The next 7 big things in Virginia politics: A preview of coming attractions

Virginia’s 2026 elections are now in the rearview mirror, which can only mean one thing: We need to keep our eyes on the road to see what’s coming. Here’s a roadmap:

1. The entire General Assembly will be on the ballot in November 2027

That’s a year off, but the jockeying has already begun, which is why this is first on the list of what otherwise is kinda sorta maybe in chronological order. Back in August, Del. Mark Downey, D-York County, announced he’d be seeking his party’s nomination to run against state Sen. Danny Diggs, R-York County, for what’s expected to be a closely contested Senate seat. I was at a Salem Rotary meeting this fall where former Roanoke Vice Mayor Trish White Boyd was in attendance and made some cryptic remarks about how she’d be back, which seemed a signal that she’d try for a second time to unseat state Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County. This week, state Sen. Luther Cifers, R-Prince Edward County, announced he’d be retiring, setting off a potential fight for a Republican nomination in a safe red district.

Other seats may not be so safe. Democrats are hoping that the “bluenami” that swept across the country in the recent election continues next year. The current state Senate is 21 Democrats, 19 Republicans. The State Navigate site (run by Virginia Tech grad Chaz Nuttycombe) has calculated that eight (!!!) Republican-held state Senate seats voted for Democratic congressional candidates this fall. In rising order of vulnerability, they are:

Meanwhile, in the House of Delegates, where Democrats hold a 64-36 majority, there are nine Republicans holding seats in districts that voted Democratic this year:

Democrats can’t wait to get started on these campaigns that they are convinced will fatten their majorities in Richmond. The risk for them is that every election starts from zero, and just because voters were in a mood to punish Republicans this year doesn’t mean they will be next year. The issues will be different, the candidates will be different, the backdrop may be different. I say may because Donald Trump will still be president, and that’s the danger for Republicans: In every Virginia election where Trump has been president, Virginia Republicans have lost seats in the legislature.

Bonus: Before we get to the fall elections, we’ll have June primaries. Expect some sitting legislators — particularly in strong blue or red localities — to face primaries from those further to the left or right.

2. The General Assembly convenes again in January

Those fall elections will overshadow the upcoming session, but there’s still work to be done. Look for bills about energy and data centers to once again dominate the session. However, there are other issues that will come up that deserve special mention:

3. Democratic legislators will have to decide whether to reappoint the Supreme Court justice who helped throw out the redistricting amendment

Supreme Court Justice Arthur Kelsey is up for reelection. He authored the majority opinion in the Virginia Supreme Court ruling that voided April’s redistricting vote on the grounds that the legislature hadn’t followed the rules in placing the measure on the ballot.

One key Democrat has already made it clear he wants Kelsey to go. “We will make sure that Justice Kelsey does not serve any more come this January,” Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County, said after the ruling.

The decision on whether to reelect Kelsey could put some Democrats in a bind; others may not see it that way at all. On the one hand, the state constitution sets specific terms for justices and gives legislators the power to reelect them or not; there must be some constitutional intent for legislators to assess their service and decide whether they deserve another term. On the other hand, if the General Assembly boots Kelsey, it will be read only one way: political retribution. Is that the tone Democrats want to set? Is that the political issue they want to hand Republicans going into the fall? The issue is not just whether Kelsey gets reelected, but what the decision says about the independence of the judiciary. Can Democrats complain about President Trump seeking retribution if they’re doing much the same?

Virginia hasn’t seen a legislature deny reelection to Supreme Court justices for partisan reasons since 1895. We’ve had two other occasions since — in 1901 and 2015 — where a vacancy appeared, the governor appointed a fill-in and the legislature refused to elect that person to a full-time seat, but the politics involved there were more a matter of legislators wanting their own person, not that they disagreed with a ruling that had been made.

4. Democrats will have to decide whether they want to try again on redistricting

Let’s remember how we got here. In 2020, the stars and planets aligned — so did enough Democrats and Republicans — to put forward a constitutional amendment to take the power of redistricting out of the hands of the majority party in the legislature and give it to a bipartisan commission. The key to that harmonic convergence was that neither party was sure which one would be in power. Voters approved that amendment in November 2020. The commission that was birthed by that amendment tried to redraw congressional and General Assembly lines in 2021 — and promptly, and predictably, deadlocked along party lines. That threw the task to the Virginia Supreme Court, which appointed two special masters to draw the lines we have now.

Earlier this year, in response to Trump’s push for Republicans to redraw districts elsewhere, Virginia Democrats tried to pass a redistricting plan that would have resulted in 10 Democratic seats and a single Republican one. The constitutional amendment to allow that plan passed but then was voided by the Virginia Supreme Court.

There had been chatter that Democrats might come back in 2027 and try again, this time making sure to follow all the calendar rules the court said they didn’t before. The recent elections have turned a 6-5 Democratic majority in Virginia’s delegation into an 8-3 Democratic majority. Gov. Abigail Spanberger hasn’t been keen to revisit the issue. Nationally, the ardor for redistricting may have cooled. The gerrymander backfired on Republicans in Texas. Instead of picking up seats, they lost a seat — drawing new districts meant lowering the Republican share in each one and, in a bad year for Republicans, that caught up with them. Nonetheless, at least one prominent Democrat has made it clear she’d like to make another push to draw new congressional maps in Virginia that would net the party more House members. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported this week that Del. Cia Price, D-Newport News, wants to use the 2027 session to pass another redistricting amendment. “If we don’t do it this year, then it’s impossible to do. So I would like to see us do it just in case, and then reserve the right to decide later,” Price said. “Now there’s a Democratic majority, so we don’t need to protect ourselves from them, but fascism is fascism. We should have all of the tools at our disposal for fighting back should we need them.” 

If Democrats want to make any change, they’d need to pass another amendment this year, then again next year, to try to get it to take effect in time for the November 2028 elections.

A question: Partisan gerrymandering might sell well in some Democratic districts, but how would the combined effect of Democrats kicking out the justice who helped strike down their previous gerrymandering plan and then advancing a new one sell with voters at large?

5. The Louise Lucas trial

The Senate Finance chair — correction, the powerful Senate Finance chair — faces a federal indictment on racketeering and drug charges. It’s unclear when this case will go to trial; the federal judge overseeing the case has ruled it “complex,” which waives the speedy trial rule. Federal prosecutors have revealed they have 100 hours of wiretap recordings and records from more than 200 bank accounts; both sides will need time to sort through all those. If and when the case does go to trial, it will be a spectacle. Virginia journalist David Poole, who writes the Poole Report, has already posed the question: Would a Hampton Roads jury really convict Lucas? “Her standing as a profane folk hero and the timing of the federal indictment raise the potential for ‘jury nullification’ in the drug conspiracy case,” Poole writes. One of those indicted with Lucas was her daughter, who, despite the charges, was elected to the Portsmouth City Council this month. The charges did not seem to hurt her.

In the meantime, the Lucas case will add drama to the upcoming General Assembly session: One Republican legislator — state Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Orange County — has introduced a measure to investigate Lucas. That is unlikely to go far in a Democratic-controlled chamber, but it will be a good talking point for some Republicans. Meanwhile, there remains speculation about the unnamed legislators in the indictment who allegedly knew that Lucas was selling marijuana in violation of state law. 

6. The presidential campaign comes to Virginia

We’re already on a presidential watch for one Virginian: former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is increasingly mentioned these days as a potential (but somewhat long-shot) contender for the Republican nomination in 2028. And we’ve already seen some potential Democratic candidates troop through the state in the recent campaign: Pete Buttigieg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Wes Moore, Ralph Warnock. Virginia’s new status as an early primary state will only heighten the interest, particularly on the Democratic side, where the race is far more wide-open. As legislative campaigns step up, look for presidential contenders to take a newfound interest in the commonwealth.

7. Retail cannabis sales begin July 1, 2027

That seems a long way off now, but the process of setting up a legal retail market is already underway. The final regulations will be published in January. Sometime thereafter, people can start applying for licenses — to both grow and sell legal weed. The Cannabis Control Authority aims to issue the initial licenses by May 1, with sales beginning July 1.

This is a rare event: Virginia is allowing the creation of an entirely new business ecosystem, at least on the legal side of the law. Some local governments are already starting to take steps to regulate (and tax) these new businesses — to the extent that the law allows them to. Less than a year from now, we’ll have legal weed stores (with legal weed delivery!), and while 23 other states have done this before us, we still can’t exactly predict how this will play out in Virginia.

In theory, the politics of the matter are behind us, and retail cannabis is now purely in the regulatory phase. In practice, politics is rarely far away. Here’s how all these issues come together: Next summer and fall, we may see some legislative incumbents helping cut the ribbons on new weed stores.

There are probably more political events to come, but that’s the list for today. To keep up with all the others, sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter: