With just over a month until Virginia Democrats’ new “trifecta” (Governor, State Senate, House of Delegates) kicks in, the following “Inside Scoop with Russell Brooks” interview with Del. Dan Helmer – who, as campaign chair, played a major role in helping House Democrats pick up 13 seats (going from a narrow 51-49 margin prior to the November 2025 elections to a massive 64-36 majority this coming January) – has a lot of interesting material in it, both on how VA House Democrats won big in November and also what we might see in the General Assembly starting in January 2026.
So, with that, see below for the video and some highlights/transcript from what is really a superb interview by Russell Brooks, with thoughtful and thorough/detailed responses by Del. Dan Helmer. And yes, Del. Helmer is 100% correct when he points out that “programs like this are not the norm” – and that you would NEVER see the Washington/Bezos Post or almost any corporate media outlet doing an in-depth, substantive, thoughtful interview like this on state or local politics. So great job by Russell Brooks and Inside Scoop, which I remember from the days of Jim Southworth, Mark Levine, etc…and now being carried on very skilfully by Russell Brooks et al.
Question by Russell Brooks: “What were the keys to the Democratic success this year?”
Del. Dan Helmer: “Really, I think it was about great candidates running great campaigns on the issues that Virginians cared about. Time and again, we heard that Virginians were struggling with costs and they were concerned about whether or not their freedoms and rights were going to be eroded by an extreme Trump administration and the dedicated public servants who ran across Virginia in these races supported by an incredible candidate for governor in Abigail Spanberger and Lieutenant Governor and attorney general candidate really connected with people who were looking for change.”
Brooks: “Now, I understand that the success is also due to the result of a multi-year effort by you and Speaker Scott. Is this correct?”
Helmer: “By Speaker Scott, myself, and our caucus. Three years ago, we set out to do something virtually unprecedented – and certainly unprecedented in modern times – which was to gain a majority when the other party had the governor’s mansion. At the time, President Biden had a 38% approval rating. Our governor had a 54% approval rating, and we set out to gain a majority. People thought it wasn’t possible. We did it. We used that time where we had a majority in the Senate and the House to pass legislation that really impacted Virginians lives. Focused on the issues that they were facing every day. Focused on making sure we protected our democracy and making sure we protected people’s rights. And then we set out in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory – and proof that he was going to do everything he could to undermine the federal government, our economy, our livelihoods here in Virginia – to bring together candidates who were from their community, who look like their communities, who are connected to the things that matter, who themselves knew what it was like to go to the grocery store and struggle to pay the bills and run excellent campaigns and demonstrate that there would be consequences for MAGA Republicans who lack the backbone to stand up to Donald Trump and his MAGA minions.”
Helmer: “I’m really proud of the fact that because of the energy and the desire to make change, we were able to recruit candidates and each of the hundred districts in the House of Delegates in Virginia from the Eastern Shore to the Shenandoah Valley. We had a candidate running in every seat – college towns, urban areas, the suburbs, the exurbs – there was no place in which Democrats weren’t fielding a candidate. And then we worked with data and with polling and with understanding of candidate quality to identify those seats that we thought were winnable. We ended up initially picking 13 seats, including a number that Donald Trump had won that we thought we could win in. As we continued to evaluate that battleground continuously, we actually added a 14th seat. We won all 13 of those initially targeted seats. that 14th seat we came within 200 votes. It was very close…These are people who have demonstrated time and again that they put the needs of their community first. They have a commitment to public service. They have an ability to connect with people and they have the grit and hardworking attitude that makes a difference in actually doing the hard work of making life more affordable, providing a world-class education for our kids and defending people’s rights in the wake of unprecedented attacks…
…I think about all the folks that we ran here in Northern Virginia, John McAuliff in Loudoun County who had served in the US Department of Agriculture. I think of Josh Thomas, an incumbent and Marine who was running for reelection and ran a great campaign. Elizabeth Guzman, a former member of the House of Delegates and social worker. I think about folks like Stacey Carroll, National Guardswoman. And one of the things I love about Stacey Carroll is she told me when we were having the initial conversation about her running, I said, ‘This is really hard. Are you sure you want to do this?’ She said, ‘Dan, this isn’t hard.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She says, ‘Well, I foster teenagers.’ And she said, ‘If I can foster teenagers, I can do this.’ Boy, was she right. And Nicole Cole also running in Northern Virginia unseated Bobby Orrock who was the longest serving member of the House of Delegates. Nicole Cole is a small business owner and a member of the school board. These are the types of people who are running in Virginia and it made a really big difference that they were already committed to public service as they auditioned in this great democracy of ours through this great process of elections to become public servants in a different sphere.”
Brooks: “You sound like a a proud parent as you’re talking about these candidates. And so I don’t want you to pick a favorite child, but is there one that just really surprised you in terms of, you know, what they were able to accomplish?”
Helmer: “I don’t know about somebody who surprised me, although I’ve been asked were you surprised that you won all of these races that you targeted but won? And I said, ‘These candidates were amazing. I’m not surprised I won any of them. I’m just surprised that they all won.’ Because often elections don’t all go your way even though we had invested heavily in them both as individuals and with the resources to make sure they win. I think for me, you know, three that I’m really proud of in addition to the ones I already mentioned are Lily Franklin, Jessica Anderson, and Kimberly Pope Adams, three women who ran and lost narrowly in 2023 and now have been elected on their second try because they kept at it.”
Brooks: “One of the interesting aspects of this election is that some of those candidates that you’re so proud of and rightfully so outperformed the statewide candidates. That had to be a surprise.”
Helmer: “I think one of the things that we were really excited about was that when you ran campaigns that were focused on these candidates as individuals and allowed them to establish a brand separate from the national Democratic Party, that they were able to let their neighbors know that they were the kind of public servants that they could see in office. And it’s easier when you can see somebody as part of your community and connected to you to go out and cast a vote. And in most of our districts, our candidates outpaced both the lieutenant governor and the attorney general candidate. And I think that’s unusual. And I think it was related to the incredible campaigns that these candidates ran and the plan that the Speaker, myself, and our caucus had laid out a couple years back about how we would run these races.”
Brooks: “Now, I have to follow up on one of your comments there. You basically intimated that the Democratic Party’s brand is poor, and I don’t think that comes as a shock to anyone who’s been following the news, but you’re also suggesting that I guess part of your strategy had to be to overcome that.”
Helmer: “Yeah, I think what we’ve shown in Virginia is there’s a path out of the wilderness for Democrats nationally. When you run great candidates connected to the issues that matter to their communities running on a record of demonstrated success and a commitment to actually deliver on the things that matter to voters, you can win. And if that’s where we are spending our time, connecting with the American people, connecting with working-class Americans, connecting with people who fight every day to take care of their families, fighting on the issues that they care about, which is the cost of living today, it is worrying about whether their kids are going to have access to an excellent education, it’s worrying about whether the communities are safe. If that’s the space that we are in, then we have a real opportunity to win. And we are certainly differentiated from MAGA, who have demonstrated time and again they’re more worried about which bathroom a kid is using than whether or not that kid has access to an excellent school. And we’re going to be focused on that and I think that’s where we win.”
Brooks: “How effective was the polling in these races? Did they give you a good indication as to what was going to happen?”
Helmer: “Yeah, I think our polling helped us to understand the scope of possible even as folks thought we were crazy to be investing and unseating 14 Republicans – and we won 13 of those seats. So I think it was helpful if you understand that polls are not destiny, that they are a helpful tool in understanding the world of the possible, but they didn’t replace the hard work of candidates going door to door and actually speaking to people…our candidates themselves talked to thousands of their fellow voters. And so when they went and had discussions about what’s the commercial we want to run, no matter what the poll said, they could say, ‘Listen, this is what I am hearing myself in my community.’ And that makes a huge difference, much more than the polling or the data.”
Brooks: “Sure. But how much polling is usually done in these House races as compared to a statewide race?”
Helmer: “We probably did more than the downballot statewide candidates and certainly less than the gubernatorial races, but a fair amount, we ran a robust professional data program which included polling and also some other elements of of data gathering and and data such as testing ads. And we do something called modeling, which is a way of figuring out you know who is likely to be a swing voter to make sure that our candidates are talking to them directly.”
Brooks: “An area of concern that analysts identified in the poor Democratic performance in the presidential campaign was the turnout of certain elements of their base. This seemed to have turned around in Virginia this year. Is that correct? And if so, why?”
Helmer: “I think it’s correct. And I think I’d like to talk about a specific demographic, which is one of the things that I think we did is there’s this idea that you can’t motivate and mobilize young voters and that you can’t do it on the economic messages that matter to them and that you have to somehow go to the extremes to get young voters to come out and be with you. And we actually just focused on meeting young voters where they are. And I mentioned Lily Franklin earlier. There’s another candidate, Andrew Peyton, who didn’t win but got within 200 votes. And then Jessica Anderson. What those three races shared in common is large college campuses. And we invested heavily in helping to get college students registered to vote, encouraging them to vote early. We focused on where polling locations were. We brought buses to allow folks where there weren’t good polling locations to get there. We brought speakers like Governor Wes Moore in Maryland to these campuses to get students engaged and involved. And when you give young people something to vote for, they do show up for you…Virginia Tech for Lily Franklin, Jessica Anderson is on the William and Mary’s part of it. And then Andrew Peyton, that guy who came really close and we think is going to run again, was in James Madison University. And the biggest difference is we had done a lot of organizing for the previous two years on William and Mary’s campus and on Virginia Tech. James Madison was a new place for us. And so we’re going to continue to invest in that to make sure we get Andrew or somebody else elected there two years from now.”
Brooks: “Now, Republicans spoke glowingly of how they attracted Latino voters in the presidential election. They also spoke about how they had more success than expected in attracting Black men. What did you see this year?”
Helmer: “We didn’t see that. We saw that the denial of rights and the overreach by the Trump administration on issues that impact Latino voters is something that was noted. We saw a complete reversal of those gains. We saw that Black voters overwhelmingly responded to our candidates and our campaigns. And it mattered a lot that we were running a diverse slate of candidates in these districts. One of the things I talk about in women were very much aligned to us…We now have more women in the House of Delegates than we have Republicans.”
Brooks: “Is it correct that every county in the state at least move toward Democrats even in Republican strongholds?”
Helmer: “Every place that I have seen and every graphic I’ve seen showed movement towards Democrats across the board. And I think that was reflective of the strong campaigns that all hundred of our candidates ran in every single corner of the Commonwealth and the incredible candidate and now future governor we have in Abigail Spamber.”
Brooks: “What’s the plan to build on that in these traditionally Republican strongholds?”
Helmer: “We did and we partnered with organizations like Rural Ground Game run by Lynlee Thorne to make sure that even in those races that the House Democratic Caucus didn’t believe was winnable that we are continuing to build infrastructure there and mount candidates so that over time we can take the 64 seats we’ve now won and expand it to an ever larger majority and make sure that majority remains connected to the people of Virginia on the values that they care about. And you can’t do that unless you building infrastructure in places. So we left no corner uncovered, no place without a candidate, and we are continuing to listen and figure out ways in which we can continue to communicate and connect with rural Virginia. We actually have Democrats elected from significantly rural districts for the first time in a long time.”
Brooks: “Now, I’m sure there were some challenges during the campaign, no matter how great it is. Was it difficult coordinating with the campaigns of the three statewide candidates at any point?”
Helmer: “So I don’t think there was challenges in coordinating with the statewides, because frankly Governor Elect Spanberger said from the beginning that she was very committed to having a Democratic majority and Democratic ticket win. And she, the Speaker, myself and eventually the other statewide candidates really got together and thought about okay, what does this look like? And we acknowledged that there are challenges that naturally arise in the course of a campaign. So, a good example of this is that for Abigail Spanberger, winning a huge [number] of votes in Fairfax County makes a big difference to whether or not she wins the governor’s office. For the House of Delegates, we don’t have a single frontline district in Fairfax County. So, when it comes to how do you deploy the people who are going to be out there knocking on doors, recruiting and volunteers, there’s a natural tension between the needs of the governor’s race and the needs of the House of Delegates. The needs of the governor’s race are pretty aligned with the needs of the other statewide candidates. And from the beginning, we acknowledged that that is a challenge. And we thought about how do we overcome that challenge? And the way we did that is, frankly, through partnership with the governor’s team, now the governor-elect’s team, to make sure we had the most resources in the frontline districts and sufficient resources everywhere else to be able to lift all tides.”
Brooks: “How did your candidates handle the kerfluffle that beset the Jones campaign in the final weeks of the campaign?”
Helmer: “Look, I think most of the candidates felt like I did, that what Jay Jones said in private text messages is something nobody condones. On the other hand, we have a current attorney general who was unwilling to stand up for Virginians and their rights in the wake of unprecedented attempts on our democracy and our freedoms by the Trump administration. And in the absence of that, bad text messages aren’t going to be the thing. And so I was really proud of the fact that our candidates were focused on making sure that we have a unified ticket that is going to fight for Virginians and their values, even if not everybody has said everything you would hope they would say in their private text messaging.”
Brooks: “Considering how well Democrats did, was there anything that disappointed you or perhaps you thought you could have done a little better?”
Helmer: “I’m greedy. I would like the next 10 to be on the radar for us to So, one of the things is look, I’m a veteran. I served in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was a West Point graduate. You always do an after-action report, even when you have a successful mission. And so, we are going to spend a lot of time not just looking at what we did right, but figuring out where there are opportunities to improve going forward. Because I love having 64 seats, but I love it less than having 68 or 72 seats. And so the path to getting an enduring Democratic majority is by constantly learning. And so the the day after the election, the posters we had made up are an enduring Democratic majority. This was the first time in decades that Democrats had won back-to-back majorities. It’s the first time in decades that Democrats had increased on a majority that they already had and or either party. And so if we don’t learn, if we aren’t thoughtful in our approach, then it’s really hard to keep winning. And we’re committed to continuing to win.”
Brooks: “…how important were television advertisements, especially in those final weeks?”
Helmer: “Well, one of the things we did was really spend a lot of time understanding how people still watch TV, what are the programs that they’re likely to watch, and then making sure that those ads appeared on the programs where people still spend their time. There’s a lot of live sports. There was a lot of live shows and things like that that people are still watching on broadcast television, on cable television. And of course, viewers still consume television. They just consume it alongside a lot of other options these days. And so making sure that, you know, some people told me they couldn’t escape our candidates no matter what they did, I turned on my TV, I saw your guy’s ads. And then I went to YouTube and I saw your guys’ ads. And then I went to some other medium and I saw your guys ads. And I said, ‘That’s good. That’s indicative of the hard work our candidates did connecting with the individuals who are willing to throw in a few bucks here and there to help them with their campaigns.’
Brooks: “Is radio still significant?”
Helmer: “Radio still significant. It’s particularly significant in specific communities. We did a lot of investment in Black radio and communities where that matters and Latino radio and communities where that was able to connect with people. And so we did some big radio buys, but more often those there are communities that are really invested in their local radio stations for specific purposes and and those investments we think paid off and mattered.”
Brooks: “So, I take your point about there’s no substitute for meeting people face to face and having those in-depth conversations, but did any of your candidates do anything particularly creative with social media, perhaps along the lines of the Mamdani campaign in New York? Did someone do something that sort of stood out?”
Helmer: “They did. We had a candidate, Jessica Anderson, who’s really built a social media following and connects with people. She’s a runner. she’s run ultramarathons…so she had built an initial following just by having real conversations and being a runner and then she was able to translate that over to the political conversations that she was having about values the community…it’s really hard to build up a social media profile when it’s just your first attempt at politics, because people tend to tune it out. But when you have a social media profile in a different forum and then shift it over, it’s actually really helpful. So Jessica Anderson was really really thoughtful and creative about how she used TikTok particularly and Instagram as mediums. Lily Franklin built a whole social media profile in Virginia Tech around her and her dog doing stuff and it was really really successful. Her sign has her dog on it, her yard sign. So, I mean, people are doing really creative and interesting things with social media. It tends to be something that really shows off their individuality and allows them to connect with people, but you can’t force it. Some people have it and some people don’t.”
Brooks: “Now, I’ve always heard that the most effective media is usually so-called earned media versus paid media. Would your House candidates agree or was their experience a bit different?”
Helmer: “Well, I think earned media, which is essentially being in the news, is really helpful. And one of the challenges today is we’ve really seen an erosion of the local media environment. Programs like this are not the norm. And we have seen a real degradation in local news coverage. I mean, the Washington Post, for instance, has all but ceased covering local politics, and it was the last stronghold of a national newspaper with still a real local section. Hasn’t stopped altogether, but it’s an example we’ve seen. There’s only a handful of really good local outlets left and stories that would have been covered even two years ago were hard to get coverage of today. And so, our candidates love it when the work that they’re doing is talked about in local newspapers and local radio and local television. There’s just less of that than there was…And I hope that over time people step in to fill in the gap there because we’ve really lost something when we’ve lost that local coverage, the coverage of Richmond, the coverage was happening at the state level. Because while what happens in Washington, as we all know, particularly here in Northern Virginia, has a huge impact on our lives, what happens in Fairfax County, Fairfax County’s government, or Prince William County’s government, or what happens with us in Richmond probably has more day-to-day impact on how good your schools are, how good your roads are, how good your jobs are, than anything that happens in DC. And so I would love to see us work collectively as a nation, as a commonwealth, as a community to try to restore some of that local news so that our candidates can get that earned media, not for the sake of their campaigns, but actually for the sake of voters knowing what’s going on in their own communities and being able to respond to that through the Democratic process.”
Brooks: “Tell me a little bit more about what you saw when you were out there knocking on doors with your candidates, providing them I guess a measure of your experience to sort of help them as they ran for the very first time.”
Helmer: “What I like to do is two things. One is I like to go on the candidate on the door with candidates to hear what voters are telling them and to ask them what they heard. Right? Did you hear the same thing I heard? so we can have that discussion. And then I like to go separately and go knock on doors myself to see if the things that candidates are telling me about their campaigns seem to be what I’m hearing about from voters. But what I heard across Virginia time and again as I knocked on doors is certainly some local issues, but real universal concern about how expensive things are. Real concern that after my kids finish high school or college, are they going to be able to afford a home in our community or are they going to have to move somewhere else? Real concern about whether their kids are going to have access to the ability to take their family on vacation at some point. Will health care be affordable? Those were real concerns. If I have to go see a doctor, is it going to put my family in bankruptcy? Those are real concerns that we heard all over Virginia. We heard real concerns about, particularly in Northern Virginia, about what the attacks on our federal government are going to mean for the livelihoods of Virginians. We know that Virginians are deeply dedicated to public service as a whole. We have more, we have the third or fourth most veterans in the country. I think number one for female veterans in America. And we have a huge number of people who are serving in positions within the federal government either as government civilians in the military or as contractors. And many people would tell us on the doors about just how concerned they were about the direction of the federal government and really scared about the unwillingness of their representatives in many Republican-held seats to stand up for their lives and livelihoods in the wake of these attacks on freedoms and and government. And so that’s what we heard about and those are the things that our candidates were running to fix and I think it made a huge difference.”
Brooks: “Great. A person we haven’t talked about who I’m sure played a big role in this campaign as well was the speaker Don Scott. Tell me about his role. Maybe distinguish what he does versus what you do, but tell me a little bit about how he contributed to this successful campaign.”
Helmer: “Well, I hope every Virginian who hears this today goes up and looks up Speaker Don Scott because his story isn’t only an American story and it’s something that should give us hope in a challenging time. The Speaker was raised by a single mom in Houston. He joined…he gets a Navy ROTC scholarship to Texas A&M. He graduates from Texas A&M. Serves honorably in the Navy. Goes to law school and in law school he made a mistake. He gets convicted of a felony. He goes to prison for almost eight years. And a lot of people coming back from that, that’s it. I mean, as he’ll tell you, the judge told him at that time that his life was over. And he came back from that. He did every job you can think of, eventually got his rights restored in Virginia. Became an incredibly successful attorney, decided he wanted to give back to a country that despite the ways that it had hurt him, had also helped him and he wanted to help others. Ran for the House of Delegates and only five years later, less than five years later, became the minority leader and then became the first Black Speaker of the House in Virginia history. It’s an incredible story. And eventually was given a pardon by President Biden because of the good works he had done since being convicted of a felony. So really an incredible story, an incredible leader. And whereas I helped recruit the candidates and helped with some of it, he was instrumental to making sure we set the strategy out three years ago and is the leader of our caucus.”
Brooks: “The campaign is over. Now we look forward to a new governor and the agenda of the Democratic majority in the House of Delegates. What will be the priorities of the Democratic majority?”
Helmer: So, you heard on the campaign that we were hearing from voters about the cost of living and making sure we address costs in housing and medical care are right there at the top. You can be sure that we are going to pass the constitutional amendments that we started last year that ensure we protect reproductive freedom, the ability of loving people in Virginia to marry one another and voting rights. And you can expect that we are going to continue the work that we’ve done on public safety, making sure that we keep violent weapons out of the hands of violent people and making sure that we keep our streets and communities safe. And finally, you can expect that we’re going to continue to make sure that every single Virginian has access to a world-class education.”
Brooks: “Also high on the agenda will be the Democratic Congressional redistricting plan. So what should we expect to see there?”
Helmer: “Well, as you mentioned, we were stunned to see a president of the United States engage in pressuring lawmakers and the governor of Texas and North Carolina and other states to do his bidding to redraw districts so that he would not be held accountable for his deeply unpopular policies. And then even more devastated by the absolute lack of backbone by MAGA Republicans to say this is anti-democratic. And so we opened up a process, a constitutional amendment process in Virginia to allow us on a one-time basis in response to this to ensure that Virginia voters don’t have their voices squelched by what those in Texas and North Carolina are doing. So we will pass that amendment again, I expect, and then uniquely voters in Virginia will have the choice about how they want us to respond. And I would expect sometime in late spring, early summer, that that that might be in front of voters.”
Brooks: “Would that allow enough time for districts to be reconfigured in time for next year’s midterms?”
Helmer: “Absolutely. So we we we did this with an understanding that this is a crisis. It is a crisis for democracy. It is a crisis for the future and that we need to address it quickly. And one of the strategic things that Speaker Don Scott, you were asking, what does he do? He looked at this and said, ‘We cannot accept this. Virginians cannot accept this. We need to give voters the chance to respond.’ And and that’s what we’ve done.”
Brooks: “The three constitutional amendments that you mentioned – reproductive freedom, gay marriage, restoration of voting rights – would those three also go together along with the redistricting plan in sort of this giant referendum or are they going to be separated somehow?”
Helmer: “I think there’s real conversations about what’s the most appropriate way to do that. And my sense is that we have a really urgent need on the redistricting. On those other pieces, Virginia law – except for restoration of rights – the other two, abortion rights are currently protected in Virginia and gay marriage is currently protected in Virginia, we are concerned about that being changed, and so it’s fine if that happens in the fall. And restoration of rights will take a little bit of time to kick off. So it’s probably okay to do in the fall. But those conversations are happening about whether it’s easier for voters to see a single set of options or whether we should just keep it narrow to only the constitutional amendment allowing a one-time redistricting if these states continue on this path.”
Brooks: “And already we’re reading about concern about a repeal of Virginia’s right-to-work laws. If it comes before the governor, well first it has to be has to pass the legislature. So, I guess my first question should be do you see it passing? And then if it does, the question will be will the governor feel the need to sign it?”
Helmer: “What I’m hearing across Virginia is people are really concerned about whether their wages are keeping up, whether they’re going to be safe in their work environments. And I think unions play an absolutely critical role. I think also the governor has said that she wouldn’t sign a repeal if it came across her desk, a full repeal. And so I think we’re going to continue to have conversations about how we make sure that Virginiaians have the ability and the opportunity to join a union, to make sure that we create good paying middle class jobs in Virginia, that we continue to be a place that attracts business and industry. And I think those are ongoing conversations. I myself deeply believe that the history of the so-called right-to-work law is incredibly problematic. It was meant to suppress unions and I’m really hoping we evolve in a different direction. And I think we’re going to continue to have conversations between the legislature and the governor about what the best way to do that.”
Brooks: “In Northern Virginia, I think many people will be interested in whether there will be progress on increased funding for mass transportation in the region. Do you believe there’s an increased appetite for that expanded funding?”
Helmer: “I think there’s a real, it’s not just about expanded funding, but I think one of the challenges for mass transit in the DMV is a lack of constant funding and recurring funding. And I think this is a General Assembly that would really like to solve that for Virginia, to couple safety and reforms and a robust workforce with dedicated funding on an ongoing basis. And we’re in a difficult fiscal environment because of what MAGA has done in Washington. And a key component of making sure that life is affordable and that we get out of that fiscal environment is ensuring that mass transit options are affordable for Virginians. And so that’s a big focus of ours and I think we will see progress under this General Assembly and this governor elect in terms of addressing the affordability of mass transit options, the affordability of travel in general and specifically making sure that we efficiently and effectively deploy funding for Metro in a way that sustains it and is affordable for the taxpayer.”
Brooks: “Now, if mass transportation is a major concern in Northern Virginia, across the entire state, there’s great concern about the impact of data centers and their impact on the utility bills for consumers in the areas where they’re being located. Do you foresee increased state level regulation to ease the burden in these communities?”
Helmer: “We’ve seen a lot of work on this issue. We’ve got two things we really want to make sure we get right. One is we want Virginia to be a center for technology, innovation, invention, and new jobs. And we also want to do it responsibly in a way that makes sure that electricity remains affordable, that it is sustainable to generate the amount of electricity that’s needed, and that we are not destroying our ecosystem. And I think getting that balance right is a key role for the Commonwealth of Virginia and our government. We’ve done a number of studies about the path forward. I think one of my concerns and I think the concerns of many legislators in addition to myself is making sure that data centers which are creating this huge demand for electricity are paying their fair share of the infrastructure cost to build out that. And as they do that, we just need want to be thoughtful about things like siting and resource use to make sure that we’re protecting the long-term viability of Virginia’s natural resources and ecosystem as well as protecting our own pocketbooks.”
Brooks: “In addition, another issue that has come up, especially over the past few months, has been Governor Youngkin’s attempt to place new members on various boards, including at the University of Virginia and George Mason University, in his final year. The state senate is fighting it and so far it seems to be successful. What do you foresee happening in that realm?”
Helmer: “Isn’t it crazy, Russell, that we have people involved in Project 2025 who sought to undermine public education, who the governor of Virginia has been appointing to the boards of institutions of public education? And I’m very proud at the stand the General Assembly has taken to say enough is enough. That governance of these boards is based on the consent of the General Assembly, and that it was intended to forward the mission of public education. And Abigail Spamberger has already come out and said that one of her day one priorities will be to appoint new and effective board members to these boards. We’re really excited about that. UVA, Virginia Tech, George Mason, William and Mary, and all of the other universities in Virginia are a real gem of the Commonwealth that allows us to be competitive in the national and even the world stage. And this governor has done a huge amount to undermine them. And I’m really excited about a governor elect and Abigail Spamberger who is dedicated to the mission of public education, public research, and making sure that we are using our public university system, one of the best in the country, to generate jobs and future economic opportunity.”
Brooks: “Now, many members of our immigrant communities in particular are just quite upset about the actions by ICE in their communities. If we look at just the Pew poll that came out this weekend, we see a drastic change in the views of Latinos concerning the president, and they believe that he has gone too far in terms of his deportation policies. Is there anything that the state can do under Democratic leadership to curtail these activities and put our Latino neighbors at ease?”
Helmer: “What is happening right now is unconscionable. Without due process, without listening to the law, we have a president who is arbitrarily detaining people, including US citizens, using ICE. And it is unacceptable, being done often extrajudicially and at times in direct violation of judicial orders. And it is not just the Latino community that feels it has gone so far. It is almost all Americans. And it is time to put a stop to that. I myself am looking at legislation that would make sure that when we use the National Guard, it’s used in furtherance of US law and US national policy and in accordance with existing federal law, and gives the governor and the General Assembly some opportunity to review that. I think we’ll be looking at many of those policies in the coming months to ensure that we do have safe-and-secure borders, but we are protecting US citizens, people lawfully in the United States and preventing arbitrary use of force and detention in something that is seen much more often in third world dictatorships than it is in America.”
Brooks: “We have less than a minute remaining. But Speaker Scott mentioned that one of the areas that will be important for Democrats and the House of Delegates is to show restraint, maybe not to overreach now that they have such a substantial majority. What do you think he meant by that?”
Helmer: “I think he means we should be bold in addressing the issues that confront Virginians every day. We have a mandate to do that. That mandate is focused on the cost of living. It’s focused on keeping communities safe. It’s focused on education. And that’s where we should focus our efforts in the coming months.”
