Political Winners and Losers: Virginia Primary Elections 2025

Here are a few “winners” and “losers” from Tuesday’s primary elections that I believe are worth highlighting. Note that this list isn’t even close to comprehensive – nor is it intended to be (in part because it could go on for days…and at some point, enough is enough, lol!) – so please add “winners” and “losers” of your own in the comments section. By the way, it’s important to point out that you can be a “winner” even if you’re a right-wing Republican (e.g., McDonnell and Cuccinelli in 2009 were huge “winners,” even though they completely suck!) or whatever, and that you can be a “loser” even if you’re my favorite Democrat in the world, because in this context “winner” and “loser” is all about whether someone “won” or “lost” politically in this election cycle, not whether that makes me happy or not or whether it’s normatively a “good” or “bad” thing, per se. With that…on to the “Winners”/”Mixed”/”Losers” from the June 17 Virginia primaries.

P.S. I also asked a bunch of Virginia Democratic political insiders for their “winners and losers” suggestions, and got a slew of good ones (almost all of which are included, below, without attribution to the source)…some of which overlapped with mine. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this list! 🙂

Winners

1. Ghazala Hashmi/her campaign: It wasn’t a landslide win (27.39%-26.64%-26.34%) or anything, but still, Hashmi defeated two strong rivals in State Senator Aaron Rouse and former Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, running a smart/strategic and energetic campaign (led by super-sharp, up-and-coming campaign manager Clay Volino) that emerged victorious. Now, just six years after jumping into politics and winning a State Senate seat, Hashmi is just a step away from being elected Lt. Governor of Virginia. Not bad! Also, as a contributor to this list pointed out, “There’s also something to be said for the historic nature of Hashmi’s win. She’s a thoughtful legislator who does her homework- isn’t terribly flashy. IMO that’s a huge win for democracy and voters rewarding that brand of leadership.”
2. Jay Jones/his campaign: He also didn’t win by a lot, but still, he *won*, and that after losing a primary (of then-incumbent AG Mark Herring) four years ago and not running for reelection to the House of Delegates. So this was pretty much a must-win race for Jones, and he did end up winning – so now he’s just a step away from becoming Attorney General of Virginia in a year which seems to be trending in the “blue” direction (all of this definitely makes him a political winner).
3. Clean Virginia: They went all-in for Jay Jones – and he won. They also heavily supported Ghazala Hashmi – and she won. That’s pretty much the definition of being a “political winner,” especially when Jones’ rival (Shannon Taylor) was heavily supported by Clean Virginia’s arch-rival Dominion Energy, while Hashmi’s rival Levar Stoney was also…yep, heavily supported by Dominion Energy.
4. Freedom Virginia: Their endorsed candidates almost all won, with the exception of Aaron Rouse for LG. But other than that, they supported Jay Jones for AG (he won), Del. Patrick Hope (he won), May Nivar for HoD (she won), Leslie Mehta for HoD (she won), Lindsey Dougherty for HoD (she won), Del. Delores McQuinn (she won), Kacey Carnegie for HoD (she won). Not a bad won-lost record!
5. Incumbents: Del. Delores McQuinn and Del. Patrick Hope both faced primary challenges, and both won easily (76% for McQuinn, 72% for Hope). On the Republican side, Del. Terry Austin faced a primary challenge and won 68%-32%. And for local races, incumbent Arlington County Board member Takis Karantonis won 64%-36%; Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi won 52%-48% (close, but still a win); Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Colette McEachin won 72%-28%; etc. Of course, incumbents usually win, so this isn’t surprising, but they’re winners nonetheless.
6. The need for Ranked Choice Voting: I strongly support implementing this here in Virginia, because in a multi-candidate field, it’s kinda ridiculous that someone can win with 30% or 27% or whatever – IMHO, a candidate should have to get a majority, which is better from a democracy point of view and also in terms of legitimacy. Having said that, Ghazala Hashmi is a good candidate, so this definitely isn’t a knock on her in any way.
7. Women, candidates of color: As this press release explains, “There is a Democratic woman nominee in 30 of the 49 seats (61%) currently held by a Republican” and “Democratic candidates of color are nominated to run in 14 seats (28%) of those 49 Republican-held seats, including 10 women of color.” Good to see! Also note that in Democratic House of Delegates primaries, women did well, winning in HD57 (May Nivar over Andrew Schear), HD73 (Leslie Mehta over Justin Woodford), HD75 (Lindsey Dougherty over Dustin Wade and Stephen Miller-Pitts) and HD89 (Karen Carnegie over Blaizen Buckshot Bloom).
8. Abigail Spanberger: She ended up with a strong, diverse (in terms of geography – central and southeastern Virginia, race – a white woman, Asian-American woman and Black man, gender – one man and two women) ticket; seemingly nothing problematic or divisive for her to deal with. That’s got to be a relief for her.
9. Del. Mike Jones: Ghazala Hashmi won big in Richmond after Del. Mike Jones’ endorsement; he becomes the favorite for that State Senate seat should Hashmi win in November and it then opens up.
10. Speaker Don Scott/House of Delegates Democrats: All their preferred House of Delegates candidates won. Now, they’re all set for November, and hopefully set up for a pickup of several seats to widen their currently narrow majority.
11. Richmond area/Hampton Roads: Abigail Spanberger and Ghazala Hashmi are both from the Richmond area; Jay Jones is from Norfolk; John Reid is from the Richmond area; Jason Miyares is from Virginia Beach…
12. Ralph Northam: Endorsed early and strong for both Abigail Spanberger and Jay Jones (was heavily featured by Jay Jones in advertising); also stayed on good terms with the major Lt. Governor contenders, offering to do events for them (but didn’t endorse in that race, which was probably wise).
13. Early voting/automatic absentee ballots: Clearly, this is a very popular option for voters, which is probably why such a large number of them (about 200k, according to VPAP – compared to around 480k total turnout) opted to vote early – whether in person or by mail (including the automatic absentee ballot list). Thanks to the 2020-2021 Democratic “trifecta” for putting better/more convenient voting laws into effect.

Mixed

1. Endorsements: Hard to say whether endorsing candidates who didn’t end up winning will even matter for those making the endorsements, but of course you’d rather endorse a winner than a loser. For instance, does Pete Buttigieg weighing in for Levar Stoney have any impact at all on how people view Buttigieg? In Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA03)’s case, endorsing Aaron Rouse definitely doesn’t hurt him at all, but it likely helped Rouse nearly win the nomination. As for those endorsing Ghazala Hashmi, like Del. Rae Cousins, Del. Mike Jones, etc., they’ve got to be pretty happy about that. But will it make any difference to any of them, with the possible exception of Mike Jones (mentioned in the “winners” list, above)? Who knows.
2. Shannon Taylor: No, she didn’t win the Democratic AG nomination, but she ran a strong statewide race, ended up with 49% of the vote, raised her political profile significantly and possibly set her up for future runs beyond the Henrico Commonwealth’s Attorney job (which she didn’t have to give up to run for AG).
3. Aaron Rouse: Similar to Taylor – didn’t win the Democratic LG nomination in his case, but did very well, finishing just 5,000 votes behind Ghazala Hashmi out of 480k total votes cast, and certainly raised his name ID – largely in a good way – potentially setting him up to run against Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA02) next year. We’ll see if he moves in that direction.
4. Alex Bastani, Victor Salgado: They didn’t win – and only got 6% of the vote each, so you’d think they’d be in the “Losers” category. But they’re “mixed” because really, they had nothing to lose in running, raised their name IDs a lot, contributed to the public debate of ideas, ran solid campaigns and potentially set themselves up for future runs at elective office. So really, they’re on the borderline of being in the “Winners” category – despite losing.
5. Elections Prognosticators: Shoutout to Sam Shirazi, whose predictions were largely spot-on (e.g., predicted Jay Jones would win, nailed the Democratic House of Delegates primaries, had the LG race mostly between Hashmi and Rouse, with Stoney also having a serious path to victory). In Republican Joe Szymanski’s case, he predicted correctly that “Jones win this [AG] race,” but wasn’t quite right that he “does so comfortably” (unless 2 points is comfortable? haha); for LG, he had Aaron Rouse as “the very, VERY, slight favorite,” whie adding, “it’s of course very plausible to see a world where Stoney wins, where Hashmi wins and one where yes, Lateef wins.” On that latter point…no, there really was no world in which Lateef was going to win (I’ve thought from the beginning of his campaign that he’d probably get 10% or lower). Anyway, it’s really hard in tight races like these (0.7 points for LG, 2 points for AG) to predict with any accuracy, which is why I mostly avoided doing so…because I honestly had no idea prior to the primary if Hashmi, Stoney or Rouse would win for LG and if Jones or Taylor would win for AG (although I thought it was very slightly leaning Jones). Anyway, as we used to joke when I was involved in energy forecasting, it’s very hard to predict what’s going to happen – especially about the future!
6. “Missing Middle”: In the Arlington County Board race, the anti-“Missing Middle” challenger to pro-“Missing Middle” incumbent Takis Karantonis argued that the primary was a referendum on this subject. In the end, Karantonis won easily (64%-36%), which seems to indicate that “Missing Middle” won the “referendum” handily – and it did! On the other hand, though, a 36% showing for the anti-“Missing Middle” challenger in this race illustrates that there are definitely people who feel strongly against “Missing Middle”…and they tend to be vocal about that.

Losers

1. Straw polls/online “polls”: I wrote a long article in early May about whether straw polls were predictive, and the answer was that they’re really not in most cases (“take straw polls with a HUGE grain of salt, do NOT view them as being particularly accurate or predictive, and mostly just take them for what they are – fundraisers, usually fun, for local Democratic committees…”). This election, they were particularly non-predictive (aka, bad!). For instance, the Mt. Vernon Dems’ Mardi Gras poll had Babur Lateef winning easily over Levar Stoney, then Aaron Rouse and finally Ghazala Hashmi (the actual primary winner yesterday); it also had Shannon Taylor CRUSHING Jay Jones for AG, which obviously isn’t what happened Tuesday night. Or take the 2025 St. Patrick’s Day fete – Gerry Connolly’s final one, sadly – won 62%-38% by Shannon Taylor for AG and Rouse 25%-Stoney 24%-Lateef 22%-Hashmi 15.5% for LG; both obviously not correct at all. Then there are online “polls,” in air quotes because they’re obviously not scientific, and because it’s very easy for a candidate to encourage their supporters to go vote in it, so…no, don’t really pay attention to those, because they’re almost always wrong. One particularly egregious “poll” was by right-wing-propaganda TV station WJLA7, which had Babur Lateef at 35%, 16 points ahead of Ghazala Hashmi; obviously, that’s wildly non-representative of what the actual results of the primary ended up being – or ever were likely to be). So yeah, straw polls and online “polls” are in the “Losers” category this primary (and the 2021 LG primaries, with Sam Rasoul winning a slew of them but not winning the actual primary, vs. Hala Ayala doing badly in just about all of them, but winning the actual primary) – and probably in future ones too!
2. Primary challengers to House of Delegates incumbents: In short, they didn’t work – at all. See the “Winners” list for more on this one. As for whether primarying an incumbent helps someone going forward, who knows, but if you get crushed, it’s hard to see how that helps you in any way…
3. Northern Virginia: With the Democratic and Republican tickets set, we are guaranteed to not have a governor, LG or AG from the most populous region that provides nearly 1/2 the state’s GDP. Also, of course, the VA Speaker of the House is Don Scott, from Hampton Roads, while the President pro Tempore of the Senate is Louise Lucas, also…yep, from Hampton Roads. That mostly leaves VA Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, from Fairfax, as well as House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, from Alexandria, as the highest-profile Northern Virginians in state leadership.
4. Levar Stoney: He almost did it, but not quite, and now it’s unclear what his political future might hold. Also note that every other LG candidate dominated their home base, while Stoney lost Richmond badly to Ghazala Hashmi (58.2%-20.7%; over 10k votes difference). If Stoney had won his home city, he would have almost certainly won the nomination. But…nope.
5. Traditional Media Coverage of Virginia’s Democratic primaries: Unfortunately, state/local media has been in decline for years, and that includes its coverage – or lack thereof – of local and state politics. That was certainly reflected in this cycle’s generally shallow, superficial, spotty, “horse race” coverage by the corporate media of the Democratic statewide and (particularly) House of Delegates/local primaries. The WaPo, for instance, barely even covered the House of Delegates races, and their main coverage of the LG race was about the controversy over Glenn Youngkin calling for John Reid to step aside. Plus, the WaPo did its usual, sanewashing/whitewashing Republican extremism, because that’s what they do. Does it serve the public? Definitely not. (Note: there was some excellent coverage in Virginia Scope and other online outlets, but I’m not really putting them in the “traditional media” category, as they’re a different model than the WaPo, RTD, etc.
6. Babur Lateef: He raised and spent a LOT of money (over $1 million), ending up with just 8.4% of the Democratic vote for Lt. Governor – not that far ahead of Alex Bastani (5.7%) and Victor Salgado (5.5%). Also, I’m not sure that literally campaigning on Jim Gilmore’s old “No Car Tax” slogan was ever going to be a winner, either substantively (my view is that ditching the car tax without making localities whole would be a disaster; also, just because something’s unpopular isn’t an argument for getting rid of it) or politically (the results of the primary may attest to that). Anyway, I’m not sure how this statewide run helped Lateef at all.
7. Election Day Vote: From a VA Democratic insider – “goes to show that these elections really start 45 days out and late money means less than it used to, especially with these types of electorates.”
8. Mark Herring: Endorsed Shannon Taylor, but it didn’t seem to particularly (or at all?) help her on Herring’s home turf of Loudoun County, where she barely beat Jones, 50.37%-49.63%. The thing is, after he lost the AG race in 2021 to Jason Miyares, Herring mostly disappeared from politics, social media, etc., so it’s not really surprising that his political clout has waned. It’s sad, though, given what a great Attorney General he was, to see this – especially since we really could use his voice in pushing back against some of the crazy sh** that his godawful successor, Jason Miyares, has done.
9. Terry McAuliffe: From a VA Dem political insider – “McAuliffe’s ‘brand’ took a hit and it’s turning the page from him with Levar losing…
10. Local office holders running statewide: There were several, including Babur Lateef for LG (finished fourth with just 8.4% of the vote); former Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney for LG (arguably lost because his city, Richmond, went heavily against him), Shannon Taylor for AG (did well in her home base of Henrico, winning it 60%-40%, but not like 70%-30% or 80%-20% or anything like that)…