In my 25 Top Virginia Political Stories of 2025, I listed “Federal Fallout” as #1 – the concept of the enormous negative impacts on Virginia by DOGE, Trump’s massive assault on the federal government/workforce, etc. – obviously, but also as very skiillfully highlighted throughout the year by Sam Shirazi’s podcast, “Federal Fallout. So now that we’re into 2026, that “federal fallout” isn’t coming to an end by any means; to the contrary, many of the impacts from what happened in 2025 will *really* start to be felt in 2026, including in the Virginia budget, healthcare premiums, Medicaid and SNAP cutbacks, impacts on rural hospitals, you name it.
All of which is why it’s good to see that Sam Shirazi is continuing his Federal Fallout podcast into 2026, albeit at a slower pace than in 2025. So this morning, Shirazi’s out with his first “pod” of the new year – “2026 Preview: The Long Shadow of the 2025 Elections” – and it’s definitely worth a listen. So definitely check it out, and also see below for some highlights that jumped out at me.
- “Virginia in 2026 is going to be defined by 2025. I think 2025, the story in Virginia was the federal fallout, everything going on in DC. That defined both what was going on in Virginia and also the election ultimately. And I think 2026, a lot of the story in Virginia will be the shadow of 2025, the fallout from 2025.”
- ” Obviously, the hit to the Virginia economy is still going to be a major story in 2026. But I do think a lot of the story of this year in Virginia is going to be the Democratic trifecta, the amount of power that they have now, given the scale of the wind that they got in 2025, and really, you know from their perspective, the mandate that they got in 2025″
- “There are a lot of special elections at the beginning of 2026…None of them are super interesting just because they are very deep blue seats….but just shows you that a lot of what’s going on in Virginia in 2026, like these special elections are because Spanberger won in 2025. They’re kind of the fallout from that. And we’re going to continue to see that throughout the year in Virginia.”
- ” I wanted to start with perhaps the biggest unknown in Virginia this year, and that’s redistricting…he first step is in the House of Delegates and the state Senate, the Democrats need to vote on the redistricting amendment again. Presumably that will pass. And then there will be a there the’ll need to be a process to set up a referendum. That will face a legal challenge. And so in theory, the Republicans will try to block it in the courts and we’ll see if that goes anywhere. These are mainly state legal challenges based on kind of procedural things and just kind of specific language of the state constitution, did the Democrats you know follow all the procedures that are required to get a referendum on the ballot? you know We’ll see how it plays out. My gut is telling me that the courts don’t want to get super involved in this and that they would prefer the voters to make the decision. So they’ll let the voters do the referendum and whatever that happens, happens.”
- “…assuming it passes, then you know you’re going to have brand new lines. The question becomes, do the Democrats go maximum and try to get 10 Democratic seats out of 11 in Virginia or they go 9-2, they try to get nine Democratic seats out of Virginia…We’ve heard kind of some mixed messaging about that from Governor Spanberger versus the House of Delegates and the State Senate.“
- “The question becomes, you know, how far do the Democrats go? My gut is telling me this first General Assembly session, they are not going to be pushing too much. They’re not going to be going too too fast, going too progressive just yet. I think a lot of it will be more pragmatic things, things focused on cost of living, more… things to maybe speed up housing and do some sort of just kind of kitchen table type bills that are not necessarily super controversial. You know, there there will be a lot of political minefields with things like an assault weapons ban, right to work. you know There’s a whole conversation about that. I think that is all going to get worked out.”
- “… another fallout from 2025 where we’re going to have a totally different Attorney General’s office in Virginia.”
- “…no matter the final number, 9-2-10-1, the Democrats are pretty much going to draw these seats, at least for 2026, to be pretty safe. So as much as we love, you know, these elections that could be toss-ups, I don’t really see that happening if the maps change in Virginia, because there’s really no reason to draw a toss up toss-up districts if you’re the Democrats…In the second district, it looks like Elaine Luria is in the driver’s seat for the nomination. In the first district, it looks like Shannon Taylor is in the driver’s seat. In the fifth district, it looks like Tom Perriello is in the driver’s seat… if redistricting passes, I mean, if redistricting passes, like the 2026 midterms are not going to be super interesting in Virginia, unless for some reason the Democrats decided to draw a toss up district.”
- “I think in the back of the minds of Speaker Scott and Spanberger and State Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell is kind of this idea about how far do we push things you know If we go too far, then perhaps there will be a backlash in 2029.”
- “[Republicans] are not gonna mount a serious challenge to Mark Warner. And so it’s possible that they could lose you know two to three more members of Congress or even more than that if redistricting happens. So they’re not in a good place. I don’t really know what the rebuilding is gonna look like on their end. I really think the only thing that will really start bringing them back is if the Democrats win the presidential election in 2028. and they can kind of do what Youngkin did in 2021 and try to rebuild…Could the Virginia Republicans make a comeback? Sure. But I think right now it’s just unlikely.”
- “Abigail Spanberger may also find that out because you know she’s made affordability a big part of her campaign. She will try to do her best, but there’s only so much you can do at the state level versus the federal level… some of these are just big intractable problems. And we’ll see how she ends up doing as governor.”
Interesting stuff; thanks to Sam Shirazi for the excellent analysis!
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