00:00.74
Sam Shirazi
Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over why the Virginia elections matter and go over some of the history of the Virginia elections over the last 20 years.
00:14.88
Sam Shirazi
And the reason and I want to do this podcast is... Because I talked about the fallout between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. and ah ah And in that emergency podcast, I talked a little bit about the history of Virginia elections and how they're often a referendum on the incumbent president.
00:31.07
Sam Shirazi
And I thought it'd be a good time to now talk about that history in a little bit more detail in this podcast. And the title of the podcast, Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia Elections, makes it clear that this entire podcast, for the most part, is about one election in one year in Virginia, which, you know, it's it's a lot to have a podcast every week and just talk about one election.
00:52.72
Sam Shirazi
But I do think the Virginia elections are really important, and I will talk about the historical reason why they're really important. But also, even if you look at this year in Wisconsin, the only statewide, big statewide race we had this year so far was the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
01:05.60
Sam Shirazi
And when the Democrats won that election pretty handily by 10 points, I would say that was the beginning of the end of Elon Musk's time on the MAGA train. And it was pretty clear that the Republicans were going to throw him off the train because he was going to lead to further losses, including in Virginia.
01:23.70
Sam Shirazi
And so I think the fact that that election was a big win for the Democrats sent a message and really changed the whole trajectory of Elon Musk's time with the federal government. And now it has led to this feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
01:38.19
Sam Shirazi
And I do think there's been this nationalization of Virginia elections, state elections for a long time, going back 20 years, I would say. I mean, you could argue even before that they were nationalized, but I think the really first big national Virginia election was 2005, and I'll talk a little bit more about that.
01:56.35
Sam Shirazi
But the point I'm trying to make is the Virginia elections are not just about state, local issues. Sometimes they are, sometimes those issues are important, but they often take this national character and there're Both parties come in, they spend a lot of money, and they often influence the midterms the following year and even have influences on the presidential election down the line. so I really do think the Virginia elections are important. And I don't want to forget there are also New Jersey elections this year. And I don't want to ignore the New Jersey elections. But the reality is for the last 20 years, I would say the Virginia elections have been more important.
02:29.23
Sam Shirazi
We will see if this year is the exception and maybe New Jersey will get more attention. Maybe the New Jersey race will be closer than the Virginia race. But I would say going all the way back to 2005, the Virginia election has typically been the one that's gotten more attention.
02:41.88
Sam Shirazi
And so we'll we'll talk about the history of Virginia elections going back to 2005. two thousand five So 2005 was really the first nationalized Virginia state election, in my opinion.
02:53.04
Sam Shirazi
So if you think about what happened, George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, including by virginia winning Virginia by a decent margin. And the perception back then was Virginia was this red state, even though Mark Warner had won for the governor's race in 2001.
03:07.12
Sam Shirazi
The Bush was able to win in 2004. And so people perceived Virginia to be this red state. But after 2004, a lot of things happened in 2005 that didn't help the Republicans.
03:19.28
Sam Shirazi
Obviously, the Iraq war was still ongoing and that was not going well. And more U.S. troops were dying every day and every week in Iraq.
03:29.07
Sam Shirazi
in iraq And then in the summer of 2005, you had Hurricane Katrina hit and the devastation of that caused and the perceived failure of the federal government to effectively respond to Hurricane Katrina.
03:41.09
Sam Shirazi
And I think that really led to President Bush's approval ratings and nosediving. And that created this environment where were able this. the Democrats in Virginia had an opportunity to win the governor's mansion again with Tim Kaine.
03:53.56
Sam Shirazi
And I think that election specifically, there was a lot of focus, a lot of outside groups started to come in. There was a lot of a sense of we can send a message with this election. We can start pushing back on the Bush administration. And you saw a lot of the progressive activists getting involved in the early days of the blogosphere and Democratic blogs got involved in that election.
04:15.41
Sam Shirazi
And I think the reason it was really nationalized. So I talked about this in a previous podcast. During the last days of that campaign, President Bush came in and campaigned for the Republican candidate in 2005. And the perception is that kind of backfired on the Republicans and that helped Tim Kaine.
04:31.60
Sam Shirazi
And so The Democrats got the win in 2005, and there was a sense that this was maybe ah ah referendum on Bush. And the the message that the voters sent was that they were not happy with President Bush, and that led to Tim Kaine winning.
04:45.74
Sam Shirazi
And obviously, Tim Kaine winning the governor's race you you know just for his own career was important because that led to him eventually becoming a senator. He was on the national ticket in 2016, and he was reelected last year to the Senate. So I think it had a lot of long-term implications for Virginia. but And that was really, i would say, along with Warner winning in 2001, but then Kane winning in 2005. And then the big transformation was in 2006 at the federal level when Jim Webb won that state, that Senate race.
05:15.52
Sam Shirazi
And then obviously in 2008, after the Democrats won the governor's race in 2005, they won the Senate race in 2006. I think The Obama campaign really saw Virginia as a top target and ah and and they were able to flip Virginia where it voted for the Democrat and the for the first time in a long time since 1964 with LBJ. So you saw that that 2005 election really foreshadowed the Democratic win in 2006 in Virginia with the Senate race and then the Democratic win at the presidential level in 2008 with Barack obama
05:51.96
Sam Shirazi
But the Virginia elections can be very fickle and they often see so huge swings between elections. So in 2008, President Obama won Virginia and he got a big landslide nationally, came in during the height of the Great Recession. Obviously, the Republicans were punished at the polls for what happened when George Bush was president.
06:14.64
Sam Shirazi
But ah It's tough inheriting an ah economy economy like that. And President Obama started to take some action, including the his stimulus bill. But the the reality is the country was in such a big hole that it was going to take a long time to recover from the Great Recession.
06:29.30
Sam Shirazi
And what ended up happening was by November of 2009, the economy was still not in great shape. And I think um The Republican candidate that year, Bob McDonald, was really able to take advantage of that.
06:42.46
Sam Shirazi
And I mentioned before he ran on the slogan, and Bob for jobs, and really talked about the economy. And again, we saw the 2009 election. ah election election in Virginia basically be a referendum on President Obama and his handling of the economy, and that did not go well for the Democrats.
06:59.77
Sam Shirazi
And again, this was a preview of what was going to happen in 2010 when there was a huge backlash against the Democrats during the 2010 midterms when there was a red wave.
07:10.77
Sam Shirazi
And the Democrats ended up losing three House seats in Virginia specifically. So I think the 2009 Virginia elections, again, were nationalized and were a little bit of a preview of what would happen 2010.
07:25.14
Sam Shirazi
I will say by 2012, the economy was doing better. And I think President Obama was able to recover to the point that he was able to win Virginia 2012 and 2010. and Tim Kaine was able to get elected to the Senate for the first time. So it shows you that it's not always, you know, there's always obviously three years between the Virginia governor's race and the presidential race. And I think that's enough time where things can change.
07:50.58
Sam Shirazi
But often between the midterm and the Virginia governor's race, it's just a year. and And often what happens in the Virginia governor's race also happens in the midterm. I did want to talk a little bit about 2013 because that was the exception, I would say, to this general rule of the Virginia election being a referendum on the president. However, I would say it was still a national referendum in some ways, but it was just a referendum on the Republicans. So as I mentioned, Barack Obama wins Virginia in 2012. You would think the Republicans would be able to do well in Virginia again because they are not in the White House and they did well in 2009.
08:24.37
Sam Shirazi
However, they nominated Ken Cuccinelli, who, you know, is perceived to be pretty right wing, especially for Virginia and especially on social issues where Virginia tends to be maybe a more socially liberal state, even if fiscally it's more of a moderate state.
08:38.71
Sam Shirazi
And the Democrats nominated Terry McAuliffe. And I think for a while that race, you know, it was unclear who would have the advantage. And, you know, the the race was kind of chugging along. And then in November in October of that year, 2013, the Republicans in the House decide to shut down the government, trying to defund Obamacare.
09:01.19
Sam Shirazi
Obviously, Virginia, very dependent on the federal government, as we've talked about. And that was one of maybe the original federal fallouts in Virginia, the Republicans were. You know, if you have that level of a shutdown right before a Virginia election, it is not going to go well for the Republicans if they are the ones perceived to be shutting down the government.
09:19.17
Sam Shirazi
And indeed, it not did not go well for the Republicans in Virginia. And Terry McAuliffe was able to win, you know, relatively a narrow victory, but a win's a win. And certainly going against the tide of history where he was able to win, even though Democrats were in the White House.
09:34.56
Sam Shirazi
most people say that was because of the government shutdown. Now, I think part of it, too, was that Ken Cuccinelli was probably too right wing, especially on social issues for Virginia. and And that was part of the reason that Republicans lost that year.
09:47.82
Sam Shirazi
But that was kind of the exception where the Virginia election was not a refer refer referendum on the incumbent president. And that was partly just because of what the Republicans did in D.C. But I do think it was more of a ah ah referendum on the but party in D.C. that was wielding its power, so to speak, more. And that was the Republicans of that time shutting down the government.
10:09.07
Sam Shirazi
All right. So let's fast forward to 2017. So in 2016, President Trump was elected for the first time and he comes into office.
10:20.32
Sam Shirazi
And while the changes he's making to the federal government are certainly not as drastic as they are this time, i think at that time they were perceived to be very drastic because we had not been used to President Trump yet. And obviously it it caused a backlash in Virginia in 2017. And I think it really energized the Democratic activists.
10:39.99
Sam Shirazi
And I would say, you know, more so than in any of the elections before that, the Virginia elections once again became nationalized. And I think there was a sense of we need to send a message. to to Donald Trump, the Democrats were saying, we need to win the Virginia election and we did need to send a message.
10:56.88
Sam Shirazi
for for much of that campaign, it was not obvious the Democrats were going to win. i think, you know, President Trump, people were unsure how popular he was and If he was able to maybe bring out these voters who in the past hadn't voted in Virginia elections.
11:12.80
Sam Shirazi
But what ended up happening is Democrat Ralph Northam got a big win in 2009. Sorry, he got a big win in and won by almost nine points and you know, if that was, again, a little bit of a preview of what was coming. So in 2018, the Democrats were able to flip three House seats in Virginia, and they won the Senate race really big in Virginia.
11:34.30
Sam Shirazi
And then in 2020, they won the presidential race really big in Virginia by 10 points, and they won the Senate seat in 2020 in Virginia. So I think 2017 was certainly, i think, in hindsight, a referendum on Trump in Virginia. I think At the time, it wasn't as clear and it wasn't as clear if the Democrats were going to do well. Obviously, in hindsight, it became much more clear that the Democrats were doing well in Virginia. And that continued throughout the first Trump administration.
12:01.62
Sam Shirazi
So, again, you saw that this Virginia election became nationalized. But as I mentioned, Virginia elections can be very fickle and the pendulum swings back and forth. And obviously, 2020, President Biden gets elected.
12:14.43
Sam Shirazi
And then we had the Virginia elections in 2021. I'd say the first few months of President Biden's term, things were going OK. Then there were some issues with the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
12:25.77
Sam Shirazi
And I think at that point, people were getting a little bit tired of all the COVID precautions that were going on. And so Glenn Youngkin was able to come in, take advantage of that, take advantage of the fact that President Biden was getting more unpopular.
12:38.88
Sam Shirazi
And I think, again, he was able to turn the Virginia elections into a little bit of a referendum on President Biden, but I'd also say on some of the COVID protests. precautions that had still been going on.
12:50.84
Sam Shirazi
And Glenn Youngkin was able to get a narrow win in 2021 by two points. And I think, again, it's this idea that the Virginia elections at that time, and this time as the Republicans, the Republicans wanted to send a message that, know, we're fed up with some of the stuff that's going on in D.C. with Biden, and we want to send a message.
13:08.95
Sam Shirazi
And you saw a lot of outside attention on Glenn Youngkin. He went on Fox News a lot. They wanted to feature him a lot. So it didn't really become a super hyper local Virginia election, it became super nationalized in many ways. And this time the Republicans were able to turn the Virginia election to their advantage and make it a referendum on the incumbent president.
13:30.31
Sam Shirazi
And then you saw next year in the midterms, while it wasn't a massive red wave that everyone thought was coming, the Republicans still did okay. And they were able to pick up a house seat in Virginia in the second district.
13:41.69
Sam Shirazi
And then obviously in 2024, uh, president Biden was not able to end up running for reelection and the Democrats, while they did win Virginia, it was by six points and vice president Harris nationally was not able to win the election.
13:54.75
Sam Shirazi
And so we saw that maybe, the Virginia elections in 2021, where a little bit of a preview of what was coming down the line. I would say that the midterm hit was maybe dulled a little bit because of the Dobbs decision in 2022 and the overturning of Roe.
14:09.45
Sam Shirazi
But still, you know, there was clearly energy on the Republican side. And that was eventually shown in 2024 when Donald Trump was able to win the back of the White House.
14:20.91
Sam Shirazi
So the question is, what happens this year? I mean, I've talked about it before. I mean, my sense is this election will still be a referendum on Trump, especially given all the federal fallout about what's going on in D.C.
14:32.71
Sam Shirazi
I think the Democrats very explicitly, both the pitch to their donors and outside groups, and I think to the people in Virginia, want to make this referendum on Trump. I think they tell...
14:44.49
Sam Shirazi
their supporters that, you know, if the Democrats get a big win here in Virginia, it will make a difference nationally. And they they want to nationalize the election as much as possible. the Republicans, it's a little bit unclear what the strategy is, but they are probably not trying to make this a referendum on Trump as much as maybe talk about some of the local issues or talk about some of the more culture issues that they like to talk about and maybe try to change the the focus from Trump. But the reality is when you are the party in the White House, you and especially someone like Donald Trump, who likes to be the center of attention, it's going to be very hard to talk about anything else other than Donald Trump in this election.
15:23.48
Sam Shirazi
And I do think there's a scenario where, you know, We look back and if the Democrats get a big year, a big win this year in Virginia, there will be a sense of, oh, this was just another referendum on the incumbent president. And this was just like 2017 when you know there was a backlash to what Trump did in D.C.
15:41.06
Sam Shirazi
And I do think. And the Democrats, the bigger the win, the bigger the message. I mean, I think if they do get a big win this year in Virginia, it will send a message not just in Virginia, but across the country and even across the world where people will pay attention and see that maybe there is this backlash to what President Trump is doing, and especially the downsizing the federal government and the firing of federal workers.
16:02.97
Sam Shirazi
I think the Republican hope is that, you know, maybe they can still win this year in Virginia, or even if they don't end up winning, they can keep it close. And that will show that people are still supporting President Trump and that he's not this super unpopular figure that the Democrats think he is. I think that was it was a little bit of a wake up call for the Democrats in 2024, because the sense was particularly after President Biden dropped out and Vice President Harris came in the ticket, there was a sense of, OK,
16:28.91
Sam Shirazi
It seems like President Trump is not super popular and you know we have a different candidate. you know We should be winning this election really easily. And I think there was a you know a rude awakening for many Democrats when not only did Trump win, but he he had a bigger win than he had in 2016.
16:43.76
Sam Shirazi
And so I don't think you could discount the possibility that there are a lot of people who support President Trump and they can certainly come out in the Virginia elections. At the same time, I think the Republicans have to be realistic with themselves. And this is Virginia. There's a lot of federal employees. there's a lot of impact from what's going on in the federal government.
16:59.51
Sam Shirazi
And can't just kind of wish that away. And you can't just say, oh, well, all those people already are Democrats, because the reality is a lot of those people aren't Democrats, especially in a place like Hampton Roads. People, jobs might be tied to the federal government, but they might might have more of a military background. They might be more of a swing a voter.
17:15.39
Sam Shirazi
So I don't think the Republicans can sleep that easy at night just telling themselves every single federal worker is a Democrat. I do think they have to take the threat that there will be this backlash in Virginia seriously.
17:27.05
Sam Shirazi
And they have to think of ways both to get their voters out in November and to keep the more moderate swing voters in their side of the aisle as opposed to going over to the Democrats.
17:37.25
Sam Shirazi
And I'll kind of end the podcast with one really interesting historical fact. So I mentioned 2013 was a little bit of an exception. But if you think about 2013, even though Obama was in the White House, there was a Republican governor in the governor's mansion. So right now,
17:50.80
Sam Shirazi
We have a Republican governor in the with Glenn Youngkin and then obviously the Republican president with Donald Trump. So that means both the governor's mansion and the White House, it's the same party in Virginia. And the last time that a party that has controlled the governor's mansion and the White House has won the Virginia governor's election was all the way back in 1973.
18:12.63
Sam Shirazi
So we are talking about 52 years was the last time that kind of a similar situation where you had a Republican in the White House and a Republican the governor's mansion and the Republicans were able to win.
18:22.86
Sam Shirazi
So I think that just gives you a sense of the historical challenge the Republicans have this and this election, even if you put aside all the federal fallout and you put aside everything else and the candidates that are running just, you know,
18:36.06
Sam Shirazi
purely look at the historical trends. I think it's just, it's a tough, it's a tough year for the Republicans. And I think, you know, we'll have to just wait and see what the final numbers look like when the election is over.
18:47.84
Sam Shirazi
But I do think the Republicans have to take this year seriously in Virginia, given historical trends. Obviously, Every election is unique just because something happened in the past doesn't mean it's going to happen in the future. 2013 showed us this where it is possible for a party to win the governor's race if they have the White House.
19:05.60
Sam Shirazi
I think 2013 depended a lot what was going on in D.C. And in theory, if the Democrats do something crazy in D.C., you know, maybe that'll change the dynamics. But frankly, And this has been something that the Democratic activists have been a little bit upset about. I mean, the members of Congress in D.C. are not super eager to take on the Trump administration directly and sort of sort of open confrontation by at least not yet.
19:30.52
Sam Shirazi
And There was that whole controversy when the Democrats decided not to shut down the government. I think in hindsight, that might look a little bit better because frankly, the Republicans are kind of destroying themselves right now with this bill they're trying to pass and the fact that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are fighting with each other. so you know There was a calculation maybe on Chuck Schumer's part to just you know not pick a fight then, and a lot of the activists were upset. But in some ways, it might have worked out because now the Democrats are sitting back and watching the Republicans fighting each other.
20:00.26
Sam Shirazi
And so if that's the atmosphere where the Democrats are not doing a whole lot in D.C., they're just kind of sitting around watching the Republicans fight each other and Republicans aren't able to pass this bill. and there's a lot of chaos going on in DC.
20:10.73
Sam Shirazi
I mean, that's again, the environment that's going to help the Democrats. And that's not the type of environment that's going to lead to this counterfactual win for the Republicans this year in Virginia. So all that's to say is there's a lot going on. You know, there's still five months to the election. i don't want to pretend like any the election's over, Democrats have won.
20:28.98
Sam Shirazi
But at the same time, i mean, yes, five months is not an insignificant amount of time, but early voting starts in late September in Virginia. And so that is coming up and the Republicans should be mindful of that and the fact that the election campaign is in full swing and especially after the June 17th primary, when the tickets are set on the Democratic side, it will really be the general election. so There's a lot to cover this year in Virginia. I'll try to do my best to cover it all. I wanted to talk a little bit about the historical nature of Virginia elections and the fact that they often become nationalized. So I will try to do my best to cover it all.
21:04.78
Sam Shirazi
And I appreciate everyone who's been listening and giving me positive feedback. And I'm going to try to do these every week. And I hope you listen along. But for now, this is Federal Fallout, and I'll join you next time.
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