Early voting begins May 2 for the June 17 primary elections. See who’s running and find other voter information in our Voter Guide. We’ve sent questionnaires to all the candidates and will publish those responses in the Voter Guide shortly before early voting begins. Candidates who have questions should contact elections@cardinalnews.org.
This year may be the year of the woman in Virginia politics: The commonwealth’s next governor will be a woman, a handful of women have signed up to run in the other two statewide elections and more than a dozen have put their hats in the ring to challenge incumbents in the House of Delegates.
The trend has extended into Southwest and Southside Virginia, two largely rural Republican-held regions in the state where men have dominated the slate of delegates for years.
One woman, Del. Ellen Campbell, R-Rockbridge County, currently holds office across the 20 House of Delegates seats that make up the two regions. Democratic candidate Makayla Venable will challenge her for the 36th District seat in the November election.
Nearly one dozen Democratic women and one Republican woman plan to challenge primary opponents in June or general election opponents in November, across the Southwest and Southside.
On the Republican side, Vanessa Scearce is the only woman who is not an incumbent who is seeking a House of Delegates seat in the Southwest and Southside regions. She plans to run in the Republican primary against Madison John Redd Whittle for Danville Republican Del. Danny Marshall’s seat.
Of the 86 non-incumbents running as either Democrats or Republicans in Virginia, 41 of them are women, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, and many of those are running in Southwest or Southside districts.
Donna Littlepage and Kiesha Preston will face each other in a Democratic primary to determine who will take on Del. Joe McNamara, R-Roanoke County, in November to represent the 40th district. Democrat Lily Franklin is again challenging Del. Chris Obenshain, R-Montgomery County, in the November election after she came within 183 votes of winning the seat in 2023.
Mary Etta Sumner, a Democrat, will challenge Del. Will Morefield, R-Tazewell County, in the 43rd District race; Democratic candidate Yvonne Rorrer will challenge Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick County, in the 47th District race; Democrat Melody Cartwright will challenge Del. Eric Phillips, R-Henry County, in the 48th District race; Jasmine Lipscomb is running in the Democratic primary for District 49 against Gary Miller; Democrat Earnadette Powell Farrar is running against Del. Tommy Wright, R-Lunenberg County, in the 50th District race; Joy Powers, a Democrat, is running against Del. Eric Zehr, R-Campbell County, in the 51st District race; and Democrat Rise Marie Hayes is challenging Del. Wendell Walker, R-Lynchburg, in the race for the 52nd District.
Why women, and why now?
“I think women as a whole feel attacked,” Rorrer said, when asked why so many women have jumped into Virginia’s 2025 elections. “You can only push a woman so far before she’ll show you exactly how strong she is.”
Rorrer was born into poverty to teenage parents. As a victim of childhood sexual abuse, she volunteers as an advocate for children as they navigate the court system in abuse and neglect cases.
She said she felt compelled to challenge Williams in a deep red district after he voted against HB 1727 during the 2025 legislative session. That bill, which was signed by the governor in March, prohibits a person convicted of rape or other sexual assault from claiming parental rights of a child born from that assault.
“That was a punch in the gut, that was personal,” she said, of Williams’ vote. “I was never really into politics before.”
Scearce became very active in the Virginia chapter of Concerned Women for America about two years ago, she said. The organization is a legislative action committee that promotes “Biblical values and Constitutional principles through prayer, education, and advocacy,” according to its website.
“It’s raised my awareness of the importance of women being involved,” Scearce, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the Danville seat, said. “About five years ago, I became really sensitive to the fact that I need to get more involved as a woman and stop saying, ‘Just let my husband handle all things political… I think women in general have taken a backseat in that area for far too long.”
Lipscomb, who is seeking the Democratic nomination in a primary race for the Danville seat, called women in this election cycle the “canary in the coal mine.”
“The president is trying to take away women’s voting rights. He is trying to treat ‘white women’ as if they were Black people prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. If we regress in the way that Trump is moving, many voters will be ‘re-disenfranchised,’” she said.
She added that she believes women throughout history have understood that there is a lot of hard work in making things right for their family, loved ones and themselves.
“Women have a sense of knowing when things are going wrong and they usually are willing to step up and come up with immediate solutions,” she added.
Cartwright said she is coming into her election against Phillips with clear eyes: She doesn’t expect to win in a district that went for Phillips with 70% of the vote.
“Some people might call me a little crazy,” she said, laughing. “No one wants to lose, it’s a bad feeling to lose.”
She said her motivation to run this year is two-fold, and includes her intention to run as a “point guard” in the Republican district for former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, in her bid against Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears for the governor’s seat. Cartwright said she plans to stump for both herself and Spanberger as she canvasses the district.
“By us running,” she said of Democrats in Republican districts, “we make the Republicans run and spend money where they would have just sent it to another area to enrich another Republican.”
“I think it’s because we’re the only brave ones,” she said, when asked why she thinks there are so many women who have signed up to run in rural Southwest and Southside districts this year.
“I think that the women are brave and we have some really good, qualified people running and I’m proud of them and I’m proud to be one of them.”
Some are first-time candidates and some are repeat candidates
A Martinsville native, Cartwright became interested in politics after she moved to Richmond to attend college and began working as a server at a club frequented by lawmakers and other politicians. She moved back to Martinsville, where she raised her daughter as a single mother.
She said she has been very active in the community through a decades-long effort to revitalize blighted property in Martinsville.
“Our community is close to 25% people living in poverty,” Cartwright said. “I have brothers and sisters who have lived in poverty all their lives and with disabilities.”
She first ran against Phillips during the 48th District special election in August 2024. She garnered about 29% of the vote in the Republican stronghold with little name recognition and a short, three-week-long campaign. That 29% of the vote that she received, with the odds stacked against her, motivated her to try again this year.
“I’m here, I’m going to run hard, I’m going to ask [Phillips] to debate me,” she said.
Lipscomb, a single mother of four, a veteran and former Marine, ran for the District 49 seat in 2023 but did not make it onto the ballot. She vowed in December of that year to try again in 2025. She will face Gary Miller in the Democratic primary election in June.
After she detached from the Marines, Lipscomb went to college, got a degree, and returned to Danville, where she grew up. She sits on a number of boards in Danville, including the city’s Fair Housing Board and the Building Code Board of Appeals, among others.
Though the 49th District has been represented by Marshall, a Republican, for decades, Lipscomb believes it’s possible for a Democrat to win the seat because this year will be the first election with a Democrat challenger on the ballot since redistricting took place in December 2021.
“I do feel like the sign of a healthy community is when people are involved to the point where the citizens have a choice,” Scearce said, of the two primaries for the 49th District seat. She will face Madison John Redd Whittle in the Republican primary election in June.
Scearce worked for more than 30 years at credit unions in the Danville area before she pivoted into the nonprofit sector. She held the title of vice president of mortgage and development for Beacon Credit Union before she left the organization to work for the Boys and Girls Club of Danville, where she has worked as the organization’s development director since 2019.
During her time working for the credit union, she would spend time in Richmond during lobbying days, which sparked her interest in state politics. She is also a mom, a wife and an active member of the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce.
Despite being the only Republican woman, who isn’t an incumbent, seeking a House of Delegates seat in Southwest or Southside Virginia, Scearce said she hasn’t been lonely.
“It’s been so busy, I have no time to be lonely,” she said.
Rorrer got a taste for politics after working to get HB 1721 introduced and passed. That bill, if signed by the governor, would make easement relocation more accessible. An easement allows a non-property owner to use a specific part of another person’s property for an agreed-upon purpose — like crossing a field owned by a farmer to get to a house or building on the other side of that property that may be inaccessible otherwise.
“That proved to me that just one person can make a difference,” she said.
She claimed that, despite the “D” which will appear next to her name on the ballot in the fall, about three pages of her petition signatures were from Republicans in the district.
“It says a lot about people who know me outside of politics and I haven’t gotten a whole lot of pushback, to be honest,” she said. “I have a story and I have a purpose.”