Overview:
Democrats have six candidates for lieutenant governor and two for attorney general. There doesn't seem much philosophical difference between them, so how will voters decide who to pick?
In 1977, Virginia Democrats went into the voting booth of a party primary and came out with a statewide ticket that didn’t make any sense.
Voters nominated the most liberal candidate for governor (Henry Howell) and the most conservative candidate for attorney general (Ed Lane, not just the most conservative but an actual conservative) and a candidate for lieutenant governor (Charles Robb) who was closer to the center than anyone else.
To put the best face on this unusual ticket, Democrats declared it the “Rainbow Ticket.” This was long before the term “Rainbow Coalition” or even rainbows had other meanings. General election voters were not impressed, rejecting two of the three Democratic candidates. Only Robb was elected.
The choices in this year’s Democratic primaries for lieutenant governor and attorney general are more demographically diverse than in 1977, when all the candidates were white men, but less ideologically diverse, so there’s no chance of a nonsensical ticket like the primary produced 48 years ago. On the other hand, the lack of such ideological diversity makes it more difficult for Democrats to figure out who to vote for. I’ve had multiple readers say they’re looking for some guidance on who to vote for and hope that the party’s nominee for governor, Abigail Spanberger, will make an endorsement of one of the six candidates for lieutenant governor and two for attorney general. However, she has no intention of doing so, her campaign spokesperson says. All are acceptable to her, so why alienate part of the party?
This email from Ron Singleton of Fredericksburg is typical of what I’ve heard from flustered Democratic voters: “I’ve read all of the bio sketches and information about each candidate that you have provided, but I still have no idea who would work best with Congresswoman Spanberger if she is elected.” The most confusion seems to be in the lieutenant governor’s race, where Democrats have six candidates to choose from, rather than the attorney general’s contest, which is a more manageable two-person race.
In our Voter Guide, we posed 10 questions to all the candidates in both the statewide Democratic primary and also in the nine Democratic and eight Republican House of Delegates primaries across the state. You can read the answers by the statewide Democratic candidates here, but they all seem pretty similar (as the Fredericksburg reader found). I can also send you to these stories by Cardinal’s Elizabeth Beyer, one on last week’s televised debate between the lieutenant governor candidates and this one on the attorney general candidates.
The main difference between the lieutenant governor candidates so far appears to be on a question we didn’t ask but which is of interest in Northern Virginia — a proposed casino at Tysons Corner. Babur Lateef and Victor Salgado both oppose any casino in the region; Levar Stoney opposes that location but is open to a casino elsewhere in Fairfax County. Alexander Bastaini and Aaron Rouse say it’s a local decision (although state approval would be necessary). The Fairfax County news site FFX lists Ghazala Hashmi’s position as “unclear.” On a recent trip to Northern Virginia, I saw some Lateef signs that play up his opposition to the casino. That issue, though, likely means little to voters outside the region.
In any case, the lieutenant governor’s position only really matters if there’s a tie vote — and the casino bill this year passed the Senate 24-16 before failing in the House. The Senate lineup won’t change for two years so, regardless of how people feel about a casino in Northern Virginia, the next lieutenant governor probably won’t have any say about that unless it’s a) still an issue in 2028 and b) the Senate lineup has changed by four votes.
All the Democratic candidates vow to fight President Donald Trump. That may fire up Democratic partisans, but I must be the killjoy who reminds voters that the lieutenant governor’s formal duties are limited to following Jefferson’s Manual of Procedure during Senate debate and checking to make sure the governor is still among the living. Both parties may want a candidate who can preach from the “bully pulpit,” but the reality is the lieutenant governor mostly bangs a gavel.
Who should Democrats vote for? That’s not for me to say. However, I might be able to offer voters some thoughts on how to think about making their choice. Republicans don’t have a primary; their statewide ticket is already set, but these questions would have applied to them, too, if they had a primary.
1. Who’s your favorite candidate?
That’s certainly one way that Democrats can proceed, for both lieutenant governor and attorney general. Whether that’s the best way, well, I’m not the one to answer that. However, voters could simply think of each of these races in a vacuum and pick their favorite in each. That ignores the problem that the Fredericksburg reader posed: Who would work best with the party’s gubernatorial nominee? I can’t really answer that, either — that may be largely a matter of personal dynamics — but I can analyze some of the political considerations at play.
2. Which candidate helps Spanberger the most or hurts her the least?
Again, I’m not going to point people to a specific candidate, so the analysis of who is most or least helpful is ultimately up to Democrats to figure out. The threshold question here is whether Democrats think the governor’s race will be an easy one or a hard one. If Democrats think this will be an easy race for Spanberger to win, then maybe it doesn’t matter who her running mate is. If Democrats think it will be a hard one, then maybe it does. Here’s where I’ll refer readers to my column last week explaining why one poll shows Spanberger with a lead of 4 percentage points and another with a lead of 17 percentage points — the tighter poll only surveyed likely voters; the other one surveyed registered voters, about half of whom probably won’t vote this fall, based on historical patterns.
The Democratic vote in Virginia is concentrated in the urban crescent, and my sense is that those Democrats often get lulled into a false sense of security because they don’t understand how toxic their brand is in rural Virginia — and how badly they’ll get beat there. My go-to example: Four years ago, Loudoun County had four times as many voters as Bedford County. Democrat Terry McAuliffe won Loudoun by 17,923 votes. However, Republican Glenn Youngkin carried Bedford by 22,911. The bottom line: Bedford canceled out Loudoun and left Youngkin with a 4,988-vote margin simply because the Republican margin there was so lopsided. This is why Democrats ignore rural Virginia at their peril, but I digress.
The new State Navigate website — launched by the Richmond-based political analyst Chaz Nuttycombe — recently analyzed the lieutenant governor’s race and concluded that only three of the candidates could realistically win the nomination: Hashmi, Rouse and Stoney. Of those, it warned that Hashmi and Stoney could be a drag on the ticket — Hashmi because she may be too liberal for some voters, especially rural ones, and Stoney because his record as mayor of Richmond would give Republicans a lot to run against. Sometimes, though, a candidate’s weakness is also their strength and vice versa. The same analysis also laid out ways that Hashmi and Stoney could help the ticket — Hashmi because she might excite liberal voters in a way the more moderate-sounding Spanberger does not and Stoney because he has served in an executive position. If Democratic primary voters want to weigh the help/hurt criteria, these are pros and cons they’ll need to evaluate.
3. Does geography matter?
There was a time when it did. I suspect those times are behind us; social media has broken down geographic barriers (and created new ones). If voters want to think about geography, though, here are some of the questions to think about:
a) How many candidates from the Richmond area should the ticket have? Spanberger is from Henrico County. Stoney is from Richmond and Hashmi from Chesterfield County. In the attorney general’s race, Shannon Taylor is from Henrico County. If any of those win the primary, Democrats could have three Richmond-area candidates. Is that good, bad or does it matter?
b) Does the party need a candidate from Northern Virginia? That’s where the biggest share of Democratic votes will come from; the more Democrats can maximize turnout there, the better they will do. Bastani, Lateef and Salgado are all from Northern Virginia, although only Lateef has won an election there — to the Prince William County School Board. Fun fact: The last time a statewide Democratic ticket didn’t have a candidate from Northern Virginia was 1985 when it was Gerald Baliles (Richmond), Douglas Wilder (Richmond) and Mary Sue Terry (Patrick County).
c) Does the party need a candidate from Hampton Roads? That’s the state’s second-biggest metro area. If the answer is yes, then Rouse (from Virginia Beach) and attorney general hopeful Jay Jones (Norfolk) fit the bill.
d) Does the party need a candidate from outside the urban crescent? Trick question. There aren’t any. Although that does raise this question:
4. Which candidates would fare best in rural Virginia?
I doubt this is something many Democrats are thinking about, although perhaps they should. None of the candidates has a natural connection to the western part of the state — unless you count Rouse playing football at Virginia Tech.
5. Does it matter how many women are on the ticket?
Virginia’s next governor will be a woman. We know that much. If Democrats were to nominate Hashmi for lieutenant governor and/or Taylor for attorney general, they could have a ticket with two or even three women. Would an all-female ticket help or hurt? Or would it matter?
6. Do Democrats need a Black candidate on the ticket?
Spanberger’s ties to Black Virginians have been considered weak — Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, took a long time to endorse, for instance. The recent Virginia FREE poll shows that perhaps one-third of Black Virginians might vote for Earle-Sears. If those are concerns for Democrats, then those might be arguments for either Rouse or Stoney for lieutenant governor and Jones for attorney general.
7. Does religion matter?
The First Amendment says it doesn’t, as a matter of law, but voters’ personal biases are hard to legislate away. Both Hashmi and Lateef are Muslim; if either is nominated, they’d be the first Muslim nominated for a statewide office by a major party in Virginia. Will that matter? That’s not how either candidate is primarily known — Hashmi is known for her service in the state Senate, Lateef for his service on the Prince William school board. Campaigns, though, can be rough and unfair. The danger isn’t whether Republicans would try to weaponize their faith but what independent groups might do. On the other hand, there might be some Democrats who would relish making a point by nominating a Muslim candidate.
8. Would electing a state senator put the Democrats’ Senate majority in jeopardy?
Democrats currently hold a 21-19 edge. If either Hashmi or Rouse won, the margin would slip to 20-19 with a special election coming up. If that went the Republicans’ way, then there would be a 20-20 tie. How likely is that? Hashmi won reelection two years ago with 62% of the vote, Rouse with 55% of the vote. These were not considered the most vulnerable districts two years ago, so either of these would be favored to go Democratic in a special election, although low-turnout elections in early January (the likely date) always come with some unpredictability to them.
9. Who would be the most useful to Spanberger in getting her legislative agenda through?
Now we turn from the politics of winning an election to the politics of governing. In theory, either Hashmi or Rouse — both currently being senators — would be best positioned to lobby their former colleagues. Stoney should not be discounted, either. He comes with a lot of contacts from his time as secretary of the commonwealth under Gov. Terry McAuliffe. None of the others have any experience in the legislature. Of course, it’s also fair to ask: Would Spanberger need any help? We must also remember that governors and lieutenant governors are elected separately and might have different agendas. Back in the ’80s, for instance, then-Lt. Gov. Wilder broke with then-Gov. Baliles on the latter’s financing plan for transportation. Whether that was a matter of good policy can be debated, but it was certain done with an eye toward the next election, which brings us to:
10. Which candidate would you most like to see as governor someday?
The main business of a lieutenant governor, other than to preside over the state Senate, is to run for governor. If Democrats were to sweep the fall elections, we’d instantly start asking who the party’s nominee in 2029 will be — Lt. Gov. So-and-So or Attorney General So-and-So. If only the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor won, we wouldn’t even need to ask — it would just be assumed that Lt. Gov. So-and-So would be the party’s standard-bearer four years hence. By that criteria, Democratic voters aren’t just picking a nominee for lieutenant governor, they’re picking a potential governor-in-waiting. How does that change the calculus?
We’ll find out what Democratic voters are thinking on the night of June 17, when the votes are counted. Let’s also remember how few votes it might take to win. With six candidates, someone could theoretically win with just 16.6% of the vote.
How do you make your mind up on who to vote for in a party primary? You can share your thoughts here.
Grayson County dominates the early voting in Republican House primary in Southwest Virginia
How’s the early voting in the June 17 primaries going so far? I’m doing regular updates on the latest early voting trends in West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out Friday afternoons. This week I’ll take a close look at the Republican primary for a House of Delegates nomination in House District 46, where Del. Jed Arnold, R-Smyth County, is retiring.
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