Hi everyone, I am Sam Shirazi and this is federal fallout the 2025 Virginia elections, this is a special bonus episode looking at potential foreign policy fallout in the Virginia elections and i'm going to be talking more so about the historical fallout and three Virginia elections in 2001. Sam Shirazi, 2005 2021 and obviously the reason i'm bringing this up is because of the conflict right now between Israel and Iran.
00:24.59
Sam Shirazi
And I just wanted to kind of touch base about that and why it might influence the Virginia elections. I did want to note that obviously Tuesday is the Democratic primary. you got to hear from Chaz about some of his insights about what's going to be happening on Tuesday. I'm hoping Monday morning I will be releasing my final predictions for the Tuesday primary. thanks.
00:44.78
Sam Shirazi
ah You'll have to wait a little bit longer to get my input on that. But I did want to talk about this issue right now that's going on ah in the Middle East because obviously it's possible things die down and it doesn't end up being that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things and no one will really remember in November. It's also possible that it becomes a prolonged conflict that ah perhaps drags in the United States. Obviously, the immediate impact has been a spike in oil prices. So there's also a risk of long term rises in oil prices.
01:16.67
Sam Shirazi
And obviously, one of the things that hurt President Biden during his term was the spike in oil prices and the rise in in gas prices because of the Ukraine war. And it's possible that would happen again ah with this current conflict.
01:30.25
Sam Shirazi
And I did want to note that there are um people in Virginia who have family and friends both in Iran and Israel, and obviously it's a difficult time for those individuals. um And I just wanted to talk about this issue because i think a lot of times with the Virginia elections, we think of them as you know state elections, just domestic policy. But I do think there have been those three instances where foreign policy has gotten into the Virginia elections. And I wanted to kind of talk about that from a historical perspective.
01:56.10
Sam Shirazi
And then talk about, you know, perhaps what would happen this year. So in terms of the historical perspective, I think the first really in modern history, big election where foreign policy influenced the Virginia elections was in 2001. And it's pretty crazy to think about it now. But obviously, there was the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks, which were Awful. And, you know, most people think of the Twin Towers in New York, but the Pentagon was also hit in Arlington, Virginia, and that is in Virginia.
02:25.64
Sam Shirazi
a lot of people don't think of Virginia as being attacked on 9-11, but ah there was a... terrorist attack in Virginia on 9-11 and tragic tragically people lost their lives.
02:36.20
Sam Shirazi
So, you know, there was a direct big impact to Virginia from those terrorist attacks. And then obviously the next month, the the U.S. began ah military operations in Afghanistan against the Taliban.
02:47.92
Sam Shirazi
And that was all going on while the Virginia elections were going to happen in early November 2001. And, you know, it was a little bit before my time. I don't quite remember everything related to the Virginia elections. I remember 9-11, but I don't remember um its impact on the Virginia elections.
03:03.79
Sam Shirazi
And I looked at some old articles and basically it seemed like the campaign was paused for a while because obviously the country was going through a lot and people were processing it and they weren't really super tuned into a Virginia state election. And I do think it kind of Lowered the temperature of the election. um It's a little bit hard to imagine now, but there was a time after nine eleven immediately after 9-11, where Americans really came together and there wasn't this huge partisanship that we see today.
03:29.77
Sam Shirazi
And Americans were a lot more united. So I think there was a sense that neither campaign really wanted to attack each other. And, you know, i think while all that was going on in the background, it's kind of amazing that it didn't have a bigger impact on the election. And I think both sides just kind of wanted to focus on more of the domestic issues and not really bring nine eleven into the Virginia elections, even though it had happened, you know, and it was just fresh in everyone's mind. And if you were around after 9-11, obviously that was basically the only thing people were thinking about.
04:02.56
Sam Shirazi
And so, yeah. It was kind of an amazing thing that, you know less than two months after that, ah Virginia had an election. It's also kind of amazing that Mark Warner was able to win that election, considering ah how popular The Republican president, George W. Bush, was at the time because of the aftermath of 9-11 and a rally around the flag kind of feeling in the country. So that was the first Virginia elections where I think there was a big impact by foreign policy. But it's kind of ironic that it mainly just kind of slowed things down and made the campaign a little less intense and and kind of put it in the back burner, which.
04:35.73
Sam Shirazi
I guess ultimately helped Mark Warner because it was more focused on some of these domestic issues and he was able to win, even though the Republican president at that time was very popular. And so that's kind of interesting because usually you think the the president is not popular and that's why the party out of the White House does well in Virginia elections. But there you had a Virginia election where the party in the White House at the time was very popular and yet Mark Warner was still able to win.
05:01.11
Sam Shirazi
All right. Now let's move on four years to 2005 when George W. Bush was no longer popular, even though he was reelected. I talked about this in a previous episode.
05:11.30
Sam Shirazi
pause. In 2005, the impacts of the Iraq war were really starting to be felt, both in terms of the cost of the war, the number of troops that were dying. And it was one of those things where people were seeing the images every night, troops dying in Iraq, and it wasn't going well. And obviously, Virginia is very impacted by
05:31.29
Sam Shirazi
The military, it's a military dependent state. People knew people their friends and family were being sent over to Iraq, and sometimes they were being sent on multiple tours and it was creating a strain on the military. And while I think initially the war was supported by most Americans, I think by the time 2005,
05:50.07
Sam Shirazi
started to um happen, the war was a lot less popular. And I think ah Americans felt that they were being trapped in you know a civil war in Iraq, where a lot of people weren't even sure why we were there anymore.
06:03.63
Sam Shirazi
And so I think all of that was in the backdrop. I don't think explicitly the election was necessarily about the Iraq war because it was a Virginia local state election. But I think it, one, energizes a lot of Democrats and Democratic activists to get involved in that election.
06:17.52
Sam Shirazi
And certainly it really dragged down George W. Bush's approval ratings to the point that um he came and campaigned late in that election and it didn't really help the Republicans. And if anything, it backfired on the Republicans. So I thought it was interesting that you had this election where it wasn't.
06:33.86
Sam Shirazi
purely a referendum on Iraq, but it it was in the background. And I think that helped the Democrats and that helped him came win in 2005 with that election and being able to ah follow more corner into the governor's mansion.
06:47.09
Sam Shirazi
All right, so um I would say the next few Virginia elections weren't really heavily influenced by foreign policy, but we can fast forward to 2021 where there was the withdrawal from Afghanistan that happened in the summer of 2021.
07:00.61
Sam Shirazi
And obviously, while I feel like most Americans probably supported leaving Afghanistan, The way that it happened and the chaotic nature of it and the fact that um some U.S. troops were killed and there were images that were difficult to watch of Afghans trying to cling on to the U.S. planes while they were leaving. I think that all created a obviously a negative impression on the American people about the way President Biden was handling the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
07:26.76
Sam Shirazi
um I think Virginia being a military heavy state, a lot of people may have served in Afghanistan. I think seeing the way that it ended was difficult for many people. And, you know, at the end of the day, President Biden was in office, and I think he took the blame for the way it it was handled, even though, as I mentioned, I think most people wanted to leave Afghanistan. They didn't want to necessarily see it end like that. And the fact that Taliban were able to take over Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrew.
07:54.38
Sam Shirazi
And, i you know, kind of reading between the lines, you you hear from some of the McAuliffe campaign people that, you know, it was pretty competitive ah before the withdrawal from Afghanistan. But then after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, I think that's when things really went south for the McAuliffe campaign. And not to say that that was everything and that's the reason they lost. I mean, there were other issues. There was COVID, there was a schools issue. um But I think in the background, there was that ah withdrawal from Afghanistan that led to kind of a pretty sharp decline in President Biden's approval ratings. And it never really approved, his approval never really rebounded after it went down after the um withdrawal from Afghanistan. So I think all that's to say is, ah you know, it was one of the many factors, maybe one of the straws that broke the camel's back in 2021, where most people had thought at the beginning year, the Democrats were going to win Virginia because President Biden had won it and by 10 points in 2020.
08:48.18
Sam Shirazi
And then by the end of um 2021, Glenn Youngkin was able to win Virginia by two points because of all these factors and it was this perfect storm. And I do think one of the perfect storms was Afghanistan because if you look at the vote in Hampton Roads, which is a very military dependent area, ah the Democrats just generally didn't do well in Hampton Roads in 2021. And I think that was part of the reason.
09:10.92
Sam Shirazi
All right. And, you know, I don't want to speculate too much right now because what's going on between Israel and Iran is obviously very fluid. There's a lot of ways it could end. um You know, there was a few weeks ago where it looked like maybe ah India and Pakistan were about to go to war, but that seemed to have been averted.
09:27.73
Sam Shirazi
So you never really know, especially in something as unpredictable as this. But, um you know, I will say that it's possible this gets dragged on and by November there there could still be things going on um related to this conflict and that might influence American politics. Obviously, America could get um dragged into the war if um it feels like it needs to be defending Israel and needs to um you deploy troops and and other resources to the Middle East.
09:55.79
Sam Shirazi
And I think it's just one of those things where foreign policy is very unpredictable. And it often has these impacts in elections in a way that you just can't control for other like other things where are a little bit more predictable.
10:09.64
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, obviously um one of the things that hurt Democrats last year was um the war in Gaza. And, you know, that happened in October 2023. But um the effects were still felt a year after that in November 2024. And i think that's one of the reasons. Obviously, there were many reasons why the Democrats lost in 2024. But I do think the war in Gaza was one of them.
10:29.06
Sam Shirazi
So while, yes, we're in the middle of June, um it's possible by the November, no one remembers this. It's also possible these things tend to drag on. Obviously, the Ukraine war started in 2022. It's still going on.
10:40.49
Sam Shirazi
um You know, once these wars start, sometimes they're hard to end. And the longer a war drags on, but usually the worse it is for the party in the White House because people blame the president when a conflict is not resolved.
10:53.26
Sam Shirazi
So I'm not saying that's going to happen this time. i do think there's a possibility. um you know i don't imagine this election is going to be a referendum on what's going on necessarily in the Middle East. But if you think about...
11:06.08
Sam Shirazi
the potential rise in in oil prices, and you think about some of the bigger implications on the economy, it's possible, it's part of the overall impression about what's going on in DC. And you know part of what President Trump ran on in 2024 was this promise to bring back um stability and and order and strength. And you know he criticized President Biden for the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
11:29.52
Sam Shirazi
And if people don't really feel like the world's getting more orderly and things are more peaceful, um it's possible Republicans will pay the price because um they campaigned on that. And the Democrats certainly didn't benefit from the fact that there were wars going on in 2024. And um so we'll we'll just have to wait and see. I don't want to dwell on it too much. I do think...
11:50.39
Sam Shirazi
The historical analogies are kind of interesting to think about when foreign policy fell into the Virginia elections. um I kind of wanted to do this episode to talk about something a little bit different because next few days are going to be really about the primaries, um even though all this other stuff is going on in the world. So keep your eye keep keep an eye out. I do want to release a podcast right before the primary about the Virginia elections.
12:15.57
Sam Shirazi
ah primary and ah about my predictions. I think it's going to be a little bit hard to make any sort of final calls, but I'll try my best to come up with something. And so hopefully you listen to that. I hope you found the ah podcast with Chaz interesting to hear from his perspective.
12:30.80
Sam Shirazi
And I appreciate everyone listening. um you know There's going to be a lot of twists and turns in this campaign. It's still you know crazy to think that we're over four months, four and a half months away from the election. a lot of things can still happen. So please follow along. I've gotten good feedback and i appreciate everyone who's been listening and sharing the podcast and writing reviews and feel free to keep doing that if you enjoy the podcast. But I will join you soon with my primary predictions.
12:59.14
Sam Shirazi
And this has been Federal Fallout and I hope everyone has good weekend and then I'll see you on Monday.
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