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Tune in at Noon ET today (Friday) for a Substack Live with of AllRise News. We’ll be talking about Trump’s legal attacks, Supreme …

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The 297 candidates for Virginia's House of Delegates have collectively raised $18.5 million in the first 15 months of the election cycle, according to new reports from the Virginia Public Access Project.

Democrats outraised Republicans in the first quarter of the election year with a total of $3.7 million from January 1st to March 31st, more than double Republicans' $1.5 million, according to VPAP. 

Three of the top 10 highest earners are unchallenged incumbents in strongly Democratic areas, including House Speaker Don Scott, who has raised more than any other candidate so far.

Of the 10 best-funded candidates, four are running in competitive districts. In Virginia’s House District 82, a largely Black district which covers much of Petersburg and the area around Fort Gregg-Adams, Republican incumbent Kim Taylor and Democratic candidate Kimberly Pope Adams are headed for a rematch.

In 2023, Taylor beat Adams by only 53 votes.

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Bilal Raychouni and Randolph Critzer are locking horns in Virginia’s 72nd House district, one of many Virginia primary battles which will decide who shows up on the ballot in November.

Which may seem…

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Candidates running for the Virginia House of Delegates are taking a novel approach as they attempt to reach voters directly, even relying on the platform Nextdoor.

Jessica Anderson, a mother, part-time public school employee and Democrat, is running for the competitive House District 71 seat, which stretches from outside Richmond down to Williamsburg.

She’s making her second run against incumbent Republican Amanda Batten, who she lost to in 2023, 51-49%. Since then, Anderson has continued to grow her social media presence and create content relating to local issues, national news, and this year's races. 

"I'm on Nextdoor. I'm having engaging conversations about issues that get brought up on that platform with people that are voting in my district," the candidate told 24sight News. "I'm very civil, and there are people that obviously don't always agree with me, but I go back and forth. I do the same thing on a variety of Facebook group chats that I'm in."

Nextdoor is a social networking app designed for connecting neighbors and discussing local issues.

But Anderson has used the app to reach older voters who may not be active on traditional social media platforms and to have discussions directly with her neighbors, even those who don't always agree with her.

In addition to fostering valuable conversations surrounding local issues, Anderson said her presence on Nextdoor creates a sense of personal connection with her district's citizens.

She has found that when people reach out to her through direct message with questions, they are often surprised that they are speaking directly to the candidate.

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Editor’s note:

Welcome to the first dispatch from 24sight News intern and reporter Kaylie Klausing in the new “Sic Semper Tyrannis” covering the race for control of Virginia’s House of Delegates. The name, for anyone not living in Old Dominion or across the Potomac and beyond, draws from Virginia’s state flag and motto dating back to the American Revolution meaning “thus always to tyrants”.

While most national attention is focused on the chaos levied by the White House and second administration of President Donald Trump — from attempting to control speech to placing political donors in top posts overseeing their own businesses and attempting to layoff hundreds of thousands of workers — voters across the country are registering increasing outrage at town halls and events, sometimes dubbed the latest iteration of the “tea party.”

Virginia’s elections, coming in the first year after each presidential race, have long been viewed as the first serious measure of voter sentiment regarding the

Kaylie Klausing is covering the races which will decide control of Virginia’s House of Delegates. If you’d like to get in touch with Kaylie, have a tip or a story lead, email her at kaylie@24sight.news.

You can find all of Kaylie’s reporting and more on the 24sight News homepage — www.24sight.news.

Cheers,

Tom LoBianco

Editor, 24sight News

tom@24sight.news

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Virginia voters angry at layoffs

Andrew Schear is hoping that voter anger at Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s massive layoffs will help carry him and other Democrats to Virginia’s House of Delegates in the fall. 

Schear is running the Democratic primary in Virginia’s new 57th District, which until last year encompassed much of Charlottesville, but in the newly drawn maps moved to the northwest stretch outside of Richmond. 

Schear, a filmmaker and wedding photographer, said the issue he hears about the most from voters is jobs.

“It's one of the first things I hear out of a lot of people's mouths when I ask them, 'What is the most important issue to you this year in 2025?'” Schear told 24sight News. "There's definitely a big concern with insulating the state of Virginia, specifically our community here in District 57, from the effects of the Trump administration.”

Virginia is home to hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and has grown in wealth and stature for decades as a suburb of Washington.

"It's something that sometimes might seem far away, but some of these can easily hit close to home. These are people that live a couple miles from me,” Schear said.

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