Virginia Democrats running on protecting voters’ jobs

Candidates flood field for Virginia’s House of Delegates with filing deadline closing in

Map of Virginia’s 57th state House district, via the Virginia Public Access Project. (Screenshot by Tom LoBianco/24sight News.)

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

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.