See below for video and highlights from Speaker Don Scott’s press conference earlier today.
Speaker Don Scott: “Two years ago, after winning back the House majority, we set out to do something bold – build an enduring Democratic majority in Virginia. Not a one-cycle win, not a lucky year, a governing coalition built to last, a mandate. And last night, we delivered. House Democrats picked up at least 13 seats. Our majority now stands at a historic, unbelievable 64 seats. Trump won last year with about 50% of the vote, maybe a little less, and he claimed that was a mandate. This is what a mandate looks like. We even ran ahead of the top of the ticket in a number of seats, demonstrating the strength of our campaigns. This is the largest Democratic majority we’ve won in more than three decades – 1987 – half my caucus wasn’t born there. This is the first time in a half century that Democrats expanded our majority. First time we’ve won back to back majorities in three decades. We won five Trump districts and we won all eight seats that Kamala Harris won last year. We ran candidates in all 100 districts and competed everywhere – rural, urban, suburban, and we won everywhere. And this slate of candidates is exciting. We recruited diverse candidates who are deeply rooted in their communities – teachers, veterans, caregivers, small business owners, accountants, doctors, social workers, people from the community. We rejected the outdated assumptions about who can win a front line battleground district and shattered old, outdated stereotypes. And we ran minorities and women in a majority of our frontline battleground districts. But we didn’t just run against something, we ran for something. We ran to build a winning coalition focused on delivering bold policy for Virginians, strengthening schools, creating jobs, expanding access to health care, lowering costs, and putting money back in people’s pockets. And we made protecting fundamental rights central to our work from reproductive freedom to marriage equality to the right to vote to protecting democracy itself. And we did not shy away from telling the truth. Virginia Republicans were too terrified to stand up to Donald Trump. We told that story over and over and over again and voters heard us. Voters saw them running away, cowering in the face of Donald Trump’s destruction of Virginia’s jobs. And because of that, Virginia sent a message to the entire nation, to the entire world. House Democrats and Abigail Spanberger have shown the country a roadmap to victory. I’m so proud of this work and I’m so grateful. I wanna thank all of our partners, our volunteers, our organizers, our great candidates, our amazing staff, our entire House Democratic caucus that stuck together, stayed together, stayed disciplined, stayed focused and together. We sent a message to the voters of Virginia and the voters of Virginia. I want to thank them because they awarded us, they rewarded us and they placed their confidence in us and we’re going to deliver for them. Together we built what will be a historic enduring majority, the largest Democratic majority. in three decades. And I hate to tell y’all, we’re just getting started.”
Dan Helmer: “…Two years ago, the speaker in our caucus understood regardless of who won the presidency, regardless of who our statewide nominees were, we needed to build the biggest battlefield in modern memory if we’re going to preserve and grow our majority in the house. Here’s how we did it. We approached this like a military campaign. We recruited candidates we knew would work hard to win their seats. And we made sure they had the training to meet the challenge. We raised…resources to win. We deployed it in races on radio, on the air, online, and on the doors. And here’s what happened. Our caucus alone raised over $30 million, nearly doubling what we did two years ago and nearly tripling what was raised in 2021. We outspent Republicans by 2 to 1 on television and online. Meaning the voters saw more of our message more often in the final weeks of the campaign. In fact, in the final weeks of the campaign, the Democratic advantage on TV was so great that we outpointed Republicans by 10,000 points in the final week, including in the pricey DC media market. We ran the biggest battleground campaign in modern history, the biggest field campaign in modern history, and each of our candidates knocked at least 5,000 doors, having conversations with their neighbors that helped us secure this historic majority. And the result? The last time Democrats had this big a majority, it was before delegate Bobby Orrock, who was defeated last night, was elected in 1989. In several races we even ran ahead of the top of the ticket. And our battlefield candidates overperformed Kamala Harris’s performance dramatically in every single district. Last night, we showed that Americans will hold cowards accountable who won’t stand up to Donald Trump’s attacks on our livelihoods and values. This is how we won in 2025. It’s how Democrats win in 2026 and beyond.”
Speaker Don Scott: “…we’re gonna listen to the voters. They already told us what the priorities should be. They said they want us to work hard to lower the cost of housing, lower the cost of health care. They want their schools to be safe. They want us to make sure that we continue to protect public safety. You know, Republicans litigated a lot of these issues and the voters didn’t believe them, didn’t trust them. And the biggest thing we did with these new members that are coming in. And these were people from the community – like I said they were veterans, they were teachers, they were social workers they were trusted by the community; we have a pediatrician coming in, you know, the doctor will be in the house. And so we have folks that cross the gamut and across the spectrum and we have literally a democratic coalition…that continues to be attractive to independents and some Republicans. We couldn’t have gotten a majority this big if Republicans didn’t vote for Democrats last night. Republicans came over to our point of view last night and they rejected the chaos and confusion, not only coming from the White House but was coming from the Virginia GOP, but they will not stand up to Donald Trump. I think history tells us that when Virginia does what we did tonight, it doesn’t look good for 26 for Republicans. And I think, you know, these circumstances around inflation going up, remember Donald Trump said on day one that he would lower the price of things, he would lower the price of goods, he’d lower inflation. Everything has gone up – housing, child care, groceries, beef, he has these dumb tariffs, what he calls low IQ tariffs that he has all over the place that are hurting people. And I think that pain, we saw the canary in the coal mine before this happened. We saw it in races in Iowa and Florida special elections. We saw it in other places already. And we knew that if we continue to communicate what we thought we would communicate, I mean, nobody thought we’d get 64 damn seats, but you know I had 55 as my floor, but I think this message will travel unless the Republicans course correct. Like it’s really not good to be running the MAGA playbook when MAGA ain’t on the ballot. You’re on your own. And what they learned last night is Trump will not come to their rescue. He watched them like they just flailing about and didn’t come through. He had a teleconference call rally, but he didn’t even mention Winsome Earle-Sears’ name. You can’t make this stuff up, you can’t make it up. And so I think he abandoned them, just like he’s abandoned American values by tearing down the White House and going down during the gilded age at Mar a Lago. And I think people don’t like it. I think people are angry, and I think you’re gonna continue to see that be expressed…
…I think this tsunami is gonna continue to happen until Republicans join us in this whole governance thing, like until Republicans decide to stand up to Donald Trump. And to MAGA extremism. This will continue to happen. I’m hoping that they get the message, because we really do need a healthy two-party system. But if they don’t, this is the message they can expect this to happen to them again and again and again. They should have seen it coming. We did. They lost Iowa. They lost special elections in Florida. We overperformed in every single election since he began this destruction. We have overperformed. Find one when we didn’t. And so now…this is the beginning of what I believe is the tipping point, and Republicans have an opportunity, I think, to join us in governing, to be responsible… you know, it ain’t good to be MAGA when MAGA ain’t on the ballot. Folks want you to be responsible, and I think the Republicans have an opportunity to do that…
…People are feeling the pain that Donald Trump is causing and they are coming out to have their voices heard and they believe that we really want to address affordability. They trust the candidates to really be focused on their issues and not those cultural issues that they like to talk about all the time, the, the pee and poop caucus. They thought, where are these kids peeing? Where are they pooping? I don’t know. That’s all they talk about. They do a news news story on it every day. And… grown ups are saying, how do I make sure that my kids have the education they deserve? How do I buy school clothes? How do I make sure that they get the education they deserve, how do I make sure I pay my mortgage? And we got people out here talking about crazy stuff every single day. That’s all they ran on. They didn’t talk about real issues that people were feeling and I think that’s what you see and you’re gonna continue to see that until they grow up and move back to the middle, they’re gonna be continuing to feel these losses…”
Dan Helmer: “I think very clearly had candidates, Republican candidates who were participants or at least cheering on the January 6th insurrection. I think as voters understood what happened and the role that their elected representatives played and saw that in conjunction with what’s happening in Washington right this second, these districts filled with the folks who make the federal government work said we don’t want any more of that and it is their pocketbook. It is their economy, it is their jobs that have been under assault by this White House…”
Don Scott: “When we began this journey in ’22, I was minority leader. Dan and I, he’s an army guy, I’m a navy guy. We said we’re gonna focus and be disciplined. We’re gonna be focused and we’re gonna be disciplined and we remained disciplined. The word of the day now is restraint. We can’t overreach. We have to be restrained. We have to be wise with the gift that the voters have given us to govern. We have to be wise in how we move forward, so it’s gonna be important for us to have a coalition that’s restrained, that’s smart, that’s disciplined and focused on what voters want us to do. They told us what they want. All we have to do is listen. They’re feeling the pain in the pocketbook. We got to stay focused on kitchen table issues, but they also are afraid that our democracy is eroding and being attacked, and they want us to stand up, and that’s what we’re gonna do…
…[on the redistricting amendment], ultimately the voters of Virginia will have the final say. And as you can see from last night, we happen to trust our voters…we think that they’ll make the right choice. And if whatever decision they make, we’re gonna abide by it just as we did last night.”
