Congressional races don’t get the big spotlight in presidential election years, but the bottom of the ballot is still important, as presidents need some legislative cooperation to get things done.
In Virginia, two-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine is seeking reelection against Republican challenger Hung Cao, a retired U.S. Navy captain. All 11 of Virginia’s U.S. House districts, currently held by six Democrats and five Republicans, are being contested as well.
Kaine photo courtesy Office of Senator Tim Kaine; Cao photo courtesy Hung Cao for U.S. Senate
Virginia’s races will play a role in control of the House, where Republicans hold a narrow majority, and the U.S. Senate, which Democrats control with a 51-49 majority.
The Kaine-Cao race will test whether Virginia can still be considered a reliably “blue” state. Except for the 2021 Republican sweep led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Democrats have won every statewide election going back to 2013.
In a statement to Virginia Business, Cao cheers “small business owners” who “create jobs and … are the backbone of our economy. We need to end burdensome regulations that squeeze small businesses out of existence.
“Far too often, only the biggest companies can comply with onerous and complicated regulations from government agencies. … Virginia can and should be a leader in industry innovation, from our national defense to energy dominance through clean American coal and small modular nuclear reactors.”
A former Virginia governor, Kaine also supports small businesses in a statement. “We have to do even more,” Kaine wrote. “Employers tell me that that they’re doing OK now but are worried about the future. A major worry is workforce. That’s why I use my position on the Armed Services and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees to prioritize career and technical training, work-based immigration reform and affordable child care that frees up skilled adults to fully engage in the workplace.”
In July, Kaine led Cao by 10 points in a poll of Virginia voters by Emerson College for The Hill.
As for the House, state Sen. John McGuire beat U.S. Rep. Bob Good in a GOP primary by fewer than 400 votes in Virginia’s 5th District. Good, chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, displeased party leadership by endorsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president over former President Donald Trump. Gloria Tinsley Witt won the less dramatic Democratic primary in June, but the seat is considered “safe Republican” by Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
Virginia’s 10th District in Northern Virginia also is an open seat; last fall, three-term incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Jennifer Wexton announced she would not seek reelection after being diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy. State Sen. Suhas Subramanyam, a Democrat, faces Republican opponent Mike Clancy. Biden won the district by 19 points in 2020, and it’s considered increasingly out of the reach of Republicans.
Virginia’s other open seat, in the 7th District, is becoming one of the most closely watched House races in the country. Democratic incumbent Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who flipped the seat in the 2018 midterms, announced last November she would step down to run for Virginia governor in 2025.
That led to packed primaries on both sides. U.S. Army veteran Derrick Anderson, a Republican, is running against another Army veteran, Democrat Eugene Vindman. Sabato’s Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report both rank the race with a slight Democratic lean.
“The 7th is the most interesting and most competitive race in Virginia,” says A.J. Nolte, assistant professor in Regent University’s Robertson School of Government. “I think Republicans managed to get the do-no-harm candidate. Vindman is a first-time candidate. That can work out well for you … but there are always risks, especially with a first-time candidate who until not long ago was not a particularly progressive Democrat.”
A former deputy legal adviser for the National Security Council, Vindman already has something of a national profile, due to the roles he and his twin brother, retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, also with the NSC, played in reporting a phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s president that led to Trump’s first impeachment.
The 2nd District race is the other Virginia House race considered competitive, with first-term Republican U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans defending the seat against Democrat Missy Cotter Smasal.
RELATED STORY: High stakes — either Harris or Trump presidency could have big impacts on Virginia
The 2024 presidential race between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump carries hefty consequences for Virginia’s economy that will be even more pronounced than in previous elections.
Presidents are limited by the constraints of Congress — particularly if either chamber is held by the opposing party — and the clunkiness of the vast federal bureaucracy. Yet Harris and Trump’s sharply contrasting views could reshape everything from the size of Northern Virginia’s federal workforce and the pace of carbon-free energy transition to a military realignment that could dramatically affect Hampton Roads.
“Given the candidates’ proposals, I think we could be looking at one of the most consequential elections for the Virginia economy in recent decades,” says Robert McNab, director of Old Dominion University’s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy. “The question is, how much of each candidate’s proposals are actually passable through Congress, and how much could be done through executive action?”
As of early September, a CNN poll of six battleground states showed a tight field, with Harris ahead in Wisconsin and Michigan, Trump ahead in Arizona, and an even split in Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
In Virginia, a Roanoke College poll in August showed Harris leading Trump 45% to 42%, a lead within the margin of error. The commonwealth isn’t exactly a battleground state like Pennsylvania or Michigan, and Republicans haven’t carried the state in a presidential election since 2004. In September, Axios reported that the Trump campaign appears to be scaling back efforts in Virginia while putting more money and work into Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
No matter which way Virginians vote, experts say, the next presidential administration could have big impacts for federal workers, government contractors, maritime businesses, agricultural enterprises and other industries in the commonwealth.
Federal workforce impact
Perhaps the biggest implication of the presidential race in Virginia involves its more than 140,000 federal workers and their families — the second highest number in the nation, just behind California’s 142,000 federal workers.
If Trump is elected in November, his Agenda47 plan includes several proposals that would dismantle the federal government’s presence in Washington, D.C. Those include shifting numerous agencies and departments to other parts of the country and removing civil service protections for wide swathes of employees to allow their replacement by administration loyalists.
“You’re talking about the potential relocation of tens of thousands of federal employees who work in Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas,” McNab says. “That would be a significant blow to Northern Virginia and would potentially shave tenths of a percentage point off growth for Virginia’s gross domestic product and would also impact income taxes and sales taxes in the commonwealth. Whether it would happen and the scope of how it would happen remains to be determined, but it is certainly within the purview of executive action that could be done.”
Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris appears on stage at a Harris for President campaign rally in Savannah, Georgia, on Aug. 29. Photo by Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via Associated Press
Some of that impact might be buffered by the pandemic-era shift to remote work, which already has led some federal employees to relocate from pricey Northern Virginia. Yet Virginia’s economy relies heavily on the federal government. Six of the top 15 congressional districts with the highest concentrations of federal workers in the U.S. are located in Virginia. Many of those are well-paid jobs, offering median pay about twice as high as that of the private sector.
“It’s not just the quantity but the quality of those jobs and how much they support the larger economy,” says Hamilton Lombard, demographer at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.
In response to questions about federal workers and defense spending, Jeff Ryer, a Trump campaign spokesperson in Virginia, sent the following statement: “President Trump’s commitment to modernizing and rebuilding our military, as well as his promise to build a missile defense shield, will directly benefit Virginia’s economy. He has made a very specific pledge, highlighted in the 2024 Republican platform, to restore the safety and beauty of our nation’s capital, a change that will benefit the entire region. Five of the 10 wealthiest localities in the United States are in the Washington metropolitan region, which won’t change.”
But U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat running for his third term this year, tweeted in July that Trump’s plan to move 100,000 federal jobs outside of the D.C. region “is unacceptable and would punish the many public servants in our commonwealth who keep basic services running. We can’t afford a second Trump presidency.”
It’s not as easy to predict how a second Trump administration would impact the plethora of federal contracting companies that are a significant part of Northern Virginia’s economy — whether a decentralized federal government would mean more outsourcing of work to contractors or lead to staffing cuts among federal contractors isn’t known.
Hampton Roads, home to Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval base, also has an economy that relies heavily on military spending, and the presidential election presents divergent futures for that region. Both Harris and Trump back more funding for the military but have different global priorities.
Harris represents a continuation of Biden’s foreign policy, which includes taking a leading role in the NATO alliance as a counter to Russia in Europe. Like Biden, Harris wants to continue providing funding for Ukraine to resist the Russian invasion that began in 2022. But Trump, who has enjoyed a warmer relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, claimed in 2023 that he could solve the crisis “in 24 hours.” Both Harris and Trump have expressed wariness of China, but Trump has taken a more hawkish stance, prompting concerns about military escalation.
Such a shift in focus from Europe to China could potentially affect military operations and defense contractors based in Virginia. The implications could be enormous, but geopolitical shifts inevitably take time to play out and are contingent on factors far beyond the reach of a lone president.
Also, as most political observers know, campaign promises are subject to change, especially when the president’s party doesn’t control Congress. On top of that, the 2024 presidential election has two unusual factors: a new candidate, Harris, who hasn’t rolled out all of her policies or specified how they differ from President Biden’s; and Trump, whose policies and views historically have fluctuated somewhat with polls and popular opinion.
Regarding the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy blueprint — a 900-page document that was compiled by dozens of powerful Republican thought leaders, including at least 140 former Trump administration officials — it’s difficult to tell how much of it would be enacted in a second Trump term.
Trump himself has made repeated attempts to distance himself from the document, calling some of its restrictions “dismal,” but his campaign’s Agenda47 platform has some similarities to Project 2025, which calls for eliminating up to 1 million federal jobs, slashing funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and rolling back green energy legislation supported by the Biden White House. Also, Project 2025 and Agenda47 both advocate restricting family-based immigration, as well as severely limiting work visas — which would have a major impact on some Virginia industries.
Harris, as vice president, focused on creating a diplomatic solution to address the root causes of migration from Central American countries, including high rates of violent crimes in those nations. She also advocated for a bill that would have lifted visa backlogs for family- and work-based green cards, but it stalled in Congress.
“I guess one of the problems with the current presidential election is there’s a lot of things being tossed out there,” McNab says. “Engaging which things would come to fruition is difficult, because what is rhetoric and what is an actual policy stance seems to be vague for both candidates.”
Energy priorities
The biggest priority for the Virginia Chamber of Commerce and its roughly 31,000 member businesses is to boost the national gross domestic product to at least 3% annual growth, says chamber President and CEO Barry DuVal. In Virginia, that means investing in workforce training, child care and affordable housing.
DuVal calls for an increase in infrastructure investment, particularly around Virginia ports. That includes a second proposed inland port in Southwest Virginia supported by state legislators in the region, and the rail infrastructure needed to link it to the coast.
DuVal also cites energy as a major issue for businesses, particularly the need to bolster the power grid for growing demand from data centers and the cloud-based economy.
“We are very hopeful that candidates will take an all-of-the-above approach [to energy generation] that would include wind and solar and renewables but also natural gas and nuclear,” DuVal says, echoing Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s stance on energy.
Under Biden, Congress passed two major bills investing in infrastructure and clean energy. That legislation included sizable tax credits for wind, solar, battery storage and the shift to electric vehicles. Electric vehicle and battery companies have started construction on factories across the Southeast, mostly in other states.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin shakes hands with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump during a June 28 campaign rally in Chesapeake. Photo by Associated Press/Steve Helber
The Biden White House also approved auctions of leases for offshore wind plots in the Atlantic Ocean; currently, Dominion Energy leases the acreage for the Central Virginia Offshore Wind project under construction off Virginia Beach and also is securing offshore wind farm leases adjacent to that project and in North Carolina.
Harris, if elected, would presumably continue rolling out the investments laid out in the federal infrastructure packages, but Trump has promised he’d claw back the funding and roll back clean energy laws. He has specifically called out electric vehicles, which he views as an economic threat to American vehicle makers, and offshore wind farms, which he pledged to stop on “day one” of his presidency.
In his July speech at Radford University, Trump’s running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, referred to Harris’ support for the “green new scam destroying energy jobs in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and driving up the cost of goods.”
Vance offered a different solution: oil and gas. “It’s simple: Drill, baby, drill,” he said on stage. “It’s not that complicated. We’ve got it right here. Our own workers want to get it out of the ground. Why don’t we just let them? It’ll make our country stronger.”
As of early September, Harris had not clarified her climate and energy stances, but the Democratic platform advocates for continued investment in clean energy, including solar and offshore wind, and strengthening the electrical grid. The Biden administration also issued a rule that would require 56% of all vehicle sales to be electric cars by 2032, up from less than 10% as of 2023.
Immigration questions
Looking broadly, “across the board, Americans care deeply about economic policies, about inflation and the cost of goods, followed by immigration and health care,” says Amanda Wintersieck, associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University and director of its Institute for Democracy, Pluralism, and Community Empowerment. “We’re seeing both candidates finally talk in a little bit better detail about the issue of inflation and economic issues.”
But immigration is still a flashpoint in the presidential race, with most of the rhetoric focused on the United States’ southern border. Trump regularly attacks Harris’s role in the Biden administration’s border enforcement, while Harris accuses Trump of using his influence to torpedo a bipartisan reform bill negotiated by U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican former Senate majority leader. According to the vice president, Trump got wind of the bill and convinced House Republicans to vote it down because he feared it could hurt his campaign, and Harris vowed to sign the bill if it comes to her desk as president.
Despite the political heat surrounding immigration, it’s more of a workaday issue for businesses in Virginia, from the tech industry to hospitality to agriculture, that need real immigration reform to help them address their workforce demands, DuVal says.
“From an economic perspective, America has to grow its workforce,” DuVal says. “We want workers to be legally imported workers. We don’t have a big enough funnel. Immigration reform is a top priority for us. We’re calling on our federal representatives to find bipartisan support for improving the immigration process.”
That call was echoed by Hobey Bauhan, president of the Virginia Poultry Federation. The state’s poultry farms and facilities in the Shenandoah Valley and Eastern Shore rely heavily on immigrant workers.
“Our nation needs legal immigration for healthy economic growth,” Bauhan says. “We also need secure borders. Unfortunately, the political climate in recent decades seems to preclude bipartisan compromises that would achieve both objectives.”
In particular, the poultry industry would like to see the establishment of a guest worker program geared toward nonseasonal employment.
“That would allow guest workers to stay in the United States for longer periods of time to address nonseasonal agricultural needs, such as poultry, which is year-round,” Bauhan says. But, he notes, “it tends to be polarizing and difficult to get enough people on the same page and get it across the finish line.”
Trade and the port
Both Harris and Trump contend they’d do a better job than their opponent in leading the U.S. economy to new heights, and a stronger economy would lift individual industries.
That’s the case at the Port of Virginia.
“More than anything, for us, what affects trade is the economy,” says Joe Harris, the port’s spokesperson. “Right now, we have a very strong dollar. We’re able to buy more abroad. The value of our goods going overseas is greater, which makes it harder for people to buy our exports. Our collective ability to purchase is great.”
The American Association of Port Authorities has pushed back on a new 25% tariff on cranes imported from China, an order from the Biden White House that was set to go into effect Aug. 1 with other tariff increases on Chinese-made electric cars, semiconductors and solar cells. However, the increases have been delayed to an uncertain future date, due to industry pushback.
According to a news release, the AAPA is concerned the tariff could cause “grave harm to port efficiency and capacity, strained supply chains, increased consumer prices and a weaker U.S. economy.” At the Port of Virginia, all 27 cranes are manufactured by Chinese state-owned ZPMC, and eight more cranes are on order from the company, set to arrive in December and next year.
Both Harris and Trump have expressed support for tariffs to some degree. A Harris spokesperson said in a statement to The New York Times that Harris would “employ targeted and strategic tariffs to support American workers, strengthen our economy, and hold our adversaries accountable.” The Biden administration kept some of Trump’s tariffs on China and even proposed an increase.
Trump, however, has proposed much higher tariffs on most imports, up to 60% on Chinese products — a position Harris has called a “Trump tax” that would cost middle-class families almost $4,000 a year. Economists say that may be a bit overblown, suggesting the true cost to families may rise to $2,600 a year, according to a USA Today article.
“President Trump’s commitment to make America the dominant energy producer in the world, strengthen and modernize our military, and roll back the Biden-Harris administration’s oppressive regulatory burden on our businesses and family farms will supercharge Virginia’s economy,” his Virginia spokesperson said in an email to Virginia Business.
Port spokesperson Harris was careful to distance the port from partisan politics.
“We try to stay outside the political fray,” he says. “We want to live and do business with whoever is in control of the White House and the governor’s office. More than anything outside of politics, the greatest influence is the economy.”
He does, however, note that potential issues also could arise “if someone in the White House wants to enact tariffs, or all of a sudden we find ourselves in a trade war.”
RELATED STORY: Spotlight on 2024 Senate, House races
When Gail Courville decided this year to move closer into the Richmond metro area from Serenity Farm, her 109-acre Goochland County estate, she faced a real estate market vastly changed from the last time she relocated, back in 2014.
The interest rate on the nearly $900,000, 5,000-square-foot home she wanted to purchase in Henrico County was 7.25% — more than twice the 3.25% interest she paid on her Goochland property, for which she paid $1.49 million. Prices had risen, of course, but housing supply had shrunk dramatically.
A former home health care agency director, Courville was undaunted.
“You know how you just know when it’s right? Everything about it flows,” says Courville, who closed on her new Henrico home in July.
Courville is one of many Virginia buyers who have been navigating a housing market that’s been dramatically reshaped in recent years. The below 4% interest rates that followed the Great Recession evaporated following the COVID-19 pandemic, while prices have continued to escalate. That’s led many prospective buyers — including baby boomers who’d otherwise be downsizing into smaller homes and moderate-income buyers wanting to scale up to larger houses — to hold onto their property.
Nationally, pending home sales fell in April to their lowest rate since the early days of the pandemic. A Gallup poll showed 21% of Americans say it’s a good time to buy — a reversal of sentiment from most of the 21st century so far.
In the Richmond market, however, pending sales are up.
Courville was aided in her decision to buy by 76 years of wisdom and a history of buying and selling real estate that included a memory of 17% interest rates when she bought her first home in the 1970s. She was also assisted by a real estate broker with whom she’s worked for 12 years, since she bought that Goochland farm.
Courville’s agent was Dare Tulloch, an associate broker at Long & Foster in Midlothian and past president of the Richmond Association of Realtors. Like Courville, she’s seen a lot.
“People always have to move for one reason or another,” Tulloch says. “I think people are realizing the interest rates are not going to change overnight. People are thinking, how much longer do I want to live with mom and dad, how much do I want to pay this rent rate? There are a lot of things flat in their face saying, ‘I need to go ahead and do something anyway.’”
Supply and demand
Virginia’s real estate market has fared relatively well in 2024 compared with the national market, says Ryan Price, chief economist for Virginia Realtors.
“We’re doing better than average in terms of market activity, transaction volume, things like that,” Price says. “In Virginia, we’ve been outpacing our transaction volume — the number of sales — slightly, though not much. We’ve had about 3% more sales this year than we had a year ago.”
That’s despite higher mortgage rates than this time last year. Price credits that to a couple of factors, such as “a very strong job base in Virginia,” Price says. “Jobs and housing go hand in hand. The other part is the pool of buyers out there — the ones that can afford to buy are becoming more acclimated to the higher interest rate environment we’re in.”
Home prices are continuing to climb, increasing every month so far this year, compared with the prior year. That dynamic boils down to supply and demand: With many homeowners still hesitant to dive into the market and abandon their locked-in low interest rates, there’s just not enough homes on the market to match the demand from buyers.
Price says many localities are reworking their planning and zoning codes to incentivize more construction, but it can be a while before that process makes a difference in market data.
“The rule of thumb used to be six months of inventory was typical. We haven’t seen six months of inventory in a long time,” says Hampton Roads Realtors Association President Kim Georges. Photo by Mark Rhodes
“It is going to take us some time to get out of this tight inventory,” Price says. “Part of it is builders have underproduced relative to population change, basically, since the Great Recession. There’s also been the rate at which seniors, and particularly baby boomers, have been downsizing. [It] has been much slower than a lot of people anticipated.”
The result is that younger buyers, first-time buyers and moderate-income buyers have largely been shut out of the current market, Price says.
His team analyzed the income level needed to afford a median-priced home in Virginia’s metro areas. They found that in nearly every metro region, the median income is less than what buyers need to afford the median home. And in some markets — especially Charlottesville and Northern Virginia — median home prices are $60,000 or more higher than median incomes.
“Virginia is consistently ranked in the top one, two, three in states for business,” Price says. “We have all this stuff going for us, but if those workers have a hard time putting down roots in Virginia where we have jobs, we could start to see that diluted. I don’t know we’re at that point yet, but those affordability issues are starting to bubble up.”
Deals far from D.C.
Home prices are continuing to rise in Northern Virginia, but buyers are adjusting to that, as well as higher interest rates. For June, the region’s median home price was $780,000, up nearly 9% year-over-year, says Ryan McLaughlin, CEO of the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors.
“That’s largely driven by the situation we’re in, with low supply and continued demand,” McLaughlin says. “The silver lining is, we’re expecting sales to perform better than we initially expected.”
Northern Virginia has seen a slight uptick in its available housing inventory. As of June, the region had 1.3 months of housing supply, higher than its five-year average of 1.1 months. Homes in NoVa also are taking slightly longer to sell than in recent years, and in February, April and May, the region saw a year-over-year increase in sales for the first time since 2021.
Buyers in the region are going farther to find deals, as the patterns of remote working that flourished during the pandemic allowed buyers to work from farther away. This shift was reflected in the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors’ decision nearly two years ago to expand its reach from its traditional core of Arlington and Fairfax counties and Alexandria to include Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford counties.
Since 2020, the Winchester region, more than an hour’s drive northwest from Tysons, has become Virginia’s fastest-growing metro area due to an outflow of remote workers from the Washington, D.C., region. Some D.C.-area buyers are going even farther — as far south as the Richmond area.
“Five or six years ago, if they were moving from the West Coast or D.C., people bypassed Richmond and landed in Charlotte and Atlanta,” says Laura Lafayette, CEO of the Richmond Association of Realtors. “Now, if people are leaving D.C. or Northern Virginia, we’re second only to Raleigh in where they’re locating.”
This group of D.C.-centric homebuyers has an advantage over Richmond locals: They have greater equity derived from the higher prices in the Northern Virginia housing market. Often, they continue to work their higher-wage D.C. jobs remotely or visit the office only on occasion. That allows them to make more attractive purchase offers — which in turn is pushing prices in the Richmond area to higher amounts than many locals can afford.
“We’re seeing a crowding out of Richmonders who’d love to get into that first-time house or [a] house period,” Lafayette says. “Someone from Fairfax who just sold a house for $1.5 million can offer cash. Or a lot of people in D.C. or Northern Virginia have to rent because a purchase is elusive. If you can come here and purchase with D.C. wages, that’s a lot more attractive.”
This new pool of buyers has also brought additional strain to a region that’s already experiencing “a profound lack of inventory,” Lafayette says. The region is sitting at a 1.4-month supply of houses — slightly higher than Northern Virginia, but exceedingly tight for Richmond.
Interest rates are part of the problem. It’s not that current rates are particularly high compared with historical trends — it’s that they’re high compared to rates from the past 15 years. That’s meant older homeowners are deciding to stay put rather than risk a loss by moving.
“We know many, many seniors across the commonwealth and in our region are aging in place,” Lafayette says. “And they’re aging in first-time homebuyer inventory. If people don’t move out of first-time homebuyer inventory and move up — from $250,000 to $400,000 [homes], from $400,000 to $600,000 [homes] — then people can’t enter the housing market. It’s like a gear that locks up on itself.”
Land grab
Virginia homebuilders are scurrying to address the supply issue.
Tim Parent is Richmond market president for Mungo Homes, which three years ago acquired the former CraftMaster Homes. Parent says the company is in a “push toward growth mode” as it scales up new home construction in the Richmond metro region.
The company is seeing the effects of Richmond’s increasingly hot housing market, along with the growing number of buyers relocating from the D.C. metro area.
“Richmond’s by no means inexpensive, but it’s a lot less expensive than Northern Virginia and D.C., and they get more for their money here,” Parent says.
That’s not just driving prices up but pushing more growth out into greater Richmond’s surrounding counties. Builders and developers are encountering challenges there, too.
“Our biggest hurdle is land and getting lots,” Parent says. “It’s harder and harder in some of these counties and surrounding areas to get land approved. Once you do, it’s pushing value up because there’s less of it. And that creates bigger issues in cost and what we can build.”
The issue of land availability and red tape around the development process is one of the major issues affecting supply, he says.
“That’s the biggest, most difficult thing hitting builders now,” Parent says. “For developers, it’s getting the right piece of property at the right price, and not taking two to three years to get it approved and rezoned. That cost is driving up the price of homes.”
Some localities are moving to address the issue. Parent points to Henrico County, which has a $60 million land trust and is looking to facilitate projects that involve affordable housing. And generally, county governments seem willing to work with developers because they see the upside, particularly in terms of tax revenue.
Still, all these actions take time to make a real difference in terms of housing prices and supply.
“That’s our No. 1 focus now … making sure we have enough lots to grow,” Price says.
What’s normal?
The Hampton Roads area is one part of Virginia that saw an increase in inventory over the past year. Listings there are up 35% year-over-year, from 3,366 listings in June 2023 to 4,380 this June, according to Kim Georges, president of the Hampton Roads Realtors Association.
That seems like a big jump, but context is important.
“Just to give perspective, in 2009, we had over 11,000 listings on the market,” Georges says. “Even though this sounds like a huge increase, we’re still at 2.2 months of supply in Norfolk. Recently we’ve had anywhere from 1.7 to 2.2 months, which is historically low.”
Although buyers are beginning to adjust to higher interest rates, can the Hampton Roads market adjust to a stubbornly small supply of housing inventory? Georges isn’t so sure.
“The rule of thumb used to be six months of inventory was typical,” Georges says. “We haven’t seen six months of inventory in a long time. Now it’s two months. That’s still not enough inventory. I’m not sure what a ‘normal’ real estate market looks like today, now or in the future. It’s not been ‘normal’ since the pandemic, or even before then.”
It took the real estate market years to adjust to disruption from the Great Recession. Today’s market is still adapting to that new environment, plus additional disruptions from the pandemic. It’s still shaking out.
The Hampton Roads Realtors Association has seen a dip in membership as agents leave the business or take on different roles. Some of that’s due to attrition, but also to uncertainty around commissions.
The real estate market is still adjusting to a $418 million court settlement that led the National Association of Realtors to institute changes in how real estate agents are awarded commissions on sales. That’s fueled anxiety both for buyers and industry professionals.
“I think again we’re talking about a new normal,” Georges says. But “it’s not a new concept to have a buyer-broker agreement. That’s not new to the state of Virginia; it’s been law for a while. Some people aren’t sure how to handle it, but the more it’s settled, and we know what we’re supposed to do, we’ll go back to doing business. We’re going to be fine.”
Virginia’s real estate market is still finding whatever passes for normal in 2024. It’s disconcerting, both for industry professionals and for buyers.
“Moving is such an emotional process,” says Courville, the recent Richmond buyer, who’s now selling her Goochland estate, which is listed for $2.6 million. “I think that wise counsel would say that you want to really know what sustains you. When you see that one house, you know it’s right. [For me,] it wasn’t difficult. The difficult part is unpacking the boxes.”
Banking mergers and acquisitions are picking back up again after the slowest year in recent history, and Virginia is no exception.
Last year marked a modern low in merger and acquisition activity, with only 98 deals completed nationwide. That’s not just the lowest level of activity since the pandemic — it’s the slowest year since 2004. Industry analysts with Morgan Stanley Research predicted the trend would reverse in 2024, forecasting a potential 50% increase in mergers and acquisitions.
The banking industry has steadily trended toward consolidation since the 1994 passage of a federal law that allowed banks to branch across state lines. Increasingly tighter margins, new regulations and the need to adjust to changing technology has pushed banks to become more efficient, with larger banks able to tap into economies of scale not available to smaller operations.
“Virginia’s mirrored a lot of the national trend line on M&A activity,” says Matthew Bruning, executive vice president of government and member relations for the Virginia Bankers Association.
After a pandemic slowdown for banking mergers and acquisitions, activity picked up a little in 2023, “but it was still anemic,” Bruning says. “I’ve seen prognosticators talking about ’24 picking up, and rightfully so. The dynamic hasn’t changed as far as the drivers on that, with compliance costs and the burden on that side of things, [and] the need for economies of scale for banks of all sizes. What’s different over the last decade is the lack of new bank formation.”
The most recent batch of Virginia bank mergers and acquisitions varies by deal, but a common factor has seen banks seeking to grow in new markets, especially in metro areas.
These banks see an opportunity to “look at markets they’re not in, and to build scale and invest in technology to reach customers, while still having commitment to their legacy markets,” Bruning says.
That applies not only to large banks, but smaller ones as well. Since 2012, there have been 48 mergers among community banks in Virginia alone, says Virginia Association of Community Banks President and CEO Steve Yeakel.
Banks of all sizes are affected by the “challenges of scale and the regulatory environment,” Yeakel says. “It’s fair to say this trend will continue in some way or another to the foreseeable future.”
Credit card combo
Virginia already has seen deal activity increase among banks and credit unions over the last year.
The biggest, by far, is McLean-based Capital One Financial’s blockbuster proposed purchase of Discover Financial Services for $35.3 billion. If federal regulators sign off on the all-stock deal, it would be Capital One’s largest ever acquisition and would make it the nation’s biggest credit card lender.
“We believe strongly that this merger will increase competition among banks and credit card issuers and payment networks, and provide significant benefits for consumers, merchants and the communities that we serve,” Capital One founder, Chairman and CEO Richard Fairbank said during the bank’s first quarter earnings call in April. “We believe the facts will show that this transaction is both pro-competitive and pro-consumer, bringing our best-in-class products and services to a broader set of consumers and small businesses and greatly enhancing opportunities and benefits for merchants.”
The proposed deal has received pushback from both Democratic and Republican U.S. senators. President Joe Biden also has taken a wary approach to large mergers, fighting an airline consolidation and issuing an executive order calling on the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and other agencies to update their guidelines “to provide more robust scrutiny” of banking mergers.
The Capital One-Discover transaction is expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025. At close, Capital One shareholders will own about 60% of the combined company and Discover shareholders will hold the remaining approximately 40%.
“It’s a really big deal,” says Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. “Those are two giant companies and two really significant players. The credit card space is already so thoroughly dominated by a relatively small number of financial institutions that I understand people’s concern about further consolidation. But I also think that one of the things that is really interesting about this is the payment network aspect of this.”
The deal grants Capital One access to Discover’s payment processing services. The combined company’s sheer size would give it the potential to significantly influence the industry’s payment systems, a fact that’s attracting the attention of many others in the industry.
“We’re not concerned about direct impacts,” says Yeakel with the Virginia Association of Community Banks, but “we’re watching, thinking closely about what that merger would do in the payment system.”
Schulz explains: “With most credit cards, you have the payment network who provides the infrastructure that lets the transactions happen. Visa and Mastercard are the giant gorilla behemoths of the space. American Express is its own thing, both card issuer and network. There’s already been a [big] push to inject more competition against Visa and Mastercard through legislation, but the possibility of a giant issuer like Capital One having a payment network of their own really presents the possibility of having another payment network that’s an even more serious competitor.”
Despite the enormity of the deal, Schulz speculates it probably won’t affect consumers all that much.
“Personally, I think it may not have that much of an impact, especially if they let the Discover brand of credit card stand, because the space is already dominated by relatively small group of players,” Schulz says. “I don’t know that this is going to change things all that much.”
Industry change
The Capital One-Discover deal stands out as a Virginia mega-deal, but it’s far from the only banking M&A activity in the commonwealth playing out this year.
Richmond-based Atlantic Union Bank completed its $407 million merger with Danville-based American National Bank in May. That deal was first announced in June 2023 and approved by the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors in February 2024.
The merger, Atlantic Union President and CEO John C. Asbury says, was the culmination of a 40-year relationship between the banks.
“For better or for worse, consolidation is a reality in this industry,” Asbury says. “The need to invest in technology, increased regulatory requirements and changing customer expectations have driven a lot of change in the industry. It means a lot of investment needs to occur. From American National Bank’s standpoint, they really had two choices: to make change happen on their own over time, which is expensive, or to join with a friendly party that they knew quite well.”
The consolidation will mean expanded lending capacity and a more robust wealth management and trust business for the newly merged bank, Asbury says. Atlantic Union also picked up American National’s branches, which expanded its reach in Southern Virginia, Roanoke and North Carolina.
“If you look at the map, it’s a hand-in-glove fit,” Asbury says. “It’s perfect infill.”
The merger cements Atlantic Union’s ascendance as a growing, mid-sized bank. Atlantic Union started as a community bank, but although it still considers itself a community bank compared with the nationals, it’s larger than the Virginia Association of Community Banks’ definition, which caps its membership at $10 billion in assets. The combined Atlantic Union has total assets of $23.7 billion.
Another ongoing Virginia merger, though, remains firmly within the narrower definition of “community bank.”
Bigger footprints
Strasburg-based First National is in the process of acquiring Prince George-based Touchstone Bankshares in an all-stock transaction worth roughly $47 million. First Bank will combine with Touchstone to form what will be the ninth largest community bank in Virginia, with 32 branches and expected total assets of about $2.1 billion.
The deal comes on the heels of First Bank’s 2021 acquisition of the Bank of Fincastle, which expanded its footprint from the Shenandoah Valley and Central Virginia into the Roanoke metro area. The Touchstone deal would take it into Southern Virginia, parts of North Carolina, and the lucrative Richmond region. If approved, the merger would be implemented in early 2025.
Scott Harvard is CEO of Strasburg’s First National, which is acquiring Prince George-based Touchstone Bankshares in an all-stock transaction worth approximately $47 million. Photo by Will Schermerhorn
CEO Scott Harvard arrived at First Bank in 2011. Four years later, it acquired six branches from Bank of America when the national bank withdrew from smaller communities. Places like Staunton, Waynesboro and Woodstock have become First Bank’s bread and butter. With the Touchstone deal, it’s expanding its footprint with seven new branches in the Richmond metro area.
“Even though they’ve got metro Richmond, they’re on the fringes of it and serve smaller communities — which are culturally very similar to the Shenandoah Valley,” Harvard says. “They’re community-oriented, which is what we like. That’s who we are as a community banking company.”
Banks in general operate under increasingly tight margins that particularly squeeze smaller banks, Harvard says. That’s been further exacerbated during the last couple of years when short-term interest rates have exceeded long-term rates, creating an inverted yield curve that makes it challenging for banks to attain viable margins.
That dynamic has further pushed banks to scale up, all but ensuring a continuation of the industry trend toward mergers.
“In 1994, we had 164 banks in Virginia, but every 10 years since, the number of banks headquartered here has dropped by about 25% to 30%,” says Harvard at First National. “In 2014, it was down to 91 banks. In 2024, there are 60 or 61 banks in Virginia. It’s likely you’ll continue to see consolidation at a similar-type pace. You see it across the country as well. I don’t know it’ll cascade or be a huge waterfall, but it will continue to happen over time.”
Another deal occurred in May, when Alexandria-based Burke & Herbert completed its acquisition of West Virginia-based Summit Financial Group. The all-stock deal, valued at $371.5 million, creates a bank with $8.3 billion in assets. As with the Atlantic Union and First Bank deals, this merger expands Burke & Herbert’s reach, essentially tripling its footprint, growing it from its current presence in Richmond, Fredericksburg and Northern Virginia to include Delaware, Kentucky, West Virginia and Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
“This alliance doesn’t just extend our influence; it strategically positions us for future growth,” bank President Charles Maddy III said in a statement. “It also lays the foundation for cultivating richer relationships and underscores our aspiration to become the most sought-after community bank in our markets.”
Credit unions consolidate too
It’s not just Virginia banks that are consolidating; Virginia credit unions are merging as well.
In June, Apple Federal Credit Union and NextMark Credit Union, both based in Fairfax County, announced plans to merge, with the deal slated to close in November. Founded in 1956, Apple has $4.4 billion in assets and 245,000 members, and will integrate the much smaller NextMark into its operations. Post-merger, Apple will have nearly $5 billion in assets and about 260,000 members.
An even bigger credit union deal was announced in January, as Richmond-based Virginia Credit Union announced it would merge with Roanoke-based Member One to create the third largest credit union in Virginia. If the deal is approved, the newly merged credit union will have $6.8 billion in assets, 37 branches and nearly 500,000 members.
Virginia Credit Union is the larger of the two operations, with 22 branches, mostly in the Richmond area, compared with Member One’s 15 branches across Roanoke, Lynchburg and the New River Valley.
According to Deb Wreden of the Virginia Credit Union, the deal has received initial approval from the National Credit Union Administration. Pending a positive vote by Member One’s membership, the merger is planned to take effect on Aug. 1.
Virginia Credit Union spokesman Lewis Wood cited “the costs, challenges and requirements associated with regulatory compliance, cybersecurity, technology, fraud and the realities of today’s economy” as factors in the merger.
Credit union mergers look different from bank mergers due to their ownership by members instead of stockholders. But credit unions also have been consolidating on a steady clip, from 263 mergers in 2014 to 146 in 2023, with the decrease due in part to the shrinking number of credit unions overall. Virginia has effectively mirrored that national trend, with several mergers each year.
“The rate of mergers has been fairly steady,” says J.T. Blau, chief advocacy officer of the Virginia Credit Union League. “Mergers happen for different reasons. One of the reasons is that compliance burden, the regulatory burden that all credit unions face. Compliance costs continue to rise and are difficult for small credit unions. A lot of regulations are one-size-fits-all and can weigh heavily on smaller credit unions.”
Those macro trends continue to pressure banks and credit unions to consolidate. The process can be alarming for customers, but banks are handing it well, says Bruning of the Virginia Bankers Association.
“We’ve seen it every time there’s a merger announcement: There are certainly questions from customers, but banks do a great job explaining what’s going on through the entire process,” Bruning says. “Be patient and check in with your bank if it’s going through that process. It usually ends up being able to offer more products and services in the end.”
Eight years after it was first proposed, Virginia’s first onshore wind farm remains grounded behind regulatory, legal and political obstacles.
Charlottesville-based Apex Clean Energy first announced plans for its Rocky Forge wind farm in 2015. Apex aimed to have blades spinning by 2017 on 25, 550-foot-tall wind turbines on North Mountain, in a remote section of Botetourt County.
At first, the project seemed on track. County supervisors granted a permit in 2016, and a year later the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality granted final approval. But then Apex ran into issues finding a buyer for the proposed wind farm’s energy.
Years passed before Dominion Energy struck a deal to purchase the power and resell it to Virginia state government to help meet its goal of sourcing at least 30% of electricity for state agencies from renewable energy sources. More obstacles developed, and the contract expired and wasn’t renewed.
Wind technology also evolved, prompting Apex to reformulate its proposal, reducing the number of turbines from 25 to 13, but increasing the size of each to 643 feet high.
Additionally, a group of landowners in Botetourt and Rockbridge counties organized against Rocky Forge, joined by grassroots group Virginians for Responsible Energy. In 2020, 13 landowners filed a lawsuit challenging the DEQ’s approval. A circuit court upheld the permit, but the decision was appealed to the Virginia Court of Appeals. The group also has challenged the county’s extension of a site plan deadline and its approval of a temporary concrete-making facility near the Rocky Forge site.
Botetourt County spokesperson Tiffany Bradbury says county staff are still reviewing the newest plans for Rocky Forge. The county is allowing tree cutting and forestry at the site, “but we have issued no approvals for construction,” writes Bradbury.
Onshore wind projects require willing private landowners and proximity to transmission lines that can move the power to where it’s needed, says Dan Crawford, chair of onshore wind promotion for environmental group the Sierra Club’s Roanoke chapter, which supports the project.
“Some people tell me, ‘We don’t need turbines on our mountains; we’re going to have offshore wind,’” Crawford says. “We need everything we can get. We need offshore, especially for big consumption near the shore, and we need onshore. It’s competitive in terms of price, and it works. People just don’t want to see it.”
The individual with the most to gain from this fall’s General Assembly elections isn’t even on the ballot.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin is nearly midway through his term-limited governorship, and pretty much from day one, politicos have speculated he’s after a bigger prize: the U.S. presidency. The governor hasn’t entered the 2024 race, but he’s sent signals he’s interested, and Republican billionaires like Ronald Lauder and Rupert Murdoch have privately encouraged him to run.
November’s elections for all 140 seats in the state’s legislature will likely have a lot of bearing on whether Youngkin jumps into the national race. If Republicans backed by his Spirit of Virginia political action committee seize control of the state Senate and the House of Delegates, he would be in a good position to take his chances in the 2024 Republican primary field.
It would still be a steep climb to overcome former President Donald Trump, who led a CNN poll in September by 34 points over his closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
But for those who dislike the four-times-indicted Trump or Disney-baiting DeSantis, Youngkin is an attractive alternative — even though Democrats consider him a MAGA wolf in red fleece.
Youngkin’s PAC raised $12 million between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, including $3.3 million in August alone. The PAC has been pouring money into state Republican primaries and general election campaigns.
In response, President Joe Biden approved the release of $1.2 million from the Democratic National Committee for Virginia campaigns in September.
A.J. Nolte, an assistant professor at Regent University’s Robertson School of Government, views the General Assembly elections as a bellwether for Youngkin. “This is an acid test of the governor’s political brand,” Nolte says. “Is he strong enough to overcome the headwinds of Virginia being a blue-leaning state that’s heavily anti-Trump? There’s a lot of pro-choice suburban voters in some of the Northern Virginia suburbs, Hampton Roads and even some of the Richmond suburbs. Youngkin is invested heavily in infrastructure, in candidate recruitment [and] in trying to rebuild the Republican Party to get these legislative majorities.”
Earlier in the year, Youngkin endorsed 10 Republicans in contested primaries, all of whom won their races.
Now, with the primaries in the rearview mirror, the governor can support the GOP’s general election nominees while adjusting his political message to entice suburban voters. In September, the Spirit of Virginia launched a bus tour to encourage Republicans to vote early — a change in messaging from Trump and his followers. And flanked by newly rolled out “Parents Matter” banners, the governor has refined his earlier messages about schools — smoothing away culture wars topics like critical race theory and transgender students’ bathroom usage — but still amplifying parenting issues like children’s mental health and social media use. Democrats, meanwhile, are largely campaigning against the likelihood a GOP legislative majority would bring a 15-week limit on abortions in Virginia.
“For the governor, the stakes couldn’t be higher,” says Stephen Farnsworth, a University of Mary Washington political scientist. “His ability to make the case for his political future is going to depend on what he can do in the next two years. If Democrats end up with either of the two chambers, the final years of Youngkin’s term will be just as frustrating as the first two.”
RELATED STORY: Battlefield Virginia — Abortion, party control at stake in legislative races
It’s a nerve-wracking time this fall for a small group of campaign managers, with the balance of power in the General Assembly coming down to a handful of close political races.
In House District 97, freshman Republican Del. Karen Greenhalgh is defending her Virginia Beach-centered seat against Michael Feggans, a Democrat who grew up in the city and served in the Air Force.
It’s a key, front-line race in the high-stakes battle for control of Virginia’s state legislature, with all 140 seats in the Senate and House of Delegates up for election this fall. (Early voting began Sept. 22 for the Nov. 7 general election.) Following extensive redistricting and an exodus of retiring legislators, politicos say it’s a tough call how the elections will shake out, but the outcome could determine the Assembly’s balance of political power for years to come. Races for both chambers will be closely fought, with the future of abortion access, tax laws, budget priorities and labor issues all in question.
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, District 97 is one of the state’s most competitive races this cycle. The district went 2.2 points for Republicans in 2021 and 5.2 points for Democrats in 2022. As of the Aug. 31 campaign finance reporting deadline, Feggans has raised $890,000 and Greenhalgh $852,955.
Greenhalgh founded Heritage Woodworks, a cabinet-manufacturing company she later sold, and Cyber Tygr, a business that addresses cybersecurity issues in health care. She also works as a manager for local crisis pregnancy centers, clinics that provide care — but not abortion services — to pregnant women. Four of 17 bills on which Greenhalgh was chief sponsor or chief co-sponsor passed last session. She was chief sponsor of legislation that would have expanded the parameters of written consent by people seeking abortions; the bill was killed in committee by the Democratic-held Virginia State Senate.
She also supports a 15-week ban on abortions favored by Gov. Glenn Youngkin and other Republicans, while Feggans has voiced his support for current state law, which allows abortions through the second trimester and requires approval from three doctors before a third-trimester procedure.
The candidates themselves say they’re running for office for less-complicated reasons.
“I have people in my district who are just like me, who live paycheck to paycheck,” Greenhalgh says. “As far as it being a swing district, no matter which party you tend to vote for, we want the same things: We want safe neighborhoods. We want good schools for our kids. We want good jobs to support families. Those are the dreams that everyone in my district has for their families and their children. I look for ways to make sure we don’t lose those opportunities in Virginia.”
Meanwhile, Feggans, who worked in health services management and started a cybersecurity company, touts his Air Force service and local and political ties. He previously interned in U.S. Sen. Mark Warner’s Norfolk office and for the state secretary of technology and earned his master’s degree in cybersecurity from Norfolk State University.
“I took all the experiences invested in me for 20 years to give back to the community that nurtured me,” Feggans says. “We know we have a pathway to victory. Virginia Beach is a military town. Not only my service record in the military, but my service to the community reflects who Virginia Beach is. I’m a product of Virginia Beach Public Schools and a product of Virginia colleges. I know I have a lot to offer to the city that raised me.”
On the verge
However homespun the candidates sound, politicos acknowledge that Virginia’s blueish reputation and recent legislative gridlock could change radically next year if the GOP wins a few tight races. Should Republicans attain majorities in both chambers, they have a chance to reframe Virginia politics. Corporate tax cuts and restrictions on abortion would be almost certainties.
“Democrats have been on the surge, but there’s a real possibility Republicans hold the House and take the Senate,” says political analyst A.J. Nolte, an assistant professor at Regent University’s Robertson School of Government. “They might have a trifecta for the first time in the state in a long time. That’s potentially an earthquake. People have gotten used to the idea Virginia is a more blue state, but let’s not forget [that] Republicans held both chambers as recently as 2018. Unified Democratic control is more recent.”
After a Republican ticket led by Gov. Bob McDonnell swept the 2009 races, Democrats won every subsequent statewide office — including both U.S. senatorial seats, governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general — until the GOP slate led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin won in 2021.
For his part, Youngkin has been active in raising money for Republican candidates in the June primaries and November’s general elections. In a very real sense, his political reputation and potential presidential aspirations are also on the line this fall. (See related story.)
Republicans are being propelled by Youngkin, who endorsed 10 successful candidates in key Republican primaries, and his Spirit of Virginia political action committee, which raised $5.9 million as of June 30.
“The governor made it a priority to recruit and endorse candidates in those races to make sure we had the strongest possible candidates going into the election cycle,” says David Rexrode, an adviser to the governor and chairman of Youngkin’s PAC.
This election, Rexrode says, “The No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 issues are — order varies by district — jobs and economy, education and public safety. That’s what our candidates are talking about because that’s what our voters care about.”
‘Gutter politics’
Meanwhile, Democrats largely are training their attacks on former President Donald Trump’s continuing influence in the Republican Party, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, which overturned the federal right to abortion, ceding authority to states.
“Frankly, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Virginians, especially Virginia women,” says Liam Watson, press secretary for the Democratic Party of Virginia. “We all know what’s at stake this year is abortion rights — not just for Virginians but across the South. Virginia is the last Southern state without a post-Dobbs abortion ban. The GOP in Virginia right now at all levels is pushing for a ban on abortion. We know what Republicans are about; it’s not a mystery what they’d do if we give them full control of our government here in Richmond.”
Speaking about abortion access, Democratic Virginia House Minority Leader Don Scott of Portsmouth says, “The only people trying to pretend it’s not on the ballot are MAGA Republicans.”
Nolte says the Democratic caucus has been slowly transforming for years, but with mass retirements and primaries, moderates have largely given way to younger, more progressive candidates. Meanwhile, he adds, Youngkin’s money and influence largely overcame national trends and defeated “MAGA, flame-throwing folks” in GOP primaries, such as Del. Marie March and Sen. Amanda Chase, who lost battles against more moderate Republican challengers.
Youngkin’s Virginia organization “is heavily focused on training, heavily focused on [building] disciplined, technically proficient campaigns,” Nolte says, but is “not as much focused on big-ticket messaging.”
In response to Youngkin’s PAC largesse, President Joe Biden in September directed the Democratic National Committee to add $1.2 million in contributions to Democrats running for Virginia legislative seats, bringing the DNC’s total to $1.5 million.
“When we had the majority, the biggest thing we did was make sure this economy works for everybody,” Scott says. “Virginia was named the No. 1 state for business in the country twice during that time. The governor now, who is supposed to be a business guy, hasn’t been able to accomplish that.”
Although many of the November candidates prefer to focus on local, less hot-button issues than abortion, it’s clear that the Virginia General Assembly’s more collegial, compromise-friendly tenor will change next year because of the number of retired legislators and lame-duck incumbents leaving office in January.
Lawmakers with a combined 649 years of legislative experience will not return to the General Assembly in 2024, according to former Republican Del. Chris Saxman, executive director of Virginia FREE, a nonpartisan, business-focused political organization.
The 2021 statewide redistricting placed a significant number of incumbents in the same district, leading to retirements and hard-bitten primaries. Many who made it through the June primaries now have a clear path to election in November due to the makeup of their districts, except in a handful of toss-up districts that will determine political control.
With both parties eager to motivate voters, competitive races are hinging largely on negative campaigning, says political analyst Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington and a longtime observer of the legislature.
“The key thing is getting your base out,” Farnsworth says. “The demonization of the other side is a tried-and-true strategy for getting your voters to actually turn out, and the way that’s done is to create sort of funhouse mirror images of the opposing party.”
One notable example is the battleground 57th District race for an open seat in Henrico and Goochland counties. In September, a Republican operative informed The Washington Post that Democratic candidate Susanna Gibson, a nurse practitioner, had performed sex acts with her attorney husband for tips on a streaming porn website, leading to a slew of spicy national headlines. The operative has denied any connection with Gibson’s GOP opponent, David Owen, former co-owner of Goochland-based Boone Homes. Gibson has framed the incident as “gutter politics” and an attempt to intimidate, silence and humiliate her. Her attorney has argued that the leaked content violates the state’s revenge porn laws, however Gibson knowingly appeared live on a porn website that didn’t require a password for access.
Democratic state Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg is running for state Senate in Henrico against an incumbent who he says is “drastically out of touch” with constituents on abortion access. Photo courtesy of Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg
Negative campaigning only exacerbates a concurrent shift that mirrors national politics — a growing number of elected officials are less likely to cross party lines in support of bipartisan, moderate policies.
“When elections are conducted in this fashion, you find very few moderates elected and find very little opportunity for compromise,” Farnsworth says, “because, after all, you basically spent the general election making the argument the other side is in thrall to the things your voters hate. Increasingly, Virginia is looking a lot like Capitol Hill when it comes to partisan gridlock and hot-button issues.”
The new lines could end up favoring Democrats because the new districts skew the balance of power to suburbs, whether in Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads or the Richmond metro region, Farnsworth notes, so candidates on both sides are carefully tailoring their campaign messages to appeal to moderates.
Walking a fine line
Take Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, a two-term Republican incumbent from western Henrico County. An OB/GYN, she was the only Republican to join Democrats in defeating Greenhalgh’s abortion information bill.
She won an open seat in 2015, then eked out a narrow re-election victory amid the Democratic wave of 2019. She’s now running in Senate District 16, which went for Democrats by 6 percentage points in 2021 and 10 percentage points in 2022, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
Positioning herself as a common-sense moderate, incumbent Republican state Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant is running to keep her seat in a Henrico district she describes as “purple.” Photo courtesy Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant
Dunnavant, who pitches herself as a down-to-earth citizen legislator in pursuit of straightforward fixes to policy problems, is running against Democrat Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg, a Henrico County teacher who has served in the House since 2018. It’s a must-win for both parties as they seek control of the Democratic-held Senate.
“I am in one of those purple seats that is even more favorable for Democrats,” Dunnavant says, “and yet, I’ve won it before, and I’ll win it again because of the fact that I actually work hard on common-sense bills that make a difference in my constituents’ lives.”
Dunnavant has focused on bipartisan legislation she sponsored to standardize health care records and establish dual-enrollment credits among high schools, community colleges and public four-year universities. But she also generally backs Youngkin’s position to place restrictions on abortion after 15 weeks, with exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother and severe birth defects, and to restrict the procedure altogether in the third trimester. VanValkenburg, who did not respond to interview requests, has said that Dunnavant’s position on abortion is “drastically out of touch.”
Through Aug. 31, Dunnavant raised $1.9 million, and VanValkenburg brought in $1.6 million.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Montgomery “Monty” Mason of Williamsburg has focused his campaign to retain the seat he’s held since 2017 on his business background, which includes his current job as a senior director for Visa and his previous stint as chairman of the Williamsburg Economic Development Authority board. Mason says he’s well-positioned to run in a seat that leaned 1.1 points toward Democrats in 2022, according to VPAP.
“I’m a good person to give a 50/50 district to,” Mason says. “I’m a moderate. I have a lot of veterans in my district. Of course, school safety and discussions about gun safety and how to protect children have been an enormous topic of conversation.”
Mason says a large contingent of military veterans in the district have expressed support for Republican-backed tax relief, while a significant number of voters are talking about safety and funding for schools.
As of Aug. 31, Mason raised $2 million, and his Republican challenger, Danny Diggs, raised $1.3 million.
Mason’s biggest funder so far this year is Dominion Energy, a polarizing campaign donor. Many Democrats have received money from the utility, but others have made a point of rejecting its donations. The latter have been supported by Clean Virginia, a PAC that supports candidates who spurn Dominion funding. In March, Clean Virginia said it expected to spend $2.5 million on Virginia elections this year.
Dominion has made significant contributions to Republicans and Democrats for years, but the Fortune 500 utility’s expansive influence has become a source of controversy, particularly among Democratic delegates in fierce primary battles. As of Aug. 31, Dominion had contributed $3.2 million to Democratic PACs and candidates in state races, and $2.6 million to Republicans, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
With more legislators caught up in partisan or intraparty political battles than ever before, businesses and individuals who wish to stay in the good graces of whoever holds the power in Richmond face hard choices.
“In today’s Virginia politics, there will be a lot more lawmaking from a more decidedly liberal or decidedly conservative perspective,” Farnsworth says. “That means that elections have higher stakes in terms of the outcome, but they also are more risky for business. If you back the wrong party, that’s bad for you.”
RELATED STORY: Youngkin’s 2024 tightrope walk depends on Va. elections
Politicians like to suggest every new election is the most important of our lifetimes, but Virginia’s off-off-year state legislative elections in 2023 might actually live up to the billing for once.
In November, voters will elect representatives to all 140 seats in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates, in the first campaign season since the state redrew districts through an unprecedented process outside lawmaker control. To compound matters, a startling number of legislators are retiring or competing against fellow incumbents in new “double-bunked” districts created by the December 2021 redistricting.
These factors contribute to a generational election that will determine Virginia’s legislative future for years to come.
“This upheaval has literally never happened in the history of Virginia,” says Greg Habeeb, a former state delegate and president of Gentry Locke Consulting, a Richmond lobbying, marketing and strategic communications firm. “We’ve never seen this raw number of retirements and departures coupled with the seniority of those people leaving.”
As an example, Habeeb points to the Senate Finance Committee — “the epicenter of the epicenter” of both power and the retirement wave. Committee chair Janet Howell of Reston is retiring after 31 years, along with fellow Democratic committee members John Edwards and Richard Saslaw, as well as Republicans Steve Newman, Tommy Norment and Jill Vogel.
Meanwhile, fellow Democratic committee members Sens. George Barker, Creigh Deeds, Louise Lucas and Dave Marsden all faced primaries. That left Democratic Sens. Adam Ebbin and Mamie Locke and Republican Sen. Frank Ruff as the only incumbent Senate Finance committee members guaranteed to run in November, although Deeds, Lucas and Marsden won their June 20 primaries.
Known for their moderate stances, Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw (left) and Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment Jr. are both retiring this year. Photo by Alexa Welch Edlund/Richmond Times-Dispatch via Associated Press
Many factors are converging into a perfect storm for remaking the legislature in 2023. For starters, Habeeb says, “it’s harder to do this job for a long time and have a family and private-sector job. Two, an inordinate number of senators had served for decades and naturally got to a point where they need to retire. Coupled with redistricting, that created this avalanche.”
A bipartisan commission created to redraw legislative districts ultimately deadlocked last year, leaving the process to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which appointed two special masters to carry out the task. Since lawmakers were no longer drawing lines out of self-interest, many ended up in new districts or sharing a district with one or two other incumbents.
“I think having those incumbent-versus-incumbent races was something that pushed the retirement rate up,” says J. Miles Coleman, associate editor for Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
One example is Democratic Sen. John Edwards of Roanoke, who was drawn into a district with Republican Sen. David Suetterlein that voted 55% Republican in the 2021 gubernatorial election. Edwards opted to retire.
Other lawmakers faced primary challengers on June 20 — sometimes from fellow incumbents. One of the most dramatic examples played out in Hampton Roads, where longtime Democratic Sens. Louise Lucas and Lionel Spruill vied to represent Senate District 18.
Lucas, the Senate’s president pro tempore, beat Spruill with 54% of the vote in the Democratic primary, and incumbent Senate Democrats George Barker, Joe Morrissey and Chap Petersen all lost their primaries. Republican Senate incumbent Amanda Chase lost her primary to former state senator Glen Sturtevant. A strident Trump supporter who continues to argue baselessly that the 2020 election was “stolen,” Chase has disputed her own election results, claiming that early votes were made on computers that don’t comply with state law.
Retirements account for nearly a fifth of the House’s turnover and more than a quarter of the Senate’s. A Virginia Chamber of Commerce analysis suggests Virginia will see at least 11 new senators and 32 new delegates enter office in January 2024, although some may be familiar faces, with several delegates running for Senate, including Democrats Danica Roem in Prince William County and Schuyler VanValkenburg in Henrico County and Republican Christopher Head in Botetourt County.
It’s not just the sheer numbers of departing members that will affect the General Assembly, but also the depth of experience being lost.
“At a minimum, it’s 581 years of experience guaranteed not returning,” says Chris Saxman, a former state delegate and executive director of Virginia FREE, a nonpartisan business-focused political organization. Coupled with incumbent losses in primaries, Saxman adds, “We’re probably going to crest 600 years not returning. We’re in a generational shift.”
Turnover starts at top
In the state Senate, both parties’ leaders are stepping down after decades in office.
At the end of 2023, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Saslaw will have served 48 years in the Assembly, just short of the record 52 years set by the late Del. Lacey Putney. Republican Senate Minority Leader Norment has served for 30 years.
Together, the two relatively moderate leaders held the center of political power in the Senate for decades, playing leading roles in big, complex legislation affecting business, such as utility regulation, taxes and transportation funding. They cultivated a working relationship that largely kept the Senate a moderating force even as state politics grew more partisan and divisive.
“It’s almost hard to imagine the Senate without Dick Saslaw and Tommy Norment,” says University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. “They are big personalities and leaders that know how to get things done. They can be partisan but also bipartisan, whatever the situation calls for. They are the old model of Virginia legislators, more interested in getting things done than scoring points for their party. I wish more junior legislators would model themselves after the two of them.”
The list of retirements goes beyond Senate leadership to include Democrats and Republicans from across Virginia. New candidates are already stepping up to fill the void. Numerous delegates announced Senate campaigns, while newcomers emerged to run for both House and Senate seats.
No matter what, the chamber will look dramatically different after November.
“It’ll likely be younger, more diverse in both parties,” Saxman says. “New perspective, new generation, more partisan and more focused on winning their districts through the nomination phase than in the past.”
The impending legislative turnover is creating a fraught moment for businesses and trade associations that routinely invest in the campaigns of officials most likely to be on committees affecting their respective industries.
Habeeb says it’s still unclear whether the shift will increase or diminish the power of lobbyists and the businesses they represent. “Anyone who thinks they know what’s going to happen is lying to themselves and to their clients,” he says.
Quick change
Virginia remains a largely divided state, with intensely Democratic and Republican regions. Most of its districts are so partisan that nominees of the favored parties are all but guaranteed election. That leaves just a handful of tossup districts where the parties will fight to win control of the legislature.
“As big an impact as these elections are going to have on the commonwealth and on the agenda of [Gov.] Glenn Youngkin in the second half of his term, it will come down to a relative handful of seats,” Coleman says. “District 31 in the Senate, which is basically western Loudoun County. District 17 in Southside. Democrats are in a situation where I think they’re favored in basically 20 seats in the Senate. They need to get one more. What’s that one more going to be?”
The parties’ respective calculation of Virginia’s most competitive districts will shape the fall campaign. Another likely force will be Youngkin, whose 2021 coattails helped the GOP retake the House majority and win the lieutenant governor and attorney general contests.
For Youngkin, the 2023 election also has provided a handy excuse to sidestep questions about his 2024 presidential ambitions. Asked at a California conference whether he’d campaign for president, Youngkin responded, “No, I’m going to be working in Virginia this year.” Some outlets took that as an indication he’d not join the Republican field of presidential candidates, while others noted the grammar seemed to apply only to this year, not next. The governor has continued to blur the issue, appearing in an ad that some observers saw as foreshadowing a national campaign.
Youngkin has endorsed 50 General Assembly incumbents, 16 nonincumbent Republican nominees and 10 candidates in contested primaries. The latter inspired blowback from a candidate who wasn’t endorsed and who complained about it on a conservative talk radio show. Former NASCAR driver and Southside GOP state Senate candidate Hermie Sadler also expressed frustration with Youngkin. The governor’s political action committee allegedly tried to change the nomination method in Sadler’s district from a primary to a convention, which likely would have favored Sadler’s Youngkin-endorsed opponent.
November’s winners will be rewarded with the opportunity to set the General Assembly’s tone for the next decade or more. To some extent, that tone also will be shaped by this year’s wave of retirements.
“For 20 or 30 years, it didn’t matter who was in charge of Senate — it was a stable body,” Habeeb says. “Those days are gone. Historically, the Senate has prevented massive changes in any given cycle. Now, there’s a scenario where historical change can happen overnight.”
The tone of the 2023 General Assembly can be encapsulated in its approach to electricity rates. With dozens of lawmakers poised to retire, the General Assembly passed a major energy law, giving the State Corporation Commission added leeway over adjusting customer rates for utilities Dominion Energy Inc. and Appalachian Power.
Yet, at the same time, lawmakers couldn’t agree on filling two vacancies on the State Corporation Commission’s three-member board — the very regulatory body to which they’d just granted additional power.
That was the 2023 General Assembly in a nutshell: The body passed numerous consequential laws taking effect this month, but its partisan split left a significant amount of unfinished business that highlights the importance of November’s legislative elections. The General Assembly’s unresolved issues this session include commercial marijuana sales, tax reform, and funding levels for public education.
By mid-June, lawmakers had yet to reach a deal on amendments to the budget for the new fiscal year beginning July 1. As a result, funding levels remained uncertain for new and existing state programs, not to mention leaving counties and cities with budgetary holes.
“They did pass the ‘skinny budget,’ so there is a stopgap measure, which provides some dependability,” Barry DuVal, president and CEO of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, said in May. “But think about what’s unresolved: funding for business-ready sites, expansion of lab schools, improvements to housing and affordability, what kind of deposits [are] going to be made in the unemployment trust fund. We look to the budget process to complete these important programs and invest in them.”
Lawmakers did make significant progress this year on legislation affecting education and workforce development, DuVal says. Foremost was a bill to consolidate Virginia’s $485 million patchwork of workforce development efforts — spread across six Cabinet secretaries, 12 state agencies and 35 programs — under the banner of the newly created Department of Workforce Development and Advancement.
He also commended lawmakers on taking steps to address child care and early childhood learning, although more concrete action was left for later.
Lawmakers also endorsed funding to develop industrial sites for megaprojects, although funding was part of the uncertain budget process. The Southeastern U.S. has become a hotspot for electric vehicle and battery factories, with plants announced for Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee — but not Virginia.
“We’re hoping to have hundreds of millions of new money for site readiness,” DuVal says. “We believe this will be a huge step forward in making Virginia competitive.”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s spokeswoman, Macaulay Porter, cited progress toward site development as one of the 2023 session’s accomplishments, in a statement sent to Virginia Business. She also named utility regulation reform, restrictions on farmland landownership by foreign governments, and investments in agricultural technology. Yet there’s still unfinished business.
“While there was much accomplished,” Porter said in May, “the governor has been clear that Senate Democrats need to come to the table to provide a budget that provides $1 billion in tax relief for Virginians and delivers over $2.6 billion for our shared goals of job growth, public safety, education excellence, conservation of the Chesapeake Bay, and behavioral health services.”
The uncompleted budget created much uncertainty for funding priorities ranging from teacher salaries to an inland port for Southwest Virginia. It was also unclear as of early June whether lawmakers would back Youngkin’s proposal to invest $10 million to create the Virginia Power Innovation Fund, including $5 million to develop a small modular nuclear reactor in Southwest Virginia.
The legislature appeared unlikely to approve Youngkin’s proposed corporate tax cuts, although Democrats seemed willing to make smaller adjustments for individual taxpayers.
“The lowering of personal income tax rates and the lowering of corporate tax rates would have sent a strong signal to Virginians, personally and businesswise, that Virginia is going to remain competitive. Some of our drop in business rankings is due to tax reform in other states,” DuVal says, referring to the state’s drop from No. 1 to No. 3 in CNBC’s 2022 America’s Top States for Business.
Then there’s the question of marijuana, previously legalized in Virginia for medical and recreational use. While medical regulations and a distribution system have been finalized for years, the shift from a Democratic majority to a divided General Assembly has frozen the creation of a recreational market. Meanwhile, officials note, an untaxed, unregulated black market continues to thrive.
“The question is no longer whether or not [cannabis] should be legal for adults in the commonwealth. That was asked and answered in 2021,” says J.M. Pedini, director of Virginia NORML, the state chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “What the General Assembly and Gov. Youngkin must now decide is for how long they will continue to choose ceding control of Virginia’s marijuana market to illicit operators.”
In the meantime, lawmakers passed legislation to crack down on otherwise legal hemp products that contained THC, the active ingredient in marijuana that causes intoxication. Gentry Locke Consulting, a Richmond lobbying, marketing and strategic communications firm led by former state Del. Greg Habeeb, represented several of the state industry’s larger players, who “hated every version of the hemp bill they saw,” Habeeb says, “including the final version.”
The original bill passed by the General Assembly would have eliminated the entire industry, he says. Youngkin’s amendments, which replaced the legislature’s 2-milligram cap on THC with a less restrictive CBD-THC ratio, will instead kill “60% or 70%” of the industry, Habeeb quips.
Nonetheless, the legislature still made some major decisions this year.
Lawmakers killed bills to allow a casino referendum vote in Petersburg and to ensure paid sick days for both private and state employees. And they approved a measure to fold Eastern Virginia Medical School into Old Dominion University, although funding for startup costs — possibly up to $10 million — was left up in the air as of mid-June due to the lack of a budget deal.
Once again, Virginia is a significant factor in this year’s national electoral playing field, in which Democrats are jockeying to stay in power and Republicans are anticipated to make midterm gains.
Three congressional districts in the commonwealth — all held by Democratic female incumbents — are considered vulnerable to the GOP by differing degrees.
The competitive races in Virginia’s 2nd, 7th and 10th congressional districts not only will determine which party will hold the majority of the state’s 11 newly redrawn districts, but whether Republicans can regain control in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In Hampton Roads, Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria is running for re-election against Republican state Sen. Jennifer Kiggans in the 2nd District. Luria’s prominence as part of the Jan. 6 congressional investigation has amplified her role at the Capitol but also made her more of a target, especially after Democratic-leaning parts of Norfolk were drawn out of the district after the 2020 U.S. Census.
The University of Virginia’s Center for Politics ranked the Kiggans-Luria race as a toss-up in late August, and the competitive 7th District was deemed “leans Democratic,” favoring incumbent U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who is running against Republican Yesli Vega, a Prince William County supervisor and auxiliary deputy with the county sheriff’s office. The 2021 redrawing of Virginia’s districts shifted Spanberger’s district to the north, removing Richmond’s suburbs and including Fredericksburg and the counties of Prince William, Stafford, Culpeper, Orange and Greene, among others.
Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger is running for her third term in the newly redrawn 7th District. Photo by Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Finally, there’s Northern Virginia’s 10th District, where Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Jennifer Wexton is defending a seat she flipped in 2018. Wexton’s opponent is Hung Cao, a retired U.S. Navy captain who emerged from a crowded GOP primary of 10 prospective challengers. It’s not likely to flip, state political analysts say, but if it does, it would likely signal a massive Republican wave. Think 2014, when the GOP won 247 seats in the House of Representatives — a 59-seat majority — during Barack Obama’s last term as president.
“Virginia’s interesting in terms of the [potential GOP] wave,” says A.J. Nolte, assistant professor in the Robertson School of Government at Virginia Beach’s Regent University. “If you think about [a] beach analogy, if Luria wins, Democrats aren’t even getting their toes wet. If Hung Cao wins, they probably didn’t spend enough money on flood insurance.”
August polling in Virginia showed Spanberger with a 5-point edge over Vega, and Luria also leading Kiggans by 5 points.
National headwinds
Earlier in the year, the conventional wisdom viewed a GOP sweep of the House and Senate this fall as increasingly likely, amid low approval ratings plaguing President Joe Biden, gas exceeding $5 a gallon and inflation hitting its highest rate in four decades. Now, that outcome is less sure, political observers note.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling to overturn Roe vs. Wade, leaving many states without access to legalized abortion due to state trigger laws, has energized Democratic and some independent voters who want to see a Democratic-controlled Congress pass federal legislation to allow abortions. Biden and House Democrats sought to pass laws this year, but the tightly controlled Senate — as well as a filibuster rule that required a 60-vote majority to enact legislation — prevented it.
But after that predicted failure, gas prices declined below $3.50 and Biden notched some successes: pledging to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans for Pell Grant recipients and other people with federal loans due, as well as passing inflation reduction, infrastructure and semiconductor chips spending bills.
Another possible factor governing voter enthusiasm: The raid on Mar-a-Lago, in which FBI agents recovered thousands of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Florida resort in August as part of an investigation into violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records. Although it’s not clear that Trump or anyone else will be criminally charged in connection with the investigation, the event has stoked partisan emotions. In a Sept. 1 prime-time address to the nation, Biden condemned “MAGA Republicans” who support Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election, unprovable cases of election fraud and violent political statements like those that led up to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
In Hampton Roads, U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria, the Democratic incumbent, is running a tight race for a third term after redrawn boundaries erased Democratic-leaning parts of Norfolk from the 2nd District. Photo by AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
In a Wall Street Journal poll conducted Aug. 17-25, 64% of Republican respondents said they’re more likely to vote in November due to the FBI search, while 37% of independent voters and 36% of Democrats said they were more likely to vote because of the search.
In August, Democrats celebrated the congressional win of Mary Peltola in Alaska, where she becomes the first Alaska Native woman to hold congressional office. The special election was held to replace the late U.S. Rep. Don Young, but a second regular election takes place in November. Among Peltola’s opponents in August and this fall is former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has since complained about the state’s use of a ranked-choice ballot in the special election.
Palin’s August loss aside, many experts still predict Republicans will win control of the House of Representatives this fall — but The Cook Political Report wrote in September that a GOP majority in the House is “no longer a foregone conclusion.”
The party in control of the White House historically performs poorly in midterm elections — and Biden’s approval ratings have been historically low.
As of Sept. 1, Rasmussen and Wall Street Journal polls showed Biden’s job approval rating at 44% and 45%, respectively, while 54% disapproved, putting him 9 to 10 percentage points underwater. Polling site FiveThirtyEight also had Biden’s approval rate at a similar 42.3% on Sept. 15.
Democrats in Virginia are well aware of the possibility of failure, as Gov. Glenn Youngkin led a GOP sweep last November of the state’s top offices, with Republicans also regaining control of the Virginia House of Delegates. Pundits noted in 2021 that the party in control of the White House has historically lost the governor’s race the following year, and with significant numbers of suburban voters having jumped on the affable, fleece-vest-wearing Youngkin’s bandwagon, Republicans won their first statewide victories since 2009.
The Republican Party of Virginia say it’s a reaction to the public’s displeasure with Democrats and the Biden White House. “Virginians are tired of the Biden administration’s failed policy agenda that is hurting American families at the pump, the grocery store and everywhere in between,” says Ellie Sorensen, the state party’s press secretary.
Yet Virginia Democrats say abortion rights — which are currently protected in Virginia by Democrats’ narrow majority in the state Senate — are a major incentive for liberal-leaning voters to vote this year and next.
“It comes down to choice for everyone who lives here,” says Democratic Party of Virginia Chair Susan Swecker. “Do you want to elect officials who will defend reproductive rights or empower those who want to rip them away?”
Nevertheless, analysts opine that Biden’s low approval ratings and rising inflation still tilt the odds slightly toward the GOP.
“I still view it as a Republican-leaning midterm environment,” says Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, an online political newsletter and election handicapper produced by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Setting boundaries
Virginia’s congressional candidates are running in new districts for the first time in a decade. Virginia’s new bipartisan redistricting commission deadlocked after the 2020 Census, leading to the Virginia Supreme Court appointing experts to draw the districts.
The new maps tilted Luria’s district slightly more Republican.
“The map still favors Republicans, although the new map has fewer wasted Democratic votes,” says Amanda Wintersieck, associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. “The 2nd was a safer district for Democrats prior to redrawing lines. Today it is more Republican.”
The 2nd District consists largely of Hampton Roads communities, centered on the Republican-leaning swing city of Virginia Beach. Its congressional seat has flipped between political parties four times since 2000. Luria is running to hold it in a challenging atmosphere, against a strong candidate in state Sen. Kiggans.
Republican State Sen. Jen Kiggans is opposing Luria in the 10th District race, which U.Va.’s Center for Politics deemed a toss-up in late August. Photo by AP Photo/Steve Helber
Kiggans says her time in the Virginia Senate has given her “a firsthand look at the danger and insanity of liberal, one-party political rule here in the commonwealth,” the nurse practitioner and Navy veteran helicopter pilot says. Her first two years in the Senate, after she won a seat in 2019 formerly held by Democrats, coincided with Democratic control of both legislative houses and the top three state offices.
“I’m running for Congress to restore American strength in our economy, communities, borders and our military,” Kiggans says. “Virginians are suffering at the gas pump, at the grocery store and everywhere in between. Americans have a choice whether or not they want to continue like this for two more years or make a change.”
Luria, who also was a naval officer before taking congressional office in 2019, cites her experience running a business as a formative experience, saying it led her to lobby the General Assembly “to change the restrictive licensing red tape on businesses like mine and expand opportunities for others.” (Luria and her husband established and later sold a small local retail chain and art studio, The Mermaid Factory, specializing in mermaid-themed souvenirs.)
“Supporting the business community remains one of my top priorities in Congress,” Luria says, “and I am committed to ensuring businesses and working families have the resources they need to thrive.”
As for her participation in the House of Representatives’ Jan. 6 select committee, Luria says the day of the U.S. Capitol raid was “one of the darkest days of our democracy,” and adds that protecting the country’s democratic institutions is a key part of her oath to uphold the Constitution.
Chris Saxman, executive director of Virginia FREE and a former Republican delegate, says this argument probably matters less in the 2nd District than it would in areas closer to Washington, D.C.
“It’s important to differentiate the 2nd from statewide,” Saxman says. “The level of intensity against Trump in the Northern Virginia area is off the charts, because he ran against the swamp. ‘Drain the swamp’ — that’s Northern Virginia. There’s deep antipathy for Donald Trump in that area, [but] with him not on the ballot, I don’t know how much of an accelerant and stimulant it is for anti-Trump voters.”
The 7th District is considered only slightly less competitive than the 2nd. Spanberger defeated two-term Republican U.S. Rep. David Brat to win election in 2018 amid the same Democratic wave that put Luria and Wexton in office. Redistricting saw the 7th District lose some Republican-leaning Richmond suburbs but pick up more Democratic-leaning Northern Virginia suburbs.
“It’s a mildly-leaning-Democratic seat,” Kondik says. “Biden won it by 7 points. It’s probably one of the most expensive, high- profile House races in all the country. Republicans look at this and say, ‘This is the type of seat that should flip in a year like this.’”
Because of the boundary shifts, Spanberger is new to many of its voters and has had to reintroduce herself. The former CIA officer has walked a fine line — pushing back against party leader Nancy Pelosi and the progressive House “squad” — to win and retain her previous district, which was held by Republicans for more than three decades.
“In no particular order, the issues that I hear Virginians talk about the most are high costs at the grocery store and pharmacy counter, public safety and the fundamental threat to privacy as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Spanberger says. “I’m focused on moving solutions forward that businesses know will help all Virginians get ahead — like strengthening support for workforce training programs, cutting burdensome and unnecessary red tape, and expanding high-speed broadband internet access.”
A Prince William County supervisor and former police officer, Vega decries how “massive government handouts” during the pandemic disrupted the economy.
“The economy is the top issue for voters in our district right now,” Vega says. “Our country is in a recession and people are struggling to make ends meet with soaring gas and food prices. With the cost of living through the roof, my top priority will be working to relieve the burden of increased costs on our nation’s citizens and reduce unnecessary taxes and regulations that are crushing our small businesses.”
In late August, The Cook Political Report moved the race from a toss-up to “leans Democratic.” Kondik gives Spanberger an edge as well. “My guess is she and her campaign will be able to make some hay out of what Vega has said about abortion,” he says.
In June at a Stafford County event, Vega expressed support for more restrictions on abortion, before adding, “The left will say, ‘Well, what about in cases of rape or incest?’ I’m a law enforcement officer. I became a police officer in 2011. I’ve worked one case where as a result of a rape, the young woman became pregnant.”
Spanberger tweeted that her opponent’s words were “extreme and ignorant,” and the state Democratic party has continued to push the issue in statements through the summer.
But Regent University’s Nolte says Vega’s comments likely will make less difference to voters than economic issues.
“In a neutral economy, social issues are potentially a very effective wedge,” Nolte says. “Inflation numbers and gas prices have gone down some. They would have to go down a lot further for this not to be an economic election and referendum on Biden.”
The 10th District only recently flipped after being represented by Republicans since 1981. Democrat Wexton defeated incumbent Republican Barbara Comstock in 2018 by 13 points and held the seat by the same margin in 2020.
“It’s been my top priority to bring down costs for Virginians and ease the burden of inflation on families’ budgets,” Wexton says. “I’m proud that we’ve passed major legislation to lower health care and prescription drug costs, take meaningful action to combat climate change and ensure a healthy planet for our future, and tackle inflation while reducing the deficit.”
Analysts see the 10th District as less competitive than either the 2nd or 7th.
“Biden won it by 18 points, and Republicans don’t hold any districts currently that came close to that margin,” Kondik says. “The best Biden district they hold is 10 or 11 points. It flips if it’s a mega [GOP] wave. I’m skeptical of that. It’s still a Republican wave year, but not quite as sharp as most wave years.”
Nolte also ranks the 10th as the least competitive of Virginia’s three districts in play. But he sees a possible route for Republicans, particularly if Cao can pull big numbers among Asian voters. Nolte also identifies an additional campaign dynamic to watch: Youngkin’s travels to support GOP candidates in other states.
Democrats have used his busy travel schedule — including trips to Michigan, Georgia, Kansas, Maine, New Mexico and Oregon — to question his interest in serving as governor, and Youngkin has not definitively said he is uninterested in a presidential run.
“It’s not too early to start thinking about 2024,” Nolte says — a nod to the next presidential election. “Watch the endorsements and watch who is coming and campaigning for whom. In and out of Virginia, what is Youngkin doing?”
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