow 51-49 majority. I think, again, the conventional wisdom is the Democrats start off with a little bit of of an advantage to retain their majority, just given the fact that the party that’s not in the White House tends to do well in Virginia elections, state elections.
06:50.14
Sam Shirazi
So the one thing I did want to highlight with the House of Delegates races, and we’ll talk more about the races probably in future podcasts, is that – There are three constitutional amendments that the Democrats have proposed. One of them is to protect reproductive rights.
07:08.67
Sam Shirazi
One of them is to remove language from the Virginia Constitution, banning same-sex marriage, and instead put language in protecting marriage equality. And the final amendment is to protect voting rights for people who have been convicted of felonies and who who have served their term.
07:25.34
Sam Shirazi
Currently, Virginia is the only is one of the only states where if you’ve convicted been convicted of a felony, you lose your right to vote for the rest of your life unless the governor restores that right.
07:36.45
Sam Shirazi
What this amendment would do is that once you serve your sentence, if you’ve been convicted of a felony, then you would have the right to vote restored automatically. So those three have all passed the General Assembly this year because the Democrats control the House of Delegates and the State Senate.
07:52.80
Sam Shirazi
However, in Virginia… It has to pass in two sessions of the General Assembly with an election in between. The election in between will be this November. And if Democrats can win the majority again in the Virginia House of Delegates, they will be able to put those constitutional amendments on the ballot in 2026. So in the 2026 midterm elections, there potentially could be those three constitutional ballots on the amendment in Virginia.
08:19.68
Sam Shirazi
But Democrats would have to win the House of Delegates majority again this November. So that’s why House of Delegates, besides just being able to pass normal laws, also has the ability to pass those constitutional amendments. So those elections are also going to be really important.
08:34.12
Sam Shirazi
There are also a bunch of local offices, county boards, school boards. Probably won’t get into too much of that on this podcast. But just stay tuned for future episodes because we will cover a lot of those. The races that I’ve mentioned and and going into a lot of more detail about those.
08:55.81
Sam Shirazi
The second thing I wanted to talk about in this podcast is the potential for a GOP primary in the governor’s race. So to set things up, on the Democratic side, Congressman Bobby Scott had toyed with the idea of running for governor.
09:10.91
Sam Shirazi
but doesn’t really have seemed to have taken many steps towards doing that. He hasn’t made made a formal announcement. Obviously he hasn’t set up any sort of committee or filed any paperwork.
09:21.72
Sam Shirazi
So he still has time. The filing deadline is not till April 3rd, but it seems less and less likely that he will run at this point, which means that it’s more likely than not former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger will be unopposed for the Democratic nomination for governor. So we never know until the filing deadline passes, but I would say more likely than not, there’s unlikely to be a Democratic primary for governor in Virginia.
09:53.01
Sam Shirazi
And for a while, it seemed like that might have also been the case for the Republicans. So right after the November election, Governor Youngkin endorsed Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears for the Republican nomination.
10:10.32
Sam Shirazi
That was after Attorney General Jason Miyares decided to run for re-election and not challenge Lieutenant Governor Sears. And realistically, Miyaress was probably the biggest competition that Sears could have faced in the primary, and she didn’t end up having to face Miyares. And I think there was a lot of um you know discussions behind the scenes to try to avoid a primary because it would have taken a lot of time and money.
10:36.75
Sam Shirazi
But despite all those efforts, there is still a possibility there could be a GOP primary because two former legislatures let legislators in Virginia have announced that they are gathering signatures and attempting to make the ballot um for the GOP primary.
10:54.13
Sam Shirazi
One of them is a former delegate Dave LaRock, and the other one is former state senator Amanda Chase. Now, both LaRock and Chase um had served in the legislature. They tried to either run for higher office with LaRock running for state senate, and then Chase had run for governor and subsequently lost her state senate primary.
11:21.25
Sam Shirazi
So neither of them are currently in office, but they have been in office in the past. And I would describe them as being more on the… pro MAGA wing of the party, very supportive of president Trump.
11:37.14
Sam Shirazi
And part of the reason that they are attempting to make the ballot is the idea that Lieutenant governor Sears is not sufficiently loyal enough to president Trump. Now she has backed Lieutenant governor Sears has backed president Trump’s recent actions, but before he won the Republican nomination in 2024,
11:56.49
Sam Shirazi
She had said some things that were somewhat critical of Trump. And I think there is a sense among some Republicans that she isn’t necessarily a true Trump diehard believer. And that is creating an opening for some of these other candidates to try to jump in.
12:11.60
Sam Shirazi
I don’t know if they will make the ballot, and I should mention that Virginia has some pretty strict requirements to make statewide office. So a candidate seeking statewide office will have to get 10,000 signatures from registered voters.
12:28.88
Sam Shirazi
And these all have to be valid signatures of people registered to vote in Virginia. On top of that, 400 signatures have to come from each congressional district. So it can’t just be 10,000 total. It has 10,000 total with 400 coming from each congressional district and Virginia has 11 congressional districts.
12:46.28
Sam Shirazi
So that’s a pretty tall order. And these efforts were just started very recently. So there’s not a lot of time. The filing deadline is April 3. Both LaRock and Chase are working hard trying to get signatures to try to make that April 3rd deadline, but it’s there’s no guarantee they’re going to make it. And so I think we just have to wait and see if they ended up end up making the primary ballot.
13:09.32
Sam Shirazi
Obviously, if they do, we can talk about it in future podcasts, but it’s a little bit of a wait and see right now. And even if they make the ballot, it’s unclear how much of a chance they have against Lieutenant Governor Winston Earl Sears. And I think a lot will come down to whether President Trump decides to wade into the GOP primary, which at this point is hard to tell. And Long story short, we’ll just have to wait and see. I think it’s a little bit early to go too into detail about a potential GOP primary just because, again, they might not make the ballot with the signature requirements. So just wanted to preview that, but we will discuss that likely in future podcast episodes.
13:50.90
Sam Shirazi
All right. So the last thing I wanted to talk about, and it’s also the the name of this podcast episode, is the DOGE election and the question really is how much will what’s going on in DC with the changes in the federal government with DOGE coming in to both lay off certain federal employees and also downsize a lot of the federal government, how much will that impact the Virginia state elections? And the conventional wisdom is it’s going to have a pretty big impact because Virginia obviously is right next to Washington, D.C. There are a lot of federal employees. There are a lot of federal contractors.
14:32.18
Sam Shirazi
There are a lot of military bases. There are a lot of companies that rely on doing business with the federal government. So this is not a minor thing, the shakeup that is happening in D.C.
14:44.38
Sam Shirazi
And there are kind of two theories about what’s going to happen and the Democratic theory and the Republican theory. So the Democrats… pretty logically are trying to pounce on this issue and say, hey, we are standing up for federal workers. We’re against what’s happening in DC.
15:03.55
Sam Shirazi
The Virginia Republicans are not standing up for the federal workers. And it’s a pretty clear message that they are against what DOGE is doing. They’re against the firing of the federal workers.
15:17.34
Sam Shirazi
One would think that that’s a pretty strong message, at least in Northern Virginia, if not the rest of Virginia, including Hampton roads, which has a large military presence as well as other government facilities.
15:29.99
Sam Shirazi
That’s kind of the democratic side of things. Like they want to make this election, a referendum on DOGE and what’s going on in DC. I think the Republicans have a little bit of a different strategy.
15:44.51
Sam Shirazi
Part of what they’re thinking is maybe that they have to support President Trump because he’s the leader of their party and they they can’t really be against the firing of federal workers. And you see people like Governor Youngkin and Lieutenant Governor Sears saying they support the efforts to increase efficiency in the federal government, but they understand that it’s difficult for federal workers who are losing their jobs.
16:07.51
Sam Shirazi
Now, this is where people who might be more pro-MAGA like Dave LaRock or Amanda Chase would want the Virginia GOP to be even more supportive of what President Trump is doing and DOGE is doing and really go full throat behind it as opposed to trying to ah understand that some of the workers are dealing with difficult issues right now. Either way,
16:35.25
Sam Shirazi
I think part of the calculation the Republicans have is that a lot of federal workers already vote Democratic. So, you know, even if some of the people who lose their jobs are upset, they were probably going to vote for Democrats anyways. Some Republicans even feel like maybe this will lead to people moving out of Virginia and most of the people moving out will be Democrats. So Virginia will become less democratic.
16:59.90
Sam Shirazi
Realistically, I don’t know how much of those changes are going to happen by the time November rolls around. It seems like that’s something that would happen long term, maybe over the course of a few years as opposed to a few months because the election is coming up.
17:15.40
Sam Shirazi
But that’s kind of how the Republicans are approaching it. And, you know, I’ll just be honest. Virginia state elections tend to be grabbed by national issues and they tend to become referendums on national issues. So,
17:31.04
Sam Shirazi
In 2021, even though President Biden had won Virginia by 10 points the the year before, Republicans were able to vote win in Virginia by using the issue of COVID and the COVID lockdowns and really making the election referendum on COVID lockdowns and wanting to basically end those things. And they had a very clear message on that, whereas the Democrats, they were still… trying to make sure that there were precautions taken for COVID and and didn’t clearly have as much of a message that resonated in 2021.
18:08.07
Sam Shirazi
But then the flip side happened in 2023 when this was the year after Roe v. Wade was overturned um and there was a potential that Virginia Republicans could get complete control of the Virginia General Assembly and pass abortion restrictions.
18:26.94
Sam Shirazi
And Governor Youngkin explicitly said that he would sign a bill that would place restrictions on abortion abortions after 15 weeks with some exceptions. However, Democrats really seized on the issue and made that election referendum on abortion.
18:41.45
Sam Shirazi
They were much more clear on their message. They basically said, we will support reproductive rights, and the Republicans were trying to create this 15-week timeframe, which didn’t really work for them, and the Democrats were able to win complete control of the General Assembly in 2023.
18:59.94
Sam Shirazi
So the message is, one, the Virginia state elections tend to become dominated by these issues that aren’t necessarily purely Virginia issues. And two, the party that has the clearer message often does better because it’s just easier to connect to voters when you have a clear message.
19:16.89
Sam Shirazi
So if that’s the case, 2025, is this going to be an election, ah referendum on DOGE? And will the Democrats do well because they have a clear message of just opposing what’s going on in D.C.?
19:30.55
Sam Shirazi
It’s a little too early to tell. Obviously, it’s a big issue in the news right now. The question becomes how much of an issue is it in November? Probably it’s still going to be a big issue in November, but we don’t know that that right now.
19:45.05
Sam Shirazi
The other thing too is this is an issue that almost every night will lead in the local news in DC and Hampton roads. And millions of Virginians are going to be seeing this on the news every single night. So even if you aren’t a federal employee or directly impacted by it it’s still something that you’ll see every night.
20:05.75
Sam Shirazi
And obviously Virginia’s economy as a whole really depends on the federal government. And so the question becomes, even if it’s ah not directly affecting you how much will it impact your vote and the decision you make to vote in November.
20:24.58
Sam Shirazi
And the last thing I should say is A lot of people aren’t necessarily super tuned in to Virginia elections and Virginia politics. If you’re listening to this podcast, you probably are.
20:35.98
Sam Shirazi
But I bet there’s a fair amount of people who might not even realize there’s an election in Virginia this year. But the more this issue kind of dominates the news and the more people feel like maybe they’re upset by what’s happening, it might motivate them to – obviously vote, but also get their friends involved, get their families involved, and just kind of increasing the turnout among the base. And a lot of times the state elections are basically um turnout games about who can turn out more of their base,
21:08.08
Sam Shirazi
In 2021, Glenn Youngkin was able to win because he got out a lot of the Republican base in rural parts of Virginia. Democrats also got out parts of their base, but the Republicans just did a really good job in 2021. 2023 was not as big of a Republican turnout. I would say both sides got their bases out.
21:30.27
Sam Shirazi
They were overall probably more Democratic-leaning voters in Virginia, and you saw that the Democrats were able to win in 2023. So if this is an issue that really motivates the Democratic base, then we can see a lot of voters coming out because they’re upset about what’s going on, and this is an issue that’s really motivating them.
21:50.64
Sam Shirazi
And kind of going back to the issue of the primary, I think both Dave LaRock and Amanda Chase, part of their argument is like, we need to give our voters a reason to come out. And we need someone who’s going to go out there and be 100% behind President Trump, and then they’re going to come out and vote for us in November.
22:07.66
Sam Shirazi
I think the concern they have with Lieutenant Governor Sears is that she’s going to try to have this middle ground where she’s not trying to offend Trump voters, but she’s trying to win over some independent, maybe more moderate voters, and she ends up basically satisfying no one, so the base doesn’t come out.
22:27.65
Sam Shirazi
Independent moderate voters aren’t really swayed by her arguments. And so the GOP does really badly in November because of that. And they’re they’re saying we’d have a better shot just trying to get out our base. You know it’s hard to tell right now which one makes more sense. I think the one thing I will say…
22:50.18
Sam Shirazi
Virginia statewide, the Republicans have not won a whole lot. The last time they won was in 2021. And then before that was in 2009. And both those times, while you had very conservative Republicans running, they weren’t necessarily running super, super far right campaigns.
23:08.06
Sam Shirazi
And so I think there the conventional wisdom is that the Republicans need someone who’s not necessarily super pro-Trump, MAGA, hardcore in order to win in Virginia. And that’s why I think there’s going to be a fair amount of pushback.
23:24.81
Sam Shirazi
Among the quote unquote establishment to a GOP primary if it happens because the voters feel like that the GOP insiders feel like someone like Lieutenant Governor Sears would have the best shot of winning.
23:38.53
Sam Shirazi
But realistically, you know, sometimes these things are just very hard to control and um the midterm sorry thus the Virginia state elections might take on a life of their own.
23:52.60
Sam Shirazi
We saw that in 2017 when everyone thought it was going to be a close election, but then Democrats ended up winning by a lot and had a blue wave in Virginia in 2017, which kind of foreshadowed their wins in 2018.
24:08.50
Sam Shirazi
There’s a lot. There’s a lot to do this year in Virginia. There’s a lot going on. I’m going to try my best to keep everyone updated. I’m not entirely sure how often the podcast will come out. Kind of depends on my schedule, but I’m hoping to do one at at least once a week.
24:23.10
Sam Shirazi
And I’ll try to cover all the different types of races, keep people updated as things develop. Hopefully, you’ll be able to listen along and understand what’s going on in Virginia this year. That’s really my end goal is to try to educate people and give people the information they need to know what’s going on to make a decision.
24:42.93
Sam Shirazi
My only message is I won’t tell you who to vote for, but I really do hope if you’re in Virginia, that you’ll go out and vote and you’ll get involved in whatever campaign might interest you because I think it’s a really important election.
24:56.30
Sam Shirazi
And so I hope everyone gets involved this year in Virginia and everyone gives the podcast a listen. So thank you and we’ll see you next time.
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
