And The Beat Goes On . . .

We can’t catch a break.

As soon as we finished with the 2022 midterm elections (an event that was shared in every state across the country) and saw that the purported “red wave” was more like a “red fizzle,” we are back in election mode in Virginia.  Our entire state legislature is up for reelection this year, and the rights of Virginians hang in the balance.  Our current Republic Governor “Fleeceman” Glenn Youngkin, worked with the GOP-nominated House of Delegates to try to overturn much of the progress Virginia has made in voting rights, criminal justice, health care, and so much more since Democrats had a governing “trifecta” (control of the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature) from 2019-2021.  In the 2022 and 2023 legislative sessions, a slim Democratic majority in the Senate served as the “Brick Wall Caucus” to keep Virginia from turning into Florida or Texas, but we’ll have to fight in November to keep the Dems in control of the Senate and flip the House if we don’t want to go backward — moves being messaged by the state GOP.  The election for Governor won’t be until 2025 – and Virginia is the only state in the Union in which the Governor cannot run for two successive terms.  Youngkin will be out of a job, which is why he's sniffing around the Presidency.

I’ve written before about the Williamsburg Indivisible Group, which I’ve been part of since 2017.  Our monthly meeting will be this Sunday via Zoom, and I’m excited about it.  We’ll have three guests in attendance – all first-time candidates for statewide office (and all women, just sayin’).  They are interesting and personable and I am eager to hear more from them.

• Note: Sunday’s WIG meeting has very quickly grown into a multi-candidate forum, so I have contacted incumbent Senator Monty Mason (read about him below) to join us. I’m not sure he’ll be able to attend on such short notice — an an incumbent, he has General Assembly business to attend to. But his campaign manager tells me that they’ll try to work it in. I hope so. We have know Monty for a while and have supported him in previous campaigns, and of course we plan to continue to support him.

Jessica Anderson is running for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates (the lower house). House District 71, to be precise.  She is running against an incumbent Republican, Amanda Batten, and I think Jess will give Amanda a run for her money.  Jess was the single mom of three daughters until her remarriage a few years ago. She also works in the front office at a local elementary school, so she knows the issues facing young families. She is young (she’s 40) and social-media savvy, with 31,000 followers on Twitter and 6,000 followers on TikTok.  She plays a social media campaign with which I am not familiar, and is running a campaign different from any I have been involved with.  I’ve met Jess a couple of times, and her persona and enthusiasm are infectious. I think she’ll shake things up around here. You can find her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JessAnderson4VA. You should also check out her website at https://jessicaandersonforva.com/.

In news that just broke on Thursday (yesterday, as I’m writing this), we now have a candidate for our other local district – Virginia House of Delegates District 69.  She’s Lindsay Fogarty from a nearby county that is also in the district.

Lindsay is a well-known advocate for the rare disease community, as she is dealing with several rare diseases while raising a son with autism.  She has been a very visible advocate and lobbyist for the rights of people with disabilities.  Like Jessica, she has a very active social media presence, with over 11,000 followers on Twitter. She’s also young – she’s 30.  I have just connected with her this morning – she’s so new that she won’t have a campaign website up until later today – to see what WIG can do to help her campaign.  I am excited about Lindsay’s candidacy – she has a compelling story that will motivate voters to support her.  I’m pleased to see her running because I live in District 69 and would love to have her as my delegate in the Virginia General Assembly.  You can find her on Twitter @rarediseasemom https://twitter.com/rarediseasemom.

We also have a newly-announced candidate for state Senate District 26 (to replace our longtime GOP Senator, Tommy Norment, who recently announced his retirement). Pam Garner is an Air Force National Guard Lt. Colonel who lives in Gloucester County, Virginia – across the York River from Williamsburg.  She served as squadron Commander of the 192^nd Support Squadron at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Newport News and Hampton, Virginia.  She just announced her candidacy a couple of weeks ago, so she is just getting her feet under her.  She is in the process of establishing a social media presence — you can help her build her online network by following her at her new Twitter site https://twitter.com/pamforvirginia . I’m looking forward to meeting her and seeing what we can do to help.  I’m also particularly interested in her candidacy – I’m in her district and I would love to be represented by a Democrat in the State Senate.

Just to round out the field, our other local seat in the state Senate — District 24 — will be contested by incumbent Democrat Monty Mason.

Monty, who has been in the state Senate since 2016, lives about three miles from me in Williamsburg (just south of the William and Mary campus. He is an experienced legislator with a business background, which has given him the ability to “work across the aisle” in a divided legislature in a purple state. I’m sure he is delighted to to work with these three new candidates, who will bring fresh ideas and new voters to the polls. This will help all Democrats.

What all of this means is that I know who I’ll be volunteering for over the next six months. Here’s the list:

First, the districts I live in:

• Pam Garner, Senate District 26. Here’s a map of this district with a marker at my house (near the southern end of the district. Pam lives across the York River from me, close to the Route 606 marker near Gloucester.

• Lindsay Fogarty, House of Delegates District 69. Here’s a map of this district with a marker at my house (at the very western end of the district). Lindsay lives , near the York River across the district from me, on the norteast end of the district.

Now, the districts near me:

• Monty Mason, Senate District 24. Here’s a map of this district with a marker at an address in the City of Williamsburg (across the street from the William and Mary campus.) I live just outside this district, between the marker for Jamestown and the Route 5000 indicator.

  

• Jessica Anderson, House District 71. Here’s a map of the district with a marker at the same location across the street from the campus. I live in the little unshaded bump between Jamestown and the 5000 marker.

As these maps illustrate, the Williamsburg area (the city itself and adjacent counties) lie between major metropolitan areas (Richmond and the tri-city area of Norfolk/Hampton/Newport News), so we are always on the cusp whenever there’s a redistricting. It’s a little like Christmas morning when the new boundaries are revealed and we have to figure out who our representatives are. There’s a website that helps Virginia residents understand this: https://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov/.

If you live in Virginia, check out this site and decide who you’ll be volunteering for between now and November. Your local party organizations are gearing up right now for the election cycle.  If you want to play a role in determining the names that show up on the ballot on November, now is the time to volunteer.

If you live somewhere else, then it’s next year for you.  But I can guarantee you that the party organizations are putting out feelers now in advance of the primary and election season in 2024.  That’s a year when the President and Vice President,  all of the US House of Representatives, 1/3 of the Senate, and most state officials will be running for office.  It’ll be an voter-palooza and you don’t want to miss out.