00:00.70
Sam Shirazi
Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over two new Virginia polls, talk about early voting picking up, and finally, we will talk about Elon Musk perhaps exiting the political stage.
00:17.57
Sam Shirazi
But first, I wanted to note the passing of Congressman Jerry Connolly. This is an immense loss for Northern Virginia and all of Virginia. And I know that he will be missed in Fairfax, which he represented for so long.
00:32.81
Sam Shirazi
Everyone knows how much he loved Fairfax and how hard he fought for it. I will always be grateful for his advocacy of the Silver Line, which brought Metro to Dulles Airport and led to the redevelopment of Tysons, Herndon, Reston, and all the way out to Loudoun.
00:49.57
Sam Shirazi
I think this will be an important part of his legacy, and I just wanted to make that note of his passing and send my best wishes to his family, friends, and his colleagues.
01:00.87
Sam Shirazi
Okay, now we will move on to the first Virginia polls we have gotten in a while. The first poll was from Roanoke College, and it had Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger at 43% of the vote, Republican nominee Winsome Earle Sears at 26% of the vote, and Undecided at 28%.
01:22.63
Sam Shirazi
And in terms of Trump's approval rating, it was 31 to 65 disapproving of President Trump's approval. And in terms of Yunkin, he had a 46 to 48 percent disapproval, which I believe this is the first poll I've seen, at least in a long time, where Governor Yunkin actually had a negative approval ratings.
01:42.91
Sam Shirazi
So I wanted to caveat a couple of things about this poll. One is that there's just a lot of undecideds. I mean, it's pretty rare to see a poll where you have the Democratic and Republican candidates listed that has that level of undecideds.
01:57.37
Sam Shirazi
I there probably are a decent amount of undecideds, just given that the election is still a few months away and people aren't really thinking about it. But I think if you put a D and an R next to someone's name, usually, at least in a state like Virginia,
02:09.12
Sam Shirazi
that'll get you up to at least 40% off the bat. And so the fact that there's 28% undecided is a little bit odd in this poll, but you know it shows that Spanberger definitely has maybe higher name ID and or she has higher support among her base in the Democratic Party.
02:27.36
Sam Shirazi
Maybe that's something that Lieutenant Governor Earle Sears needs to work on to get her numbers up. think at a minimum, even on the worst possible night for the Republicans, Winston Earle Sears is going to get at least 40% of the vote. So I just, I would kind of caveat some of these numbers.
02:44.20
Sam Shirazi
And I will say that I think, you know, in my personal opinion, I think this poll is a little bit too good to be true for Democrats. In terms of Trump's approval rating, like I think, you know, I certainly think he's he's negative in Virginia.
02:57.04
Sam Shirazi
I don't know if he's at 31% approval in Virginia. I mean, if you told me he's maybe at 35% or 40%, that seems a little bit more believable. I think 31% is really low, given that, you know, again, Virginia is not a super blue state. I think, you know, on a and any random night, the Republicans are going to get 40% of the vote.
03:16.62
Sam Shirazi
And so not every person that votes for the Republicans is always going to be supporting President Trump. But it's hard for me to believe that he's at 31% approval in Virginia. And then with Governor Youngkin, you know, this is the first poll that I've seen in a while that he's had negative approval ratings.
03:33.78
Sam Shirazi
I imagine his approval probably has come down from some of the highs that you saw earlier because of some of the things that have been going on with the federal fallout and the impact of cuts to the federal government.
03:45.27
Sam Shirazi
But at the same time, you know, it's Virginia governors usually, I mean this is a trend that's gone back, you know, 20 years or so, they almost always have positive approval for whatever reason, people like their Virginia governor, it doesn't matter if they're Democrat, doesn't matter if they're Republican, they almost always have positive approval for whatever reason.
04:02.90
Sam Shirazi
And it's possible that polarization is catching up to that. And now people are starting to maybe not like their governor if they feel like you know, the federal cuts are hitting Virginia. But overall, I would say like, this is certainly a good poll for the Democrats. Sometimes when the polls seem a little bit too good to be true, I tend to be a little bit cautious and take it with a grain of salt. But I think it's the couple things that are kind of indisputable right now is almost certainly Trump has a negative approval in Virginia.
04:32.12
Sam Shirazi
and I think most people would say that the The Democrats with Abigail Spanberger have a little bit of an edge right now in the governor's race. So I think you're kind of seeing that reflected in this poll. Maybe the exact numbers aren't exactly correct, but I think it's kind of in the ballpark of where I'm seeing things.
04:47.54
Sam Shirazi
Okay. And now there was another poll put out the same day. This one was from an organization called Virginia Free, which is, I would say, a more pro-business deregulation type organization. it was led by a former GOP delegate, Chris Saxman.
05:06.57
Sam Shirazi
They put out a poll from Harris X, which is a polling organization. And their poll showed little bit of a different thing than the Romano College poll. So this poll showed Abigail Spanberger at 52%, Winsome Earle Sears at 48%. It had the Trump approval as 44 to 56 disapproval, and it had the Youngkin numbers as 54 to 41% approved.
05:36.47
Sam Shirazi
I think the Trump approval with being negative 12 in Virginia, it's also possible. I think, you know, given his national numbers, you would think it would be a little bit lower than negative 12 approval. Youngkin plus 13 approval in Virginia probably sounds maybe closer to the ballpark.
05:52.01
Sam Shirazi
than the Roanoke College number. So long story short, I mean, you never want to just take one poll and kind of hyper fixate on the numbers in one poll. I think if you have the Roanoke College poll and then you have the Harris X poll and you kind of throw them together and you kind of get a sense of, okay, what's going on.
06:06.38
Sam Shirazi
And I think it both those polls, you know, even if you look at the Harris X poll, like the most favorable you would think for Trump would be negative 12 approval in Virginia. And that's just a very hard number for the Republicans to run on. So
06:19.07
Sam Shirazi
Frankly, I think negative 12 approval in Virginia is a good outcome type night for the Virginia GOP. It's very possible that Trump would have a lower approval in Virginia just given the impact of the federal cuts.
06:30.54
Sam Shirazi
And so if you're looking at that environment and you're looking at, you know, Spanberger being up by four, I mean, that's kind of in the ballpark. I mean, frankly, you know, this is just my personal guess right now.
06:41.80
Sam Shirazi
I think that's kind of the lower end of what the Democrats might be able to get. i think the upper end might be, I don't think Spanberger is going to be winning by the number in the Roanoke College poll, which is 17%. But I do think, you know, double digit, like 10 point lead is not out of the question.
06:59.57
Sam Shirazi
I don't know if that's the number right now, but by November, we might be getting to that point when all the voters tune in. And the campaign issues really start hitting. And so all that's to say is I think these polls are interesting. We haven't had a polls in a long time. I'm glad we got them.
07:15.42
Sam Shirazi
But I wouldn't overthink them. i think the the main takeaway is, you know, and if you ask observers on both sides, they'll say that they think the Democrats right now are up a little bit in Virginia.
07:28.05
Sam Shirazi
And that doesn't mean they're definitely going to win in November. A lot of time still left. But I do think, you know, you have to just kind of get it ah sense of where things are right now and, I think it's reasonable to assume Democrats have a little bit of an edge.
07:41.17
Sam Shirazi
We'll have to wait and see what happens in the summer. Typically in the summer, there's a little bit of a lull. And then after Labor Day, that's kind of the old adage, that's the beginning of the fall campaign. And early voting starts pretty quickly right after Labor Day.
07:54.53
Sam Shirazi
And so we'll have to get another pulse check at the end of summer to see where things are. I think this was helpful to get it at this time the year. I'm sure we'll get some more polls. I'll obviously talk about those polls. And I don't always want to spend all this time talking about polls, but I do think it's important because we haven't gotten them in a while.
08:12.48
Sam Shirazi
think they both roughly show the same thing. Again, not getting hyper fixated on the numbers, but I think both polls show that Trump's approval is negative in Virginia. And I think the political reality is, is if Trump has a negative approval, and if it's hitting double digit negative approval, that means the Democrats are almost certainly going to have an edge in the governor's race right now. And, you know, the exact margin of the governor's race.
08:36.04
Sam Shirazi
matters for down ballot for lieutenant governor, attorney general, House of delegates. So I'm not saying, you know, we'll need more precise information down the line with some more polls when we get closer to the election day to get a sense of where things are going.
08:49.41
Sam Shirazi
But at least at the top of the ticket, think most people are anticipating that the Democrats have a little bit of an edge right now. And we'll just have to wait and see where things shape up as the summer goes on.
09:00.79
Sam Shirazi
All right. Now let's move on to early voting, which is definitely picking up steam. It's hard to believe. We basically had like three weeks of early voting already. And we have more early voting all the way up to the June 17th primary.
09:13.48
Sam Shirazi
The first half of early voting, which we've seen so far, I would say primarily is from the permanent absentee list. So that's a lot of mail ballots coming in. There have been a trickle of in-person early votes, but definitely the bulk of the early vote right now is by mail. So I would say by the time this podcast is released, there's probably going to be almost 75,000 ballots either cast or being sent in through the mail.
09:38.29
Sam Shirazi
And you know the vast majority of that, more than two-thirds of that, are going to be mail votes that have come through the permanent absentee list. And I know I talk about the permanent absentee list a lot, but I just wanted to kind of show you how much it's changed Virginia voting patterns.
09:51.82
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, how many votes are just coming in through the permanent permanent absentee list? I mean, we've already got tens of thousands of votes in the permanent absentee list. And, you know, it's just skyrocketed the number of early votes that we see, particularly early in the process. So I will say, as we get closer to election day or primary day,
10:11.66
Sam Shirazi
There'll be a lot more in-person votes. The mail but ballots will start to slow down because a lot of them, people have already filled it out and sent it in. So I do expect the in-person early vote to really pick up. It's going to pick up a lot when there's two Saturdays of early voting.
10:25.31
Sam Shirazi
That means people are going to be able to go during the weekend when maybe they don't have to work. And so I think those two Saturdays will see a lot more early voting. And I'd be curious where the final early voting number ends. I mean, at this point, it's hard to predict, but I wouldn't be surprised if we hit 150,000 just in the early vote.
10:42.24
Sam Shirazi
And again, a bulk a lot of that is going to come from the permanent absentee list. And that's why we're seeing so much early vote right now in Virginia. And what all this early voting is doing is just turning it. It's really ratcheting up all the turnout in Virginia overall. And I'll talk about a few elections to give you some context. So in 2013, there was a Democratic primary.
11:03.32
Sam Shirazi
for lieutenant governor and attorney general, but there was no governor primary. And that's very similar to what happened right now in Virginia. But in that election, there were just 145,000 total votes in the Democratic primary in 2013.
11:16.44
Sam Shirazi
And remember, I said this year, just in the early vote in Virginia, we're going to get probably close to that, if not more than that. So it just shows you what changes in early voting And also engagement can do when in 2013 we had 145,000 total votes.
11:33.02
Sam Shirazi
And this year in Virginia, we're probably going to have roughly that number in just the early voting. And then obviously we're going to bunch of election day votes as well. So I think and we'll talk about a couple other elections to show you why the turnout has gone up so much in Virginia.
11:47.48
Sam Shirazi
All right. I will talk about the 2017 Democratic primary for governor. And there was also lieutenant governor primary that year. And that year, there was a lot of turnout in Virginia. There was almost 545,000 votes in 2017.
12:04.13
Sam Shirazi
Now, obviously, a governor's race is going to bump up the numbers a lot compared to a lieutenant governor's race. But I also think a lot of that was from the increased engagement that we saw after the 2016 election. And I do think in a lot of these primaries, there's kind of a time period where before the Trump era, where there were some people who voted, but not a whole lot. And then the Trump era just really ratcheted up engagement among Democrats and Republicans.
12:30.97
Sam Shirazi
And so we saw in 2017, even before all the changes to early voting, that there was 545,000 early votes in Virginia. So we went from hundred forty five thousand In 2013, with just the lieutenant governor's race, 2016, Donald Trump's elected.
12:48.07
Sam Shirazi
And that's just four years. So really a huge explosion, over three times the number of people voting from 2013 to 2017 because of the increased engagement that Donald Trump brought into the process.
12:59.99
Sam Shirazi
All right, now let's fast forward to 2021. And remember, in 2021, it was a lot easier to early vote because the Democrats had removed the need to have an excuse to early vote.
13:11.32
Sam Shirazi
And so it was much easier to early vote. The permanent absentee list hadn't been up and running yet, but still, it was a lot easier to early vote in 2021 than was 2017. And yet, in 2021, was only about 495,000 votes in the Democratic primaries.
13:24.07
Sam Shirazi
And if you think about it, that's a drop from 2017 from where we had almost 545,000 votes in the Democratic primary to 495,000. And, you know, I think at the time that should have been a little bit of a red flag because early voting was easier.
13:44.40
Sam Shirazi
So you would think there would be even more people turning out for a governor primary in 2021 compared to However, obviously, 2020, Joe Biden was elected president. And so we didn't have the same level of maybe and engagement or enthusiasm among Democrats in 2021.
14:00.91
Sam Shirazi
And so maybe the numbers in the primary were a little bit of a preview of what happened in November of 2021 when the Democrats lost the governor's race. And if you think about what happened in 2017, the Democrats got a big win in the governor's race because obviously the people who came out in the primary, they were engaged. They kept voting in the in the general election.
14:20.67
Sam Shirazi
And in 2021, we just had a different environment. Democrats were not as fired up, and we saw that eventual outcome in November. So I give you all those numbers to kind of think about 2025 and where we are.
14:33.78
Sam Shirazi
So I'm guessing we're going to get at least 150,000 roughly early votes in Virginia. And typically the rule in Virginia is that a third of the votes come early, and then two-thirds of them come during the actual election day.
14:49.97
Sam Shirazi
I think this year, probably there's going to be a little bit more on the early voting side just because of the permanent absentee list. So the permit absentee list is like bumping up turnout because some people who probably wouldn't have voted in the primary But because they got that a mail ballot in the mail, they realized there was a primary, they started to vote. So the permanent absentee list definitely starts bumping up the turnout. So I think we're going to have a little bit more early vote this year.
15:12.74
Sam Shirazi
But I do think we're going to hit roughly 400,000 total votes this year in Virginia for the Democratic primary. I think on a good night, it can be more than that. And I'm going to be really curious to see if we're going to be able to hit the 2021 number which I think is probably unrealistic. So 2021, remember, there was almost 495,000 votes.
15:34.36
Sam Shirazi
That was a governor primary. So obviously, governor primary, a lot more people are going to pay attention. There's more money in governor pra campaigns. You had more people competing in the governor race. So I think it's unlikely that we're going to hit 495,000 total votes this year in Virginia just with the lieutenant governor's and attorney general's race. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility, but I'm thinking more somewhere around 400,000, you know, and and on a good night, it can be more than that.
16:03.90
Sam Shirazi
But it is important to just kind of think that through. So I think if the if the Democrats get around 400,000 votes in the Democratic primary, I think that's still a very solid number, especially considering the 2013 number.
16:15.88
Sam Shirazi
And given that, you know, realistically, yeah there's not a governor primary. And so it's going to be pretty engaged people who end up voting. So I think getting up to 400,000 is a pretty strong number for the Democratic primary.
16:29.86
Sam Shirazi
We'll see what happens. and And I should say there there are there is also some early voting in the Republican primary. You really can't use it to compare it to the Democratic primary. And the numbers are much less.
16:40.98
Sam Shirazi
And the the numbers on the Republican side generally for the primary are going to be a lot less because realistically, they only have House of Delegates primaries in a handful of districts. And there are some local districts Republican primaries for local offices.
16:55.83
Sam Shirazi
So there's just no really we really way to compare the Democratic and Republican primaries. Some years where they both have governor primaries, it's kind of interesting. You see how many Democrats voted, you see how many Republicans voted, but it's just not possible to do that this year because it really is such an apples to oranges comparison.
17:11.42
Sam Shirazi
And I guess the last thing I should make a point I should make on this this area is that you hear a lot about the importance of primaries, and particularly in 2026, we might see more primaries on the Democratic side and incumbents facing primaries.
17:25.14
Sam Shirazi
and think there's a big debate about are primaries good or bad? you know, one school of thought I would say is more kind of the quote unquote establishment school of thought is that primaries, they take money away from the general election.
17:37.64
Sam Shirazi
And then sometimes because, you know, the people coming out in the primaries are are the most progressive people generally, because they're the ones who are pretty committed Democrats, it causes the candidates to take more left wing positions that will generally be not as popular in the general election. And so you kind of It leads to candidates being less popular in the long run because um have to both spend money on the primary and then they have to take these positions, which might hurt them in the general election.
18:05.54
Sam Shirazi
Now, that's one school of thought. I think the other possibility or the other school of thought is actually primaries are good because. The candidate has to test themselves first in the primary, has to appeal to voters in a primary, win that election, and it gets more people engaged because both candidates are bringing in their people and usually, or there could be multiple candidates running, and usually that engages different parts of the base.
18:26.91
Sam Shirazi
And it's not just the same people who coming out in these elections. And then the the candidate that goes into the general election is much stronger because they've already gone through that process and there's more people engaged in the election.
18:40.66
Sam Shirazi
And I think there's examples of both. So if you you think about 2017, you had a primary for the governor's race on the Democratic side. There was Tom Perriolo, who was challenging Ralph Northam in that primary, and Ralph Northam ended up winning.
18:54.01
Sam Shirazi
I think that was a pretty clean primary between Perriolo being a little bit more progressive, Northam being a little bit more establishment. Both sides really got engaged. Both sides brought out their voters.
19:04.92
Sam Shirazi
Northam won that primary. And I think that kept people engaged in the process. And obviously Northam got a big win in November. So I think that's the example of a primary where it actually was a net positive. I think Northam probably came out of that primary stronger because he had to compete for those votes. And he and after the primary, you you know the progressives that were fired up by Tom Perriello, they kind of continued with the Democrats and they were able to win in November of 2017 with a big victory.
19:30.81
Sam Shirazi
You could talk about 2021 maybe being a little bit of a different example on the Democratic democratic side where you had Terry McAuliffe who was being challenged by three by four different people and there was a sense that it was a bit of a coronation and People got a little bit jaded by the process and and it might have hurt McAuliffe a little bit in the general election.
19:52.43
Sam Shirazi
Now, I don't know if it ultimately was that big of a deal. and And I don't think that's why he lost the election. But it just shows you that primaries can be tricky. Obviously, this year for governor, we don't have a primary for either candidate. So neither of them are going to have a primary. It's an open question about whether, you know, the fact that Democrats have a primary for lieutenant governor, attorney general.
20:41.61
Sam Shirazi
ah
20:42.03
Sam Shirazi
And I think generally that points to Democrats being probably more engaged after the election of Donald Trump. And so we'll just have to wait and see what the final numbers are going look like. Obviously, after the primary, I'll do kind of more of a breakdown once I have the final numbers and kind of give a better sense of what the Democratic primary numbers might mean for November.
21:02.29
Sam Shirazi
All right. One more topic before I sign off for this podcast, and that's about Elon Musk. So this week, Elon Musk said, quote, I think in terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future.
21:15.95
Sam Shirazi
And he added, i think I've done enough. So just for some context, obviously, what Elon Musk got really involved in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April. He spent a lot of money. He went on the campaign trail.
21:29.33
Sam Shirazi
And that didn't exactly work out because Democrats were able to win that Supreme Court race by 10 percent. And I think after that, there was a general sense that Elon Musk was going to be a liability for group Republicans if he was able to continue campaigning in that role.
21:44.16
Sam Shirazi
And I think this news overall, I think the Virginia GOP is probably breathing a sigh of relief. While I'm sure you know they wouldn't necessarily mind having more money, I don't think they would have wanted the money directly from Elon Musk with all the strings attached and also the Democrats being able to run on that issue and basically portray the Republicans as being the party of Elon Musk.
22:07.73
Sam Shirazi
I do think there was a world where if Elon Musk kind of came in like he did in Wisconsin, it was not going to end well for the Virginia GOP.
22:15.03
Sam Shirazi
So overall, I think, and it was an open question. I mean, you know, I think if the Wisconsin Supreme Court race had gone a different way, i think it was very possible that Elon Musk would continue getting involved in these campaigns.
22:26.98
Sam Shirazi
And so I think one question we had for November is a little bit answered. I don't think Elon Musk is going to be directly on the campaign trail like he was in Wisconsin. I think the bigger question is, will Elon Musk and or people associated with him kind of try to find a way to give money to the Republicans in Virginia or set up PACs so that they can spend money on their own in Virginia?
22:48.53
Sam Shirazi
It's hard to tell. I mean, I think that money would eventually appear somewhere in the campaign records. And the thing with Virginia is there's unlimited campaign contributions directly to the campaigns, but you have to disclose that. And while, you know, if you gave a thousand dollars or $2,000 here and there, you know, it's not really going to raise anyone's eyebrows, but if you start seeing checks that are half a million, a million dollars, eventually people are going to figure out, okay, there's money coming from somewhere and they're to try to track it down. So,
23:16.55
Sam Shirazi
While I think it's possible that money still kind of gets the Republicans um from Elon Musk and or his supporters, I do think it's it's somewhat hot hard to hide it. I mean, it's not impossible, but you just have to kind of see what happens as we head into the November election.
23:34.70
Sam Shirazi
And I think for Democrats, I mean, there's still very much going to be running against Elon Musk and or Doge. I think the issue is not going away. Obviously, the cuts the federal the cuts to workers and the the federal spending that's been cut, I mean, that is not going to go away. And regardless of Elon Musk who's on the campaign trail.
23:52.94
Sam Shirazi
or not, Democrats are going to be talking about that issue. And, you know, I think we've seen a little bit of a shift in Democratic mis messaging. They still mention Elon Musk. I think he's still important. But given that he's taken a step back and he's not as public as he was certainly during the first couple months of the Trump administration, I think we'll see him a little bit less even in the Democratic ads. I think the focus will be more on Trump more on the cuts and maybe trying to link that with Trump. And obviously they're going to try to link it with, to governor Youngkin and Lieutenant governor went to Earle Sears.
24:26.12
Sam Shirazi
I think with Elon Musk, everyone kind of knew that was not going to go well for the Virginia GOP. They knew that the Democrats knew that. And I think that's part of the reason Elon Musk has stepped back because I think I didn't hear any Virginia Republicans screaming, I really hope Elon Musk comes campaigns in my district. I think they all kind of knew that was not going to end well for them.
24:46.52
Sam Shirazi
I think the big question mark is Donald Trump, because the Republican Party right now is basically Trump's party.
24:53.51
Sam Shirazi
And the Republican candidates generally are not going to be able to run away from Donald Trump because they they fall in this trap where if they run away from Donald Trump, I mean, there, there's a whole MAGA base that's going to get upset with them and they're going to try to keep them in line and try to keep the Republican candidates this year in Virginia from back. They're going try to make sure that they are backing Donald Trump.
25:15.02
Sam Shirazi
Obviously the Democrats on the other side are going to have the exact opposite strategy where they're going to say, yes, these people are totally with Trump and, and the Republicans in Virginia are totally but back backing Trump.
25:27.45
Sam Shirazi
And, The Republicans running in Virginia aren't going to deny that because they can't do that. And so I do think the Republicans are in a tough place in Virginia with Donald Trump, because realistically, Donald Trump, I mean, almost certainly is going to have a negative approval rating in Virginia. I mean, it's hard for me to imagine a scenario where by November, Trump's approval is going to be positive in Virginia.
25:47.46
Sam Shirazi
And if you think about it. you know November 2024, Donald Trump was probably at his height of popularity in Virginia, and he's still lost by 6%. And what has happened since November 2024, there have been cuts to the federal government. There's been federal employees let go. i mean, I just can't imagine a scenario where he's going to be more popular than he was in November 2024 in Virginia.
26:10.71
Sam Shirazi
I'm not saying that Donald Trump has no base of support in Virginia. He certainly... Still very popular in parts of Southwest Virginia and Shenandoah Valley and Southside Virginia. i mean, there are clearly a lot of people in Virginia who do support Donald Trump, but that almost creates this problem for the Virginia GOP because they need those Trump supporters to come out and vote for the Republicans.
26:31.22
Sam Shirazi
But they also probably need people who don't approve of Donald Trump to vote for the Republicans this year in Virginia. And that's a very hard line to walk. And if you think about 2021, Governor Youngkin was able to walk that line because he was able to not alienate the Trump supporters, but he was able to win enough independent and moderate voters in the suburbs where he was able to win the election.
26:53.18
Sam Shirazi
Obviously, Donald Trump was not president in 2021. We had joe biden There's a lot of different factors in play. i think this year with Donald Trump in the White House, it's just going to be very difficult for the Virginia GOP to keep their arms distanced from Trump, but then to try to appeal to the moderate voters because you risk alienating the Trump people if you are too critical or you're you're not close enough to Donald Trump if you're a Republican this year in Virginia.
27:21.51
Sam Shirazi
And we saw a little bit of this recently where I think there were some articles that came out about Governor Winslow Merrill Sears and one of them was about some photos that she had on her campaign website.
27:33.20
Sam Shirazi
Now they were some pretty bland stock photos that she got and she put on her website. I think one of them, they forgot to remove the serial number of the photo or something like that, which you know in the grand scheme of things is pretty minor, but it's not a great look if you're a campaign.
27:49.10
Sam Shirazi
But what I thought was really interesting was that Chris LaSavita, who was a senior advisor to President Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign, he said that he said that this showed that the winsome Earl Sears campaign was being run by amateurs. And so, you know, he didn't have to say that. Obviously there's a reason he said that. I think maybe it was to send kind of a warning shot to say like, Hey, you guys got to step up your game.
28:18.18
Sam Shirazi
It's also possible. He's trying to show that, um know, he, Trump world may not be super happy with Winston Merle Sears because, there were times in the past where she has kind of distanced herself from Trump.
28:29.40
Sam Shirazi
Currently, she's not necessarily running away from Trump, but she isn't necessarily also talking about him every day. And so I think she's in a tough spot because she she knows that Either way, it's kind of a no-win proposition. If she gets too close to Trump, then the Democrats are going to use that and slam her for being too close to Trump.
28:48.74
Sam Shirazi
I think if she starts dissing herself too much from Trump, then MAGA world is going to get upset. And so all that's to say is like Elon Musk may be out of the picture for now. And maybe the Virginia GOP don't have to worry too much about Elon Musk. But I do think there's this unresolved question about what they do with Donald Trump.
29:06.43
Sam Shirazi
And does Donald Trump come to campaign in Virginia? you know, there's been two examples of that kind of backfiring in Virginia history. So in 2005, very late in the campaign,
29:17.12
Sam Shirazi
George W. Bush came to campaign in Virginia for the Republican nominee for governor. And the general consensus is that that didn't really help the Republicans. And if anything, that helped Tim Kaine win in 2005. And in 2021, we saw a few instances where President Biden came in to campaign for Terry McAuliffe.
29:34.82
Sam Shirazi
And the Republicans were really able to use that against McAuliffe and to help fire up their own base. Now, do I think those two visits by themselves led to the losses those years? No. But I do think it's going to be interesting. does President Trump hold campaign rallies in Virginia.
29:50.28
Sam Shirazi
Maybe he holds them in rural areas that might help drive the turnout for the Republicans, but you got to think that's going that might have hurt the Republicans in other parts of Virginia where Donald Trump's less popular. So I think it's going to be really interesting. I started off this podcast. My first episode was called the Doge election question mark.
30:09.83
Sam Shirazi
I think Doge is very much still going to be a part of this election. I think Elon Musk might be taking backseat in the election a little bit more than he was maybe in the beginning of the year, but certainly he's not out of the picture either.
30:23.29
Sam Shirazi
And I think Donald Trump's going to be the big question mark heading into the November campaign. So all that's to say is there's a lot going on in Virginia. I'm going to cover it all. I think we're getting close to the primary, which will be really interesting. And then once the primary is over, we're going to be heading into the general election. So a lot of stuff going on in Virginia. I hope if you enjoy this podcast,
30:41.88
Sam Shirazi
Please do share it. You know, I think it's it's always good for people to know about what's going on in Virginia. If you know people who are interested in politics, feel free to mention the podcast to them and share it with them.
30:53.24
Sam Shirazi
If you feel like writing a review and giving it positive reviews, feel free to do that. I think that definitely helps people know about the podcast. So I'm going to keep trying to do this all the way through the election, and I hope you will continue to stay with me. And for now, that is Federal Fallout, and I will join you next week.
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