New Podcast Series: Federal Fallout

Transcript:

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi, a Virginia political analyst. This is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections, a new podcast series that will provide updates this year as the elections play out in Virginia.

00:15.54

Sam Shirazi

This first episode will give a big picture overview of what's on the ballot this year. Future episodes will delve into all the key races. Today, we'll also talk about a potential GOP governor primary,

00:28.44

Sam Shirazi

And finally, we'll talk about the role of Doge in the election and the fallout from the changes in the federal government. So to begin with, I’ll want to give a brief overview of what's on the ballot and also what's going on in terms of the state of play.

00:45.73

Sam Shirazi

So the conventional wisdom is that the party out of power, that means the party not in the White House, tends to win the Virginia governor's election. And that's been true in every election going back till 1977, except in 2013 Democrat when democrat Terry McAuliffe was able to win even though Obama was in the White House.

01:07.21

Sam Shirazi

And the last time a Republican has won the governor's race with a Republican in the White House was all the way back in 1973 when Richard Nixon was president. So a long, long time ago.

01:20.87

Sam Shirazi

So all that's to say is the conventional wisdom is that Democrats start off with an advantage this year just purely because of the fact that they are not in the White House. And then you could add on top of that the fact that there currently is a Republican governor in the governor's mansion with Governor Glenn Youngkin.

01:40.76

Sam Shirazi

Voters tend to like to see changes between the parties in in the governor's mansion. Not always, but you do see that swing where if there's a Republican in the governor's mansion, Democrats might want to switch over to a Democrat and vice versa. So that's kind of how things start off, I think, right?

01:59.81

Sam Shirazi

Most people would say the Democrats have a slight edge right now. So I've talked about the governor's race. I think most people, when they think about the 2025 Virginia elections, they think about a governor's race.

02:11.11

Sam Shirazi

And obviously that's the top of the ticket. That's the most important race. It's important. That's the one national media pays attention to, but that's not the only race on the ticket. And I'm going to talk about some of the other ah races as well, but let's start with the governor's race. So the governor's race, currently there are,

02:27.72

Sam Shirazi

Two front runners for each party. There is on the Democratic side, former Congressman Abigail Spanberger. And on the Republican side, there is current Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears.

02:39.72

Sam Shirazi

We'll talk a little bit about potential GOP primary in a little bit, but but those are the two main candidates right now. And obviously, whoever wins that election is important, but I think the margin will also matter. And what I mean by that is, obviously, if the Republicans win, even if it's a close win, that's going to be a good night, especially with a Republican in the White House.

03:00.47

Sam Shirazi

I think, as I mentioned, most people expect the Democrats to win. So if Spanberger wins by, let's say, a narrow margin, i think – It'll be good, but I think some people will be surprised that she might not have won by more. And I think that's really the big question is how much is the margin going to be if the Democrats are able to win?

03:23.53

Sam Shirazi

Is it going to be a one-point win, a two-point win, or could it we see something similar to what happened in 2017 when Trump was last in the White House where Ralph um Northam was able to win by almost eight points?

03:36.05

Sam Shirazi

So that's the governor's race. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on it right now because I think we'll talk about it in future episodes and even later in this episode. I want to just quickly touch on the other races that are on the ballot. So There is also a Lieutenant Governor's race and both sides are going to have a primary in that race. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on it right now because I'll probably do an episode on that in the future.

03:57.63

Sam Shirazi

Lieutenant Governor doesn't get as much attention as a Governor, but is the presiding officer of the Virginia Senate and also is able to to break ties in the Virginia Senate. And currently ah there's a narrow 21-19 Democratic majority.

04:12.15

Sam Shirazi

So there are times when there might be a 2020 tie in the state Senate. And so it's important for the parties to be able to break the tie. So it is important in that sense. And then obviously if something happens the governor, the Lieutenant governor would step in. So that also plays an important role with the governor, with the Lieutenant governor's office.

04:31.99

Sam Shirazi

The final statewide office on the ballot is the attorney general's race. I think the attorney general's race doesn't always get as much attention as it should. So currently, Virginia has a Republican attorney general in Jason Miyares. He is running for a re-election. He is the only statewide official we're running for re-election this year.

04:52.38

Sam Shirazi

And there will be a Democratic primary. There are two Democrats running, former delegate Jay Jones and Henrico Commonwealth's attorney Shannon Taylor. And the reason I say the the attorney general's race is important is because this office is one that can affect at least a little bit of what happens in D.C. in the sense that the attorney general is able to sue the current administration if they just choose to. And we saw under the Biden administration, Attorney General Jason Meares joined several lawsuits against the Biden administration.

05:27.33

Sam Shirazi

However, since President Trump has taken office, he has not joined, Jason Miyares has not joined any of the lawsuits against President Trump. And obviously, if we get a Democratic attorney general, much more likely and almost certain that they will join whoever the Democratic attorney general in Virginia would be.

05:47.07

Sam Shirazi

would be able to join some of these lawsuits that have been brought against the Trump administration. And so, I spent a little bit of time in the Attorney General's race because I think it doesn't get the same amount of attention as the governor's race. But obviously, with everything going on and all the lawsuits, it does play an important role in what's going on in DC. And and later in the episode, I'll talk more about how what's going on in DC will affect the Virginia governor's race.

06:13.89

Sam Shirazi

So that's already three races on the ballot, but that's not it. There will also be 100 House of Delegates seats up for re-election. That's every seat in the House of Delegates.

06:25.44

Sam Shirazi

The state Senate is not up for election. So it is just the House of Delegates, but it's every seat. And currently the Democrats hold a narrow 51-49 majority. I think, again, the conventional wisdom is the Democrats start off with a little bit of of an advantage to retain their majority, just given the fact that the party that's not in the White House tends to do well in Virginia elections, state elections.

06:50.14

Sam Shirazi

So the one thing I did want to highlight with the House of Delegates races, and we'll talk more about the races probably in future podcasts, is that – There are three constitutional amendments that the Democrats have proposed. One of them is to protect reproductive rights.

07:08.67

Sam Shirazi

One of them is to remove language from the Virginia Constitution, banning same-sex marriage, and instead put language in protecting marriage equality. And the final amendment is to protect voting rights for people who have been convicted of felonies and who who have served their term.

07:25.34

Sam Shirazi

Currently, Virginia is the only is one of the only states where if you've convicted been convicted of a felony, you lose your right to vote for the rest of your life unless the governor restores that right.

07:36.45

Sam Shirazi

What this amendment would do is that once you serve your sentence, if you've been convicted of a felony, then you would have the right to vote restored automatically. So those three have all passed the General Assembly this year because the Democrats control the House of Delegates and the State Senate.

07:52.80

Sam Shirazi

However, in Virginia... It has to pass in two sessions of the General Assembly with an election in between. The election in between will be this November. And if Democrats can win the majority again in the Virginia House of Delegates, they will be able to put those constitutional amendments on the ballot in 2026. So in the 2026 midterm elections, there potentially could be those three constitutional ballots on the amendment in Virginia.

08:19.68

Sam Shirazi

But Democrats would have to win the House of Delegates majority again this November. So that's why House of Delegates, besides just being able to pass normal laws, also has the ability to pass those constitutional amendments. So those elections are also going to be really important.

08:34.12

Sam Shirazi

There are also a bunch of local offices, county boards, school boards. Probably won't get into too much of that on this podcast. But just stay tuned for future episodes because we will cover a lot of those. The races that I've men