00:00.76

Sam Shirazi

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode we will review the Virginia primary filing deadline and then we'll explore if the June primary might be the real contest this year in Virginia.

00:16.20

Sam Shirazi

So to kick things off, on the Democratic side, no other candidate filed for governor other than former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger. So she will be the Democratic nominee.

00:27.72

Sam Shirazi

There was not much suspense leading up to the Democratic filing deadline for governor.

00:34.66

Sam Shirazi

Congressman Bobby Scott had toyed with the idea of running, or at least didn't shoot down the idea, but it was pretty clear at the end that he was not going to be filing because he did not gather signatures.

00:47.79

Sam Shirazi

And so as expected, former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger is the Democratic nominee for governor. On the Republican side, things are not so simple.

00:59.24

Sam Shirazi

Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears had already filed her paperwork as soon as she could, and she has qualified for the primary ballot on the Republican side for governor.

01:08.58

Sam Shirazi

And there were two candidates also attempting to make the ballot, former delegate Dave LaRock and former state Senator Amanda Chase. And Dave LaRock on the filing deadline on Thursday,

01:21.49

Sam Shirazi

He said that he did not have enough signatures, so you need 10,000 signatures, valid signatures from voters registered in Virginia, including 400 from each congressional district.

01:34.26

Sam Shirazi

And Dave LaRock said he got about 9,000, which is obviously less than 10,000, so he did not end up filing. So he will not be on the primary ballot in Virginia.

01:45.80

Sam Shirazi

But Amanda Chase did file her paperwork. And so that means it's possible there could be a primary. And I wanted to just break down the process of what's going to happen next, because just because someone files the paperwork doesn't automatically mean that they're going to be on the ballot.

02:02.72

Sam Shirazi

So the biggest obstacle to be on the ballot in Virginia for statewide office this year is the 10,000 signature requirement. And I thought I'd take some time to really break down how to get those signatures and what they have what has to happen in order for those signatures to be counted as valid.

02:20.48

Sam Shirazi

So right off the back bat, the signatures have to be from registered voters in Virginia. You cannot just have random people signing the ballot. They do have to be registered to vote in Virginia.

02:33.36

Sam Shirazi

On top of that, 400 signatures have to come from each of Virginia's 11 congressional districts, basically to ensure that you have some geographic support across Virginia and it's not just concentrated in one part of Virginia.

02:48.20

Sam Shirazi

So those are kind of the basic requirements. But then the actual mechanics of filling out the signature form require some other things to have happen. First, the voter has to print their name.

03:01.68

Sam Shirazi

They have to sign their name. They have to give their full legal address where they reside, and they have to sign and date the signature petition. And if any one of those things are off, then that individual will not be counted towards the 10,000. And one of the things that can go wrong, people don't date it. People don't sign it. People give their partial address. People give their partial name. I mean, you know if you've ever done signature collection you know that there's a lot of ways that this could go wrong, particularly if people are in a rush, they're hurrying.

03:36.36

Sam Shirazi

The person collecting the signatures is doing a lot of different things and is not maybe focused. And and it it often there are many signatures when a candidate submits that are not valid.

03:49.05

Sam Shirazi

And it's often a good idea to submit way over the minimum to ensure that for whatever reason, if any of your signatures are knocked off, you still have the minimum to meet the requirements.

03:59.73

Sam Shirazi

And then on top of that, let's say you fill out a petition petition signature form all correctly, all the signatures are correct. The person who gathered the signatures has to get the petition signature form notarized.

04:11.30

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, that's not a huge barrier, but it does require someone who is authorized to be a notary in Virginia to sign that. And so that is, all those things have to be right. And if anything's wrong on the petition signature form,

04:27.30

Sam Shirazi

form, then the form can get thrown out, the signatures can get thrown out. And so all that's to say is there's a lot of things that could go wrong if you are just trying to get the bare minimum number of signatures.

04:39.14

Sam Shirazi

And the thing with Amanda Chase is she was trying to do this very quickly with a lot of volunteers who may or may not be familiar with all these different requirements. And so there's a lot of room for error.

04:50.66

Sam Shirazi

And I will say this about Amanda Chase. I think she put in her paperwork acknowledging that she does not exactly know how many signatures are valid. she does She's not gone through and validated them all because she said she didn't have the time to do that. So long way of saying...

05:08.03

Sam Shirazi

We're still not sure if she would be able to make the ballot even after she submitted her paperwork. And so what happens now is the signatures are in and they will be reviewed to see if they are actually valid signatures of registered voters in Virginia.

05:24.64

Sam Shirazi

And that can take some time because you have to go signature by signature. And we'll see what ends up happening. I don't think we are going to find out for few days what the final call is in terms of determining if Amanda Chase made the primary ballot.

05:40.96

Sam Shirazi

And Keep in mind, if she is determined not to make the ballot, we'll see if she pursues any appeals or legal remedies to try to get on the ballot. So this could still drag on a little bit longer, even though Amanda Chase has filed the paperwork to get on the ballot.

05:58.54

Sam Shirazi

So having said all that, we will just have to wait and see what happens. I think obviously if there is a primary on the Republican side for governor, I will probably do a whole episode on it because it's a big deal.

06:09.77

Sam Shirazi

And it will take a lot of the attention on the Republican side away from former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who's the Democratic nominee, and shift that to the Republican primary and Republican Winston Sears and Amanda Chase will have to go after each other and and try to win that primary.

06:26.75

Sam Shirazi

Now, again, it may not happen. We just have to wait and see. So I don't want to spend too much time on it right now, but wanted to just give everyone an update of where things stand for the Republican primary for Governor.

06:38.68

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so now let's move on to lieutenant governor. So just because there isn't a primary for governor on the Democratic side, we already know that Abigail Spanberger will be the nominee, doesn't mean there is not going to be a Democratic primary.

06:51.14

Sam Shirazi

There will be a Democratic statewide primary in all parts of Virginia for lieutenant governor and attorney general. And lieutenant governor is the race that has a lot of candidates who have filed and all the candidates have that have made it, I will list them out.

07:08.47

Sam Shirazi

And we can just quickly talk about that. So the Democratic Party has confirmed that Alex Bastani, Ghazala Hashmi, Babur Lateef, Aaron Rouse,

07:19.96

Sam Shirazi

Victor Salgado, and LeVar Stoney have all made the primary ballot. So that is six candidates running on the Democratic side for lieutenant governor.

07:30.60

Sam Shirazi

It will be a crowded race, lot of different people running. I should note that Carl Eggleston had been running for lieutenant governor, but he indicated that he had to withdraw to due to to health reasons, so he will not be on the ballot. But still, we got six Democrats running for lieutenant governor.

07:48.50

Sam Shirazi

So a full ballot of Democrats, and it should be a pretty interesting race. I'll talk a little bit later on about what the primary might look like. So I might as well round up round out the Democratic primaries, at least for statewide office.

08:03.06

Sam Shirazi

For Attorney General, as I mentioned before, there will be a primary. Jay Jones and Shannon Taylor have both made the primary ballot. That will be a one-on-one contest. So the Democrats will have two statewide offices on the primary ballot, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.

08:19.11

Sam Shirazi

On the Republican side, it appears there will also be a Lieutenant Governor primary. for the Republicans. So Pat Harity had already filed his paperwork and he has been confirmed to be on the ballot. And then right before the filing deadline, John Reed also filed his paperwork and that will be processed. I assume that he will likely be on the ballot. So I think the Republicans will have a statewide primary as well on the ballot in June.

08:49.17

Sam Shirazi

I should note that John Curran had also been running on the Republican side for lieutenant governor. I haven't heard a whole lot. I don't think that he filed his paperwork, but I'm sure I'll find out if I'm wrong about that. But it looks like it will be a one-on-one primary on the Republican side for lieutenant governor.

09:06.24

Sam Shirazi

And then for attorney general, there will not be a primary on the Republican side because Jason Miyares was the only candidate that filed. He's an incumbent. Obviously, it was unlikely that anyone serious would run against him.

09:20.21

Sam Shirazi

And so Jason Miyares will be the Republican nominee for attorney general. Okay, now I should talk about what the primary might look like and if it's it's the real co

Episode ID: 1000702312844

GUID: substack:post:160552672

Release Date: 05/04/2025, 17:27:05