The Saturday before Election Day, during a prayer breakfast in Virginia Beach, Speaker of the House Don Scott had a vision.
“When you have a sound mind, you can create a strategy that will get us from 51 seats this time, to, I don’t know … 54, 55, 56, maybe 60, whatever y’all want to go to,” he told a small group of supporters and Democratic lawmakers at New Hope Baptist Church.
Virginia Democrats already held a two-seat majority in the House of Delegates when Scott shared his ambitious hope.
By the end of Election Day, Democrats held 64 seats in the House of Delegates, having flipped 13 districts represented by Republicans. It’s the biggest House majority the party has had since 1989, and several of the districts that changed in the Democrats’ favor were in Hampton Roads.
“(Voters) feel that we will address the things that we want to do,” Scott said before the election. “They know that we passed a minimum wage bill that Gov. (Glenn) Youngkin vetoed, they know that we passed some housing affordability bills that Gov. Youngkin vetoed, so they know that if we can get all three branches that we'll be able to do the things that Virginians expect us to do.”
The result marks Virginia Democrats’ largest House majority in 37 years and the first time in 40 years a Democratic governor in Virginia has entered office with a political trifecta, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee said in a statement.
Political trifectas occur when the same party holds majorities in the state Senate and House of Delegates, as well as the governor and lieutenant governor, who are directly involved in the lawmaking process.
It should make a clear and easy path for the dominant party to pass its preferred legislation.
Speaker Scott said he believes that will be the case, even on things Democrats previously left unfinished the last time they held a political trifecta before Younkin’s election in 2021.
One of those things is taking the last steps of creating Virginia’s retail marijuana market. It was approved in 2021, but lawmakers haven’t been able to agree on funding for the regulatory work needed to oversee the system.
“I intend to do that, and I think Abigail Spanberger intends to do that,” Scott said before Election Day. “We sent that marijuana bill to the governor's desk, so that's going to pass.”
Scott is referring to House Bill 698, which laid out how a retail marijuana market would operate. Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed the legislation last year, and with only a two-member majority, Democrats couldn’t muster the needed two-thirds vote to override a veto.
At Williamsburg’s Strangeways Brewing on election night, Democrat Jessica Anderson and supporters huddled around computers to carefully watch election returns.
Anderson lost to Republican Amanda Batten in 2023 by 667 votes. By midnight this year, Anderson was up 2,414 votes and felt ready to declare victory.
By then, Anderson and supporters already knew Democrats Abigail Spanberger, Ghazala Hashmi and Jay Jones had locked down the Commonwealth’s top elected positions.
"We have an opportunity with the number of seats we flipped today, with flipping all three statewide, to really send a loud message to this administration that we're coming back and we're going to protect Virginians across the board,” Anderson told WHRO, speaking about what message Virginia’s results send to President Donald Trump. “Whether we're talking about health care, we're talking about SNAP, we're going to make sure our communities are taken care of in Richmond.”
During her speech in Richmond, Gov.-Elect Spanberger reminded supporters of the things she campaigned on and plans to work on starting on her first day: lower housing costs, take action against “predatory” pharmaceutical practices and surprise medical billing, produce more in-state energy and lower energy costs for consumers; and invest in apprenticeship and job training programs.
Spanberger and the new Democratic majority in the House of Delegates are taking over as lawmakers work through four state constitutional amendments: One related to reproductive health care access, one on marriage equality, one on voting rights and a recent one at the center of a special legislative session to change how the state draws voting districts.
Spanberger used her victory speech to make clear her stance on one of those.
“In Virginia, healthcare decisions about contraception, fertility treatments, and reproductive care will continue to be made between women and their doctors — not by politicians,” she said. “That's a promise I’ve made, and it's a promise I intend to keep.”
Democratic Party of Virginia Chair Senator Lamont Bagby said before Election Day he hopes the state won’t need the redistricting amendment, but was looking forward to securing enough new seats to “(get) these constitutional amendments done and then there's a ton of vetoes that are sitting on the governor's desk, and we need to make sure those pass. As easy as that.”
On election night, Bagby released a statement: “Tonight, the people of Virginia once again made history, leading the way for our nation and showing the power of unity, progress, and moral conviction. … Democrats now hold a trifecta – a landmark victory that speaks to the strength of our values and the will of the people.”
WHRO’s Katherine Hafner contributed to this report
