The first big election of 2024 starts on Friday
The first big election of 2024 starts on Friday
Fair new districts could change everything
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Virginia
Race: State House District 65
Date: November 7th
Candidates: Joshua Cole (D), Lee Peters III (R)
The Details
Virginia’s development over the past 25 years has turned what was once a solid red state into a reliable microcosm of the national political environment. Now a veritable swing state, its significant geographic, demographic, and economic diversity mean that Virginia’s off-year elections are often seen as a bellwether for the national races always slated a year later.
Punditry and projection are very inexact sciences, but even when the results don’t seem to align, the broader context can often offer useful insights. In 2021, former Carlyle Group co-CEO Glenn Youngkin won Virginia’s gubernatorial election as his fellow Republicans eked out victories in enough tight races to flip the state House. While a national red wave failed to materialize during the midterm elections, Youngkin piloted several nauseating narratives that proved ultra-effective then and remain central to the GOP’s most successful campaigns.
Youngkin assumed office after a two-year Democratic trifecta during which the party rang up policy accomplishments that put Virginia in league with states well above the Mason-Dixon Line. Without the Senate under GOP control, he’s spent the past 20 months rolling back Democratic policies — including protections for LGBTQ+ students and legal marijuana sales — and bipartisan traditions — voting rights restoration among them — wherever possible through executive action.
Plans to flip the Senate and activate a Republican trifecta are in motion, but severely complicated by a round of redistricting that ended gross GOP gerrymanders and triggered a gigantic scramble among elected officials. The new lines triggered both retirements and incumbent-on-incumbent warfare, while offering fairer routes for other lawmakers and candidates.
One of those candidates is former Del. Joshua Cole, who has been involved in more tight races over the past four cycles than many lawmakers experience throughout the course of very long careers.
A young pastor, education professional, and civil rights activist, Cole first ran for the state House in 2017, when he came within just 73 votes of turning a gerrymandered GOP district blue. He finished the job in 2019 — we supported his campaign, which helped Democrats win their trifecta — before succumbing by two points in the same GOP-gerrymandered district to a Republican whose only qualification for the job was getting her car stuck in a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020.
“It was like The Empire Strikes Back,” he jokes now.
He’s running again this year at the ripe old age of 33, in a newly configured district that leans blue. It won’t be easy, though, as he’s running against a police officer who has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Youngkin’s fundraising largesse.
Flipping Virginia’s House of Delegates blue again while holding on to the state Senate is absolutely essential, both to stop Youngkin from erasing a decade of progress and so that we don’t have to hear pundits droning and yapping on about another red wave. If progressives like Cole wind up winning, it’ll have the added bonus of showing the Democratic Party that it must finally embrace its future. Early voting starts on Friday.
I reconnected with Cole this weekend to discuss his campaign, the political dynamic in a state that reflects the American electorate, the campaign game plan, and the sense he’s getting of where people stand on issues like the economy, housing, and the education debates that shaped Virginia’s elections in 2021.
Progress Report: You spent two years in the House of Delegates. Before we talk about this campaign and what you want to do if you win, how do you look back on what was accomplished in 2020 and 2021, and why Democrats wound up losing at the end of that cycle?
Cole: I think we accomplished some amazing things. I think there was some things we could have gone a little bit further on, but as far as it relates to environmental justice, protecting the environment, voting rights, raising the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana, there were a lot of things that we accomplished in 2020 and in 2021 that were unheard of in the Southern states. Unfortunately, we did not take that momentum and convert it over into positive messaging in 2021.
I can remember knocking on doors, and people answering the doors and being frustrated about Congress, not passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. I was like, “I hear you. I'm not in Congress. But we did do that on the Virginia level.” And they're like, “wait, what, you did?” When they found that out, they were excited, but it didn’t translate.
And then we tried to recycle an old news Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, and tried to rerun him. And I didn't support him in the primary. And I was very vocal [note: Cole chaired former House Speakee Eileen Filler-Corn’s primary campaign]. I was like, “hey, if we select him, we're going to lose.” We needed someone at the top of the ticket who was going to carry that momentum and that strength. And we didn't pick that in the primary.
From a national perspective, the legacy of that campaign is that it introduced a lot of people to the “parents’ rights” movement, which Glenn Youngkin made his rallying cry down the stretch. What was it like for you, running for re-election amid all that?
So all of that backlash came at us. I was watching the debate live and just before the debate closed, in the last minute, Terry McAuliffe says, “Parents don't get to choose what their children are learning” or something like that. And the Republicans ran with it. I mean, rightfully so. It was a gaffe, it was a slip. And that is nuts. And we we the candidates on the bottom of the ticket, we had to answer for that.
Why do you think “parents right” caught on, though? Was it a product of the pandemic?
I think it was definitely the pandemic, there were a lot of parents who were frustrated about their kids being out of school. One of the things that I keep telling people, especially as someone who grew up in school with an IEP [Individualized Education Program], and having a mom who was super-involved in my education, is that parents are already allowed to opt their children out of certain classes. Parents can already call the librarian and say, “Hey, these particular books, I don't want my kids to have access to.”
As public schools, we have to realize that what you as a parent may not want your child to see, another parent may be comfortable with them seeing. And so parents already have the ability and the choice to opt their kids out or prevent them kids from seeing certain things. But the Republicans use these fear tactics to tell them they weren't empowered, when they really were.
So they say parents matter, but they’re doing these attacks on trans students — what about the parents who support their trans students and LGBTQIA students, but now you're demonizing them and you're criminalizing them?
As we’ve seen in other states, like Florida and Arizona, the “parents’ rights” thing doesn’t end with books or bullying kids at public schools — the next step is enacting school privatization through voucher programs.
We definitely have to make sure that we prevent that, because our schools are already on the decline. Republicans have played the long game and they have done everything they can to, in essence, defund public schools,
Prime example: This year, the governor “lost” $200 million in education funding, and can't figure out what he did with it. And his response is, “oh, well, while I figure it out, the schools have to foot the bill.” That wasn't a mistake. That's what you all have always been doing. And then we wonder why we're losing educators. And we have such a teacher shortage, especially in this region, because we're not paying educators.
The schools are dilapidated. They're not being funded. And keep in mind, Democrats have to take responsibility as well, because the past two governors have been Democrats, and a report came out recently that said we have not been funding the schools the way they needed to be funded.
Is education still people’s top concern? What are the big issues you’re hearing about at the doors?
The major issue number one for Democrats, and some independents, is absolutely women's rights, reproductive choice. The governor is pushing this 15-week abortion ban, but before this election cycle, he said “I'll sign any abortion bill that comes across my desk.”
So we already know that if he gets control of the House and the Senate, it's a strong possibility there could be a total abortion ban in Virginia. And so people are pissed off about that, because Virginia is the last state in the South that has that doesn't have an abortion ban.
Even as I'm knocking on doors, talking to Republican women, they'll tell me, “Hey, I'm as pro-life as they come, but I don't want an abortion ban because I remember life pre-Roe v. Wade.”
So what have their big attacks been against you?
When they’re attacking me and all of the targeted districts throughout the state, they're using the same messaging, and it's crime. “Virginia is not safe. Crime, crime, crime.”
It’s weird, because my opponent says crime is not on the rise, yet all his messaging against me is “crime, crime crime.” But the data has proven that under the Younkin administration, crime has risen. He ran on being tough on crime, he has control of the prisons, he has control of the Public Safety Committee in the House, and he has control the Secretary of Public Safety, and yet he can't rein in crime.
What do they propose should be done about the crime that may or may not be rising? I live in New York and both our mayor and state Republicans go on and on about crime, and then all they really suggest is that we undo bail reform, which isn’t causing a rise in crime, and sometimes hire more police.
They're saying how when the Democrats had control, we did all of those “defund the police” initiatives — which we didn't — and that's what made crime rise.
We have the marijuana legalization coming, the governor stopped the marketplace part of it, but that's going to make it worse because there are people who are expecting to start selling marijuana in 2024 but I don't know that they can.
How are people talking about the economy?
It's mixed. There are people who are saying that the economy is bad. And there are some people who are saying we're starting to see it go down. Like prime example for me. I would knock on the door and someone will say eggs are $5. And then me and my wife go grocery shopping. And we bought 80 eggs for $2. Yeah. And so I think it also depends on people and their views.
Like there are some Democrats who I've talked to who are like we're voting for the Democrats. We're supporting the Democrats, but y'all got to do something about this economy… But people are starting to see, you know, what Joe Biden is doing and how his effects are starting to positively impact us. And I was talking to a lady on the door, and she's like, Hey, you know, I'm starting to slowly see things go down. It's taking a while, but I'm actually starting to see, you know, inflation go down a little.
What else are you going to prioritize?
Locally, I'm thinking about transportation issues, we still have the worst traffic in the US. My opponent attacked me won it in 2020. She won. She did nothing about it when she went to Richmond. And so I already have a plan to go day one to introduce. It's already been drafted. I'm ready to introduce it as soon as we get down there.
Affordable housing is a major problem. Especially for younger families. And I'm not talking about, you know, Section Eight housing, or public housing, I'm talking about, you know, affordable housing for younger families that are just starting families or people who are just graduating college and get a nice at a job that's maybe making $50,000 a year and they want to be able to have their own place without having to stay in their parents basement. They should be able to afford a house right here in Fredericksburg.
What kind of housing is being built?
I think for us, the major problem is, you know, a lot of people work in DC. And so they're starting to move down here. And we're having housing developments pop up everywhere overnight. And I'm just having some conversations with the developers, they're telling us that there's a lot of red tape on the local level. And the process to get approvals needs to be updated and brought up to speed.
Then what does that lead to?
They're doing both. There are single family homes and there are condos and apartments. Last set of condos built in downtown Fredericksburg were starting off at anywhere between $500,000 up to $750,000. Then some of the basic rent in this region, a two bedroom apartment can go anywhere from $1500 to $2,000. And that's probably cheap for y'all.
To go back to politics, how do you think Glenn Youngkin impacts this race? After a few years in office, have people seen through his persona?
This is what's wild. Our new district became Democratic leaning, and when we did our polling, the three highest-ranking politicians in the district, in terms of favorability, were Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, myself, and then Glenn Youngkin.
I got attacked on Twitter because during our debate, I attacked him, but it was tactfully and on what he needs to be hit on. His policies aren't popular. Him as an individual they like, but when you take his personality away and it’s his policies, they don't approve.
So what is it about him as an individual?
He has done a great job with his image. He is a non-threatening suburban dad. He plays basketball. He is approachable. He’ll travel around the state and there’s nothing threatening about him as a person. And then as a good Republican does, he’s the leader of the party, but he doesn't have to vocalize or take the reins of some of the most oppressive and crazy legislation that he's pushing. He has cronies in the House of Delegates and in the Senate for that.
OK, so how do you mitigate it? He’s popular, he’s funding your opponent — early voting starts Friday, what’s the plan from here?
We partnered up with NextGen, which is targeting college and community colleges in the area to mobilize college students to register and then get them out to vote. Abigail Spanberger, our Congresswoman, is coming to town on Friday for a big Get Out the Early Vote rally.
We also have what's called the coordinated campaign between the House and the Senate caucuses, and they are actively going out to make sure people show up to vote, and we're specifically targeting low-turnout voters to get them to show up early to early vote. So by the time we get to election day, we just have [to worry about] our regular Democrats showing up to vote.
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