Virginia Democrats will choose a nominee on Tuesday for the special election to fill the term of the late Rep. Donald McEachin, who died in November just weeks after winning reelection.

Democrats in the 4th Congressional District are holding a “firehouse primary” – or one that’s conducted by the party organization, instead of by election officials – across a handful of pop-up voting locations in the Richmond-area district.

The nominee will enter the February general election as the favorite in what has been a reliably Democratic district, and the outcome of the election isn’t likely to affect the balance of power in the US House, which Republicans are set to control in January

Republican state Sen. Jen Kiggans will defeat Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, CNN projects, a big win for Republicans as they vie to take back control of the House.

Luria is a member of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol.

Kiggans was a top Republican recruit this cycle, taking advantage of Virginia’s redistricting process which shifted Luria’s district from a tough, but competitive, area for Democrats to an even steeper climb. That shift, and the prospect of Democrats losing a seat, turned the race between Luria and Kiggans into one of the closely watched contests in the nation.

lections have a clarifying, refreshing effect. Whether at the local, state or national level, an election authoritatively settles things.

A nation whipsawed and left on edge for months on end at last gets relief from a hyperventilating, self-contradicting media, venomous political ads, and pundits who know nothing and race to the nearest microphone to discuss public polls that are little better than guesswork.

“This is how it’s going to be,” the electoral majority, the ultimate decider in our democratic republic, decrees every November (at least in Virginia).

The aftermath of each election is a time for introspection, a moment to ponder what the voters have said and what it means. We see which ideas and candidates were validated and which weren’t. The task is to look behind the election results and figure out what they tell us, to distinguish why winners won and losers lost.

‘This unit is plainly a paper tiger’

The NAACP was required to pay a roughly $20,000 deposit to have Miyares’ office act on its Freedom of Information Act request, even though the final bill came in at less than half that amount.

Barnette accused the office of using exorbitant fees to try to get the NAACP to back off its request, a common criticism from transparency advocates who say Virginia’s laws make it too costly and difficult to try to access government information.

Most of the records consist of internal emails, press clippings and responses to public feedback about the election integrity announcement. Barnette said he saw nothing noteworthy in the material the NAACP received, which the attorney general’s office told the group required more than 200 hours of staff time to compile.

Incumbent Democrat Elaine Luria was a so-called majority maker in 2018. She turned what was a red district blue, giving Democrats control of the House. Now, the two-term Democrat is trying to hold on to her seat, not just for her own viability but for that of her party and its agenda in Washington.

“If you look across the spectrum of the country, this is number 218, statistically,” Luria told CNN, meaning that she sees her seat as the one likely to decide which party has 218 votes – the minimum number needed for majority control of the 435-member House of Representatives.

During an interview at her campaign office in Suffolk, Luria brushed off the pressure that comes with being a candidate in such a key House race.

Warner says he’s in ‘active conversations’ about siting semiconductor plants in Virginia

$52 billion in investment expected as CHIPS+ bill passes U.S. Senate

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said Wednesday he is “in active conversations” about locating semiconductor chip manufacturing facilities in Virginia.

“My hope is that with my work on this we can secure one of those factories in Virginia,” he said during a press call touting federal legislation, passed by the Senate later in the day, that commits $52 billion in subsidies to domestic chip manufacturers.

The so-called CHIPS+ legislation aims to spur the growth of semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, which has fallen over the past few decades. The law passed the Senate on a bipartisan 64-33 vote.

While the United States produced 37% of the global semiconductor supply in the 1990s, “today we’re down to about 12%,” said Warner, citing a figure also marshaled by the Biden administration in support of the law.

Parts of Virginia exploring bus rapid transit systems

Since it began operating in June 2018, Richmond’s Pulse has driven its way to becoming one of the most successful bus rapid transit services in the country.

Now transportation leaders from as far away as Ohio, Maryland and Florida are taking notice as they consider jumping on board with similar systems in other densely populated areas.

Sam Sink, director of planning and scheduling for the Greater Richmond Transit Company, which operates the Pulse in Virginia’s capital city, said passengers are turning to rapid transit services due to their frequent stops and reliability compared to buses.

Bus rapid transit “really thrives in these denser, more urban corridors where a lot of people are trying to travel at the same time,” Sink said. “It provides reliability that maybe local bus service can’t always achieve.”

Matchups are set for a pair of high-profile House races in our home state. State Sen. Jen Kiggans (R) will face Rep. Elaine Luria (D, VA-2) in a Hampton Roads-based seat, while Prince William County Supervisor Yesli Vega (R) won a competitive primary for the right to challenge Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D, VA-7). The Crystal Ball rates the former a Toss-up and the latter Leans Democratic.

Democrats were hoping that a far-right Republican, Jarome Bell, would beat Kiggans, and some even tried to help make that happen. But Kiggans, a prized national Republican recruit, won easily, 56%-27%. Joe Biden won VA-2 by only a couple of points — down a few points from the previous iteration of the district — and we’ve previously noted that it is now the median House district by presidential performance. The district, under differing lines, has a swingy history: It has changed hands 4 times since the 2000 election, and very well could a fifth time this year.

Meanwhile, Vega emerged from a crowded field in the reconfigured VA-7, which used to include some of the Richmond area but instead is now more oriented in Northern Virginia. Biden won it by about 7 points, and Spanberger is among the most impressive of the newish crop of Democratic House members (she was first elected in 2018). But her power of incumbency, to the extent it matters (debatable these days), is mitigated by the district being so new to her, and Republicans will heavily target her.

It may be that, given the way the cycle is developing, that VA-2 will soon move into Leans Republican territory and VA-7 will be a Toss-up. We’re not quite yet there ourselves but we can understand the sentiment.

Virginia’s political lines underwent a change in late 2021 with redistricting, shifting voters into new congressional and state legislative districts.

Like the rest of the country, Virginia had to redraw its political boundaries using new census data. The Virginia Supreme Court finalized the state’s redistricting process last December, reconfiguring the Commonwealth’s 11 congressional districts for the 2022 midterms.

2022 Primaries: Republicans take aim at Virginia swing districts
With Virginia’s new political map not approved until after Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s win in 2021, the congressional primaries, GOP conventions and midterms this year are the first time voters will be casting ballots under the redrawn political districts.

Virginia voters picked a state senator and a law enforcement official Tuesday as the Republican nominees for what could be two of the country’s most competitive U.S. House races.

Jen Kiggans defeated three challengers to win the nomination in Virginia’s coastal 2nd District and will take on U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria. And Yesli Vega, an auxiliary deputy and county-level elected official, prevailed in a crowded field in the central Virginia 7th District. Vega will face Rep. Abigail Spanberger in the general election, where Republicans are bullish about their chances of flipping the seats currently held by the two centrist Democrats.

Sen. Louise Lucas, president pro tempore of the Virginia Senate, has described her chamber as a “brick wall” against some of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s biggest educational priorities, from charter schools to a proposed ban on what he’s described as “divisive concepts.”

But Thursday several Democrats on the Senate’s influential Education and Health committee, which Lucas chairs, voted with Republicans to advance one of Youngkin’s top issues — a bill aimed at undoing recent admissions changes at Virginia’s prestigious governor’s schools.

The original legislation by Del. Glenn Davis, R-Virginia Beach, specifically targeted policies at Fairfax County’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology — consistently ranked as the best public school in the country by U.S. News and World Report.

The school has made national headlines for significantly shifting its admissions process in 2020 amid a nationwide reckoning on race following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

The Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority says the $77,000 worth of Russian-sourced vodka it pulled from shelves won’t be thrown out but will be stored at its facilities “until further notice.”

The government-run liquor monopoly announced Sunday it was removing seven vodka brands from its stores in response to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s call for the state to show solidarity against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Combined, those brands accounted for just over $1 million in sales in fiscal year 2021, according to ABC spokesperson Dawn Eischen, a small fraction of the $57 million in sales for the American vodka brand Tito’s, Virginia’s top-selling liquor. An estimated $68,000 in Russian-sourced vodka was pulled from store shelves, Eischen said, with another $9,500 idled at ABC’s distribution center that won’t be shipped out to stores.

The Virginia Supreme Court unanimously approved maps for new congressional and state legislative districts that will remain in place for the next decade.

The court was put in charge of the state’s political redistricting, a once-a-decade process of redrawing electoral districts with new census data, after a bipartisan commission failed to get through partisan squabbling to come to an agreement on new political maps.

A first round of maps were submitted by two experts, one nominated by Democrats and the other nominated by Republicans, appointed by the court to help with the process. The justices held two public hearings and allowed written comments and draft maps to be submitted by Dec. 20.

Congress is working quickly to determine how much military and humanitarian aid it should send to Ukraine as the war in that country continues to claim lives and send hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing as refugees.

Lawmakers are working with the Biden administration to provide billions in funding at the same time negotiators continue to work towards bipartisan agreement on more than $1.5 trillion in government funding ahead of a March 11 deadline.

Democrats and Republicans reached a framework earlier this month on that government funding package and have since been drafting the bills behind closed doors. But the five-day-old war in Ukraine and concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s potential ambitions beyond that country have led to calls for a significant uptick in U.S. military and humanitarian aid.

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Gov. Glenn Youngkin is asking the state government and Virginia universities to sever any financial ties to Russia. He also urged Norfolk and Roanoke to end sister city partnerships with Russian cities.

In a push to end “divisive concepts” in Virginia education, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration is ending virtually all equity initiatives launched by the state’s Department of Education prior to the governor’s inauguration last month.

The policy changes, announced in an interim report from the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, hew closely to directives already issued by Youngkin in his first executive order.

According to Balow, every resource listed on the department’s EdEquityVA website falls under the category of a “divisive concept,” including a 52-page “roadmap to equity” developed by the department under former Gov. Ralph Northam and Secretary of Education Atif Qarni.

Last week, Republicans in the House of Delegates passed a bill to exempt any business with 10 or fewer employees from the state’s minimum wage law.

On Monday, Democrats in the Senate voted it down alongside a half dozen other bills aimed at rolling back employee and union-friendly legislation the party passed last year before it lost its House majority.

“So they would be exempt from the current minimum wage? …  Just out of curiosity, where in the state can you live on $14,000 a year?” asked Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax.

Virginia’s minimum wage currently sits at $11 an hour and will rise to $12 an hour next year under legislation Democrats passed in 2020.

The $14,000 figure cited by Saslaw represents about what someone would earn working full-time for the federally mandated minimum wage of $7.25-an-hour, which is what small businesses could start paying their employees again if the bill were to pass.