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It would be easy to miss that Virginia’s primary elections wrap on Tuesday (I say wrap because voting is being effectively a season and not a day-of event.) A lot has been happening, from the White House dispatching military to California and the national protests against Trump to the rolling (and important) news items from new taxes on imports (tariffs) to the effects of the “DOGE” work inside the government.

I keep an eye on the Virginia races because, along with special elections, it is one of the first big tests of voter sentiment of this radically changed White House and the drastic new tactics, performative or otherwise.

And covers the Virginia battles through and through.

As we talked about during our Substack LIVE earlier today, the big races to be decided Tuesday are not at the top of the ticket (for governor) but instead for lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Show notes

With a big thanks to Max Cassett. (Who’s Max Cassett?? More on that in the next Sic Semper Tyrannis newsletter.)

• The power and pull of Dominion Energy and Clean Virginia — the dominant donors and biggest players in Virginia politics — in the Democratic race for attorney general between former Del. Jay Jones and longtime prosecutor Shannon Taylor.

• On the Jones attack ads against Taylor which just popped up, bankrolled by Clean Virginia.

• Clean Virginia calling on Taylor to recuse herself from any potential cases involving Dominion for taking money from the energy company. (And notes on Dominion also donating handily to Republican A.G. Jason Miyares.)

• Dive into the Democratic lieutenant governor’s race, with a focus on the battle between state Sen. Aaron Rouse and former Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney over Richmond’s water woes. (For those outside the DMV, Richmond went without water for a week at the beginning of the year — and there’s been plenty of finger-pointing on who’s to blame.)

• Look for a recap with Jarvis next week after the results.

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Tune in to Substack LIVE Monday at Noon ET for a chat with . We’ve got a lot to cover, mark your calendars.

Tomorrow, Friday June 13, tune in at 10:30a ET for the latest taping of Trygve’s Rules for Fighting Autocrats with and . We’re on Rule #5: Use Autocrats’ Tactics Against Them.

is on a much-deserved vacation this week, look for more from the Hill next week.

In case you missed me with , recommend the watch here. We go deep on the requirements and need for professional journalism in this moment. (Parents, earmuffs, there’s a bit of cursing.)

Read up on the continuing fight for pay equity in my Q n A with Women Business Collaborative CEO Gwen Young here and the recent release of the Lilly Ledbetter movie, LILLY.

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Programming

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 Court arguments on birthright citizenship, and the Diddy case.

Did you miss my chat with ? Get the full recording here at the 24sight Super Secret Members Page.

Primaries on the Clock

The Virginia primaries are one month away (June 17) and heating up, with two weeks of early voting already in the bag. As Jarvis and I discussed during Wednesday’s Substack Live, the battles for lieutenant governor have been surprisingly wild.

Despite being the only candidate qualified for the ballot for the Republican nomination, openly gay conservative talkshow host John Reid has drawn a write-in challenge from Republican John Curran.

The Reid scandal — including Gov. Glenn Youngkin calling on him to drop out of the race, and a secret audio recording which parties dispute showing an effort to push Reid from the race — continues to be perhaps the hottest storyline in the primaries.

But battles among Democratic candidates are kicking up, with six contenders for lieutenant governor battling it out and a pair of candidates for attorney general scrapping over who’s best positioned to take on the Trump administration.

For AG, former delegate Jay Jones and longtime Henrico are both up on the air now with ads introducing themselves. As The Virginian-Pilot reports, the big battle seems less on what they would do in office and more on who’s most experienced at accomplishing those prosecutorial goals.

Attention Grabbing

You don’t often find political candidates outing their own (possible) sex scandal. (Arguable what counts as a sex scandal these days.) But that’s what Democratic longshot candidate Yvonne Rorrer did last weekend, declaring she’s a swinger, or in an ethically non-monogamous relationship with her husband of 22 years.

Rorrer said she made the announcement “because I believe in radical honesty, and I refuse to live in the shadows waiting for information to be leaked.

Whether this changes anything remains to be seen, the district bordering North Carolina, has voted overwhelmingly Republican for at least a decade now, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

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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 odd, because this rural expanse to the southwest of Richmond, has elected incumbent Republican Del. Lee Ware repeatedly by 2:1 margins every two years going back at least to 2009, according to Ballotpedia.

"I still get a lot of surprise when the Democratic committee shows up in places and the first thing I hear is, 'I didn't know we had any Democrats brave enough to live out this way,'" Raychouni told 24sight News.

Virginia primary voters will decide the Democratic nominee for the 72nd district, and the state’s other intraparty battles, including heated contests for lieutenant governor, June 17th.

Raychouni, a middle school computer science teacher and Virginia Young Democrats member ran for the seat in 2023 and lost to Ware roughly 68 - 32, by a margin of 11,999 votes.

But the stunning turn from the White House since the inauguration, including the firings of thousands of workers, many of whom live in Virginia, a rollercoaster of new taxes on imports, new orders limiting free speech and education and more, have energized voters.

Critzer, a life-long Virginia resident, lived in several areas before returning to his hometown of Midlothian to start his law practice.

Critzer is running for the House District 72 seat in hopes that he will provide answers to the district's issues that haven't been resolved by the current Delegate, including the absence of basic needs like broadband internet access and even clean drinking water.

Critzer believes that the district will have a stronger Democratic vote in November than it may seem on paper. Even though the area is historically conservative, he wants to show rural citizens that the Democratic Party is tuned in to the issues facing their area.

"The needs of people out in districts like mine are universal and they're as important as any of the needs of any of the more blue-leaning districts throughout the state," Critzer told 24sight News.

Critzer feels that it is crucial for voters to be able to choose not only who their representative will be in November, but who their nominee will be in June, an essential function of democracy that gives voters as much power as possible.

"Right now, people across the country and across Virginia are looking to see, 'what can the party do to make sure that democracy works?'" Critzer said. "It's equally as important that they get to suss out which of their nominees are more viable for the long haul and who, on the whole slate of candidates, really has an opportunity to enact meaningful change."

Carolyn Fiddler, a longtime state politics expert now working as communications directors for the Democratic Attorneys General Association, told 24sight News that she has seen an increase in energy throughout the Democratic Party since President Trump was elected for the first time in 2016.

"A good primary election is important to testing the health of a candidate and the viability of a campaign," said Fiddler. "The fact that so many Democrats filed to run in so many seats this year is overall a real symptom of the overall health of the party at the Virginia state legislative level."

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A key theme that Fiddler predicts will be present throughout the House races is a focus on what Democrats have accomplished while they've held the majority and what they could have accomplished without Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin's vetos. 

Republican officials' responses to the federal government's actions will play a role in this year's election, as citizens want elected officials who take action to protect them, Fiddler said.

"A Democrat running in what is historically a deep red district still has a lot of opportunities right now," Fiddler said. 

was surprised and pleased to see more engagement in the election this year.

Raychouni said contesting every race is important because it forces incumbents to spread resources they may otherwise funnel into battleground state House districts, and it introduces new conversations to communities throughout the state.

Critzer and Raychouni are both running in support of better education funding and health care options, but divert in other areas.

Raychouni is focusing on a rural shortage of medical providers and improved access to public transportation. The longtime activist is also concentrating on human rights for women and the LGBTQ community.

Critzer, however, is campaigning on improving the cost of living in Virginia and protecting democracy and the Constitution.

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Having elections every year allows Virginia Democrats to learn from federal elections and stay tuned in to national sentiments, Raychouni said, especially after presidential elections.

"There's a feeling that if we didn't do so well on the national level, let's take the lessons we've learned and let's double down on the state level, and hopefully take notes this time,” he said. “Learn from what we did right, learn from what we did wrong, and use 2024 as the model for what to do differently in 2025– and hopefully carry those notes forward.”

Several House of Delegates districts will hold Democratic primaries this year. Two districts even have three Democrats running: Arlington's strongly blue-leaning House District 1 and the competitive House District 75, south of Richmond.

One of the three primary candidates running for the 75th district is Lindsey Dougherty, who told 24sight News that redistricting and federal changes will only increase people's awareness of the importance of Virginia's elections this year.

Only two of the 12 Democratic primaries are in districts that are historically blue, with the others either leaning Republican in their voting patterns or recognized as a competitive district.

"One of the great things about the party is that there's room for difference of opinions on various things," Fiddler told 24sight News. "But in terms of core values, Democrats are aligned."

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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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