According to this reporter, “Va. candidates raised a staggering $20.4M in the first quarter, campaign finance reports show.” That seemed odd to me, since the amount raised in 1Q25 didn’t seem particularly “staggering” to me, but I wanted to do a sanity check on this, so I went back and looked at VPAP to check 1Q21 fundraising numbers. Here’s what I found.
- In 1Q21, gubernatorial candidates raised about $22 million. In 1Q25, gubernatorial candidates raised about $9.8 million – less than half the 1Q21 total.
- In 1Q21, lieutenant governor candidates raised about $2.5 million. In 1Q25, lieutenant governor candidates raised slightly lower than that, about $2.4 million.
- In 1Q21, attorney general candidates raised about $1.8 million. In 1Q25, attorney general candidates raised about $3 million, so that’s actually higher than in 1Q21.
- In total, governor/LG/AG candidates raised over $26 million in 1Q21 vs. just over $15 million in 1Q25…a significant (43%) decline from 1Q21.
The question is, *why* did fundraising for these three statewide offices decline so much between 1Q21 and 1Q25.
- For starters, most of it is accounted for by the sharp drop in gubernatorial fundraising, thanks in large part to the fact that in 2021, there were intense, contested primaries for both the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial nominations, with candidates including prolific fundraisers like Terry McAuliffe (D) and Glenn Youngkin (R), along with Pete Snyder (R), Jennifer Carroll Foy (D), Jennifer McClellan (D), Kirk Cox (R), etc.
- There were also hotly contested primaries for both the Democratic and Republican Lt. Governor nominations in 2021…much more similar to this year, thus not surprisingly the amounts raised in 1Q21 and 1Q25 are similar.
- As for attorney general, in 2021 there were primaries on both the Democratic side (incumbent Mark Herring vs. challenger Jay Jones) and Republican side (Jason Miyares vs. Chuck Smith, Leslie Haley and Jack White). This time around, there is an AG primary only on the Democratic side, and yet total fundraising for AG has gone up from 1Q25, mostly because Jason Miyares only raised $208k in 1Q21, whereas this past quarter, as the incumbent, he raised a massive $1.5 million. That basically accounts for the increase in AG fundraising from 1Q21 to 1Q25.
Does any of this indicate a decline in enthusiasm from 2021? I’d argue probably not, that it’s more about the mix of candidates in 2021 (e.g., mega millionaire Glenn Youngkin and mega fundraiser Terry McAuliffe) vs. 2025 (while Abigail Spanberger is a strong fundraiser, she’s not personally wealthy, and Winsome Sears isn’t known as a particularly strong fundraiser) but it’s hard to say for sure. Of course, in both 2021 and 2025, the Virginia elections take place a year after a new president – and a party flip – was elected, with Joe Biden replacing Donald Trump in 2020, and Donald Trump replacing Joe Biden in 2024. How that translates into fundraising for the Virginia elections the next year, however, is complicated – but there’s definitely no sign of any *increase* in fundraising, or the number of candidates for that matter, in 2025 compared to 2021. Conclude from that what you will…
P.S. As a smart Virginia political observer just pointed out to me, it’s also possible that Virginia and national Republicans realize that Democrats are *heavily* favored this year, whereas in 2021 it was much more of a tossup, so it’s quite possible that the amount of money spent this time around will accordingly be lower…
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