Virginia Primary Preview 2025
A housekeeping note: while I considered writing previews of the primaries for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, I ultimately opted against it because, while I view Democrats as favored to win both offices, Republicans do hold them at the present and seem to have every intention of fighting to keep them. The longtime policy of Primary School (and Primaries for Progress before it) has been to generally try to avoid GOP-held seats except for those where the GOP has no hope of competing. (For example, a seat turned safely blue by redistricting, or a contest where the GOP's only hope was a reelection bid by a retiring incumbent.) This serves the dual purpose of making my workload manageable and focusing your attention on races where you can afford somewhat to deprioritize the nebulous concept of electability.
HD-01 (western Arlington)
Patrick Hope (i) vs. Sean Epstein vs. Arjoon Srikanth
While housing and public transportation are the main dividing lines in Arlington politics, they’ve taken a back seat in this race. Some figures from both sides of the urbanism divide in Arlington politics are backing software engineer Arjoon Srikanth’s challenge to longtime Del. Patrick Hope. Srikanth is running as a standard progressive who might be recognizable anywhere—swearing off corporate money (unlike Hope, who’s swimming in it thanks to Virginia’s extraordinarily lax campaign finance laws) and attacking the incumbent for Democratic leadership’s decision to kill an abortion shield law in committee earlier this year, a decision which Hope acknowledged a little too frankly was made for nakedly political reasons. (The thinking, as expressed by Hope, was that it’s better to wait until after Democrats gain a trifecta rather than give vulnerable Republicans a chance to appear moderate by voting for the bill, which would have prohibited Virginia from extraditing doctors and patients to other states for abortion prosecutions—but by the same token, why wouldn’t you want to force a vote on an issue that splits the GOP coalition and highlights one of the party’s least popular stances?) Potentially blunting the damage of that attack: the author of that abortion shield bill, state Sen. Barbara Favola, represents Arlington and is supporting Hope’s reelection. Hope is backed by labor and liberal interest groups, including pro-choice groups—and, luckily for him, this district takes in the most conservative and suburban parts of Arlington. However, Srikanth is running a real race with some support locally, and he has Hope’s support for a controversial proposed casino as a wedge issue to exploit, so this is a race to watch.
Ex-Floridian Sean Epstein is also running, and self-funding most of his campaign, but he doesn’t have Srikanth’s polished online presence or evident local buy-in. Expect him to place third.
HD-81 (eastern Richmond suburbs)
Delores McQuinn (i) vs. Alicia Atkins
Henrico County School Board Chair Alicia Atkins is a long-shot challenger who hits a lot of the right notes and has the support of Richmond for All, a PAC tied to Richmond City Councilor Kenya Gibson. There’s one small problem: her low-budget campaign is partially funded by disgraced anti-abortion sex weirdo Joe Morrissey, who was a state senator representing this area until his primary defeat in 2023 at the hands of pro-choice progressive Lashrecse Aird. It may very well be the notoriously cantankerous Morrissey just trying to spite his old rivals (the Richmond Democratic establishment backed Aird in that primary), but nevertheless, it gives me pause. Incumbent Del. Delores McQuinn is not backed by Joe Morrissey, but otherwise is an unremarkably underwhelming incumbent who takes quite a lot of money from the state’s all-powerful utility monopoly, Dominion Energy. McQuinn should win and win big, but Morrissey himself is proof that Richmond-area primaries can go sideways—he won his state senate seat and started his second act in politics via a shocking upset of a longtime incumbent in 2019.
Arlington County Board
Takis Karantonis (i) vs. James DeVita
Self-funding perennial candidate James DeVita is a single-issue NIMBY candidate opposed to the legalization of apartments in Arlington. (Please be so for real, that is a city with skyscrapers and four Metro lines.) Incumbent Takis Karantonis is a normal Democrat, which is going to have to be good enough here.
Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney
Ramin Fatehi (i) vs. John Butler
In a story that’s surely familiar to longtime Primary School readers, a reform-oriented prosecutor faces a challenge from a tough-on-crime type backed by the local police union. Here, that reformer is Ramin Fatehi, a former public defender before his 2021 election as Norfolk’s top prosecutor, and that challenger is former federal prosecutor John Butler, who has the support of city leaders including Mayor Kenny Alexander. Fatehi has been self-funding and receiving help from other reform prosecutors across Virginia, including Arlington’s Parisa Dehghani-Tafti and Albemarle County’s Jim Hingeley, as well as billionaire George Soros, who funds the campaigns of reform prosecutors across the country. Butler, meanwhile, has been raking in the dough from local businesspeople and politicians, claiming Fatehi’s office is mismanaged and ineffectual.
Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney
Colette McEachin (i) vs. Tom Barbour
Tom Barbour is running as a reform-oriented challenger to incumbent Colette McEachin in a rematch of their 2021 face-off, in which McEachin defeated Barbour nearly three-to-one. Nothing this year indicates it’ll go much different than the first time.
Richmond Sheriff
Antionette Irving (i) vs. William Burnett
Richmond Sheriff Antionette Irving defeated challenger William Burnett by a relatively narrow 11% in 2021, and now we’re due for a rematch. The same issues dominate in this race as in the last one: first and foremost, in-custody deaths and overdoses at the county jail Irving oversees. Burnett is skeptical of vocational training for inmates and generally doesn’t sound like a reformer, but more than a dozen people have died in the jail since Irving took over as sheriff in 2018; that’s a brutal record which to some extent speaks for itself.