Register for the show here.
Season 5 | Episode 22 (Show 214) | Song: I’m Every Woman
We are dancing in to Whitney Houston’s I’m Every Woman on June 20 to celebrate the history making election on November 4, 2025. Now that the Virginia primary is over, we now have a Democratic ticket from top to bottom! A history making year it will be with Abigail Spanberger (for Governor) and Ghazala Hashmi (for Lt. Gov) at the top of ticket alongside 100 House of Delegate Candidates on the bottom - with over 57 women on the ticket! When Hashmi wins in November, she will become the commonwealth’s first South Asian and first Muslim statewide elected official.
Jay Jones (D) won the nomination for Attorney General. Jones long-standing ties in the Hampton region may help boost turnout in a region that typically sees voter interest drop in off-year elections.1
“Richmond voters reject former mayor in lieutenant governor primary, citing water crisis and casino support”
reported that the Lt. Governor’s race was nail biter between Senator Hashmi (27.39%) and former Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney. He fell short (26.64%) with a poor showing in his home district of Richmond. Senator Rouse, a crowd favorite and new comer to the Senate, came in a close third place. Maybe Aaron will seriously consider running for Congress in 2026 (Virginia Beach, CD 2).This very tight outcome brought the rank-choice advocates to the top of every discussion. Liz White, Executive Director of UPVOTE said on her Facebook (June 17): “I’m just saying, this would be a different kind of night with ranked choice voting. Instead of a nail biter to see who can get closest to 30%, we’d have a winner who we knew had the support of 50%+.” Here is the another truth: a majority of voters didn’t know the candidates on the ballot. Imagine voters just guessing? Many proponents of rank choice voting claims it leads to more engagement in the process - let’s hope so but I would not bank on it.
I felt our candidates were a strong bench - but Stoney’s tie to Terry McAuliffe was a big turnoff to many who still suffer flashbacks from the devastating loss in 2021 that brought us Youngkin and the rise of the MAGA CRT (then DEI) bullcrap across the nation. Just seeing McAuliffe on commercials for this election brought on PTSD from election night. Even so, Levar had a strong showing in many counties across the Commonwealth. With so many candidates on the ballot, name recognition in my opinion helped the former mayor tally up the votes outside of his locality.
Speaking of flashbacks: Let’s go back to 2018 when we elected Abigail Spanberger, Elaine Luria and Jennifer Wexton to Congress, another history making event with the most women elected to Congress in history.
“The 2018 Democratic freshman class yielded a net gain of 40 seats with a lineup that featured record numbers of women and plenty of candidates with national security and business backgrounds. A similar effort yielded a net gain of six governors.”2
Democrats can make history this November; they can build back our brand of doing good for the people. This sounds trivial but people like to be on the winning team — and this time around winning is EVERYTHING. Democrats in Virginia will change how the party is perceived and received. Second place, runner up, is not an option. Virginia is heating up to be a battleground. Trump’s insanity and the GOP’s “big ugly bill” will be on ballot in November.
NOW LET’S GET TO SHOW BUSINESS
Friday June 20, with only a week to the BIG SUMMIT FOR ALL - if you are woke, you are welcome! Dancing this week will be powerful as we tee up what is at stake in the Virginia elections. The Summit is more than a ticket to a 3 day event to plug in and play - it is how we will win because we are stronger together - when we come together!
GUESTS:
Dorri C. Scott, poet, author, educator, and School Engagement and Community Outreach Consultant for BANNED TOGETHER. She is currently writing a “Banned Together” curriculum to enhance learning for students from classrooms to boardrooms worldwide. A Harvard Business School graduate, Dorri is completing a doctorate in Education Leadership (2025). She’s also a best-selling author and global speaker. Committed to life learning and free reading, Dorri leads a national campaign “no ban on books” - a national banned book club, supports efforts to stop the ban and encourages reading for all.
Plan for a fiery discussion on the importance of celebrating and claiming Juneteenth and Black History as we face backlash and book bans - we truly need to come together! That brings me to the Women's Summit and the special opportunity to watch the "Banned Together” documentary. For a nominal fee of $4.99, you can watch the film from Juneteenth to July 6! Click here to learn more and sign up!
We are powering up for the Virginia races with a special segment with 4 awesome House of Delegate candidates that we have put in "POWER PACKS".
Virginia Beach Power Pack
HD-100 Liz Richardson
HD-99 Cat Porterfield
HD-98 Cheryl Smith
Suffolk/Isle of Wight/Petersburg Power Pack
HD-83 Mary Person
You can learn more about POWER PACKS here.
We have been SUPER busy putting together the 9th Annual Women’s Summit - it would a shame to miss it! We love seeing our community come together - because we are stronger together. Take a look at the full agenda here - it is stunning!
This powerhouse event includes over 22 workshops, 100 speakers, lots of surprises and delights = Delegate Candi King and Speaker Don Scott on Friday evening getting their boots on the ground to win in Virginia; Abigail's Rally Bus arriving; key workshop presenters like author Elizabeth Chur, playwright Ann Timmons, and Screenwriter Billy Ray; a Grassroots Gratitude Garden; Dance Against DOGE performance; big reveal of WINVA 's new voter outreach and canvassing software called VOCE created by Dems for Dems; Candidate Room with trainings hosted by Del Dan Helmer; and hopefully YOU!
See you June 20 with your dancing shoes on!
BIG MIC Katherine White
SHOW Messenger Finale Norton
COASTAL Carrie Short
REGISTER HERE FOR SUMMIT
WasPost: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/06/18/virginia-primary-election-analysis-takeaways/
APNews:https://apnews.com/article/trump-democrats-abigail-spanberger-mikie-sherrill-governor-b8338ce85593ea6a884dbb620bc2d571
Share this post