| RICHMOND, VA – Yesterday, Virginia House Speaker Don Scott and Delegate Dan Helmer published an op-ed in MSNBC highlighting how Virginia Democrats built a historic and enduring House majority. The piece outlines the strategy, coalition, and organizing that led to Democrats expanding their majority to 64 seats — the largest in more than three decades.
Democrats across the country can learn from what we accomplished in Virginia
In 2019, Virginia Democrats, bolstered by court-ordered redistricting and tailwinds from Donald Trump’s deeply unpopular presidency secured our first Democratic House majority in a generation. Two years later, Republicans regained the House by winning seven seats. Virginians’ rights and their livelihoods hung by a thread with the slimmest of margins for Democrats in the Virginia Senate.
After that 2021 loss, we regrouped and laid out a vision of how to secure an enduring majority. In 2023, facing the headwinds of an unpopular Democratic president and a popular Republican governor, we flipped the Virginia House – something no party in modern times had done without control of the governor’s mansion. In 2025, with Trump’s unpopularity again serving as our tailwinds, we elected the largest Democratic majority in more than three decades in our deeply purple state. Our victories were no accident, and we believe our approach could serve as a model for national Democrats’ return from the wilderness in 2026 and beyond.
In 2023 and 2025, we recruited diverse candidates with deep ties to their communities and a commitment to service. We rejected outdated notions of what makes a winning candidate in a frontline district and ran a majority-minority slate in both cycles, and most of the candidates we put forward were women. We purposefully ran individuals with inspiring backgrounds who people could trust, including military service, education, accounting, social work and medicine. We provided centralized, regular trainings led by successful battleground candidates and were backed by data on campaign tactics that actually work. We leveraged modern management techniques to oversee campaigns, including weekly reviews of campaign metrics. We ensured campaigns were on track and surged support or course corrected those that faced challenges.
We challenged Republicans everywhere. We listened to and partnered with advocacy groups to recruit candidates across every single one of the hundred House districts this year from the Shenandoah Valley to the Eastern Shore. Our efforts tied down GOP resources and left them in disarray, while not distracting us from the critical battleground races we needed to win.
We focused on building a big tent and delivering boldly for Virginians. We took into account ideas across the Democratic spectrum. We embraced constitutional amendments protecting reproductive rights, gay marriage, and voting rights. We ensured Virginia voters would have a say on Donald Trump’s unprecedented efforts to redistrict mid decade and deny voters the ability to rein in his deeply unpopular policies in the 2026 midterms. We not only recognized the concerns of Virginia voters on issues that included rising prices, fentanyl overdoses, education and violence but we aggressively delivered on legislation to lower everyday prices, hold fentanyl dealers accountable, increase excellence in our schools, and take dangerous weapons off our streets.
We earned the trust of Virginians by delivering an agenda embraced by large majorities of Virginians with the promise of more to come under a new Democratic governor. The grassroots embraced this agenda, sending over $2 million in donations under $100 to support our legislative races and powering a nearly 8:1 advantage in small dollar donors that was critical to allowing our candidates to get their message in front of every Virginian. And our Caucus? Every single Democrat contributed campaign funds to help us fund our campaign effort to expand the majority. Our highly motivated frontline candidates each knocked on 5,000 or more doors of undecided voters and had real discussions on the issues that impact Virginians’ lives.
We didn’t just run against Trump. We ran on our common values as Americans and a focus on the kitchen table concerns that matter to hardworking Virginians. We were laser focused on recruiting great candidates, running professional, data-backed campaigns and delivering on an inspiring agenda. We met voters where they were. We executed as a team and secured buy-in from legislators of all backgrounds. That’s how we have secured a historic and enduring majority. It’s what Democrats can do in 2026 across the nation to become a winning party again.
Don Scott is the Speaker of the House in Virginia and a Delegate from Portsmouth. Dan Helmer is a Delegate from Fairfax who serves as Virginia House Democrats Campaigns Chair. Both have served in the VA House since 2020 and are veterans of the US Armed Forces. |
