Voodoo Economics, Candidate Diversity, and Rising Childhood Poverty
IN THE NEWS:
Child poverty numbers are about to spike with the expiration of a whole host of programs--the child tax credit, food stamp benefits, rent-relief program, and even some Medicaid eligibility. Solutions to the child poverty problem could be solved with the record surplus money that's now at issue in the ongoing budget impasse, but lawmakers are still considering whether they want to spend it on tax cuts instead.
This election will feature a record number of female candidates and a record number of Black candidates for the state Senate– 28 female candidates and 17 Black candidates. And it brings to mind questions on the nature of descriptive and substantive representation, as well as how that representation might look in House and Senate leadership.
In December, Governor Glenn Youngkin will unveil his legacy budget, which means state agencies are already hard at work crafting the next two-year budget. Meanwhile, the budget amendments that were supposed to be in place a month ago are still caught up in a disagreement between House Republicans and Senate Democrats. When the latest financial projections were released last month, Governor Glenn Youngkin was hopeful they could break the logjam--but Democrats say his projections are "voodoo economics."
At the Watercooler:
The fight for state Senate leadership might be drawing key Democratic attention from November's races.
Plus, concerns that Democratic caucus chair Charniele Herring has allegedly not shared fundraised money with the caucus.
Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
I'm Tom Bowman.
And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast that's hotter than it's ever been!
Thomas Bowman
Just like our planet.
Michael Pope
Man, that's a bummer. All right, well, but let's get to the news. Child poverty fell to a historic low in Virginia last year, but advocates are worried that the numbers are about to spike again because a number of things have happened. The Child Tax Credit expired, Food Stamp benefits were no more, the Rent Relief program came to an end, and Virginia started kicking people off of Medicaid. Rachael Deane at Voices for Virginia's Children says the exploration of the social safety net means more children will be returned to a life of poverty.
Rachael Deane
Decades of research show that when we have children who are resourced well enough in school, at home, and in their communities. They have better outcomes across health, educational success, and across future employment.
Thomas Bowman
Kim Bobo at the Virginia Interphase Center for Public Policy says there are several ways to prevent the child poverty numbers from ticking back up.
Kim Bobo
We could do our own child tax credit here in Virginia. We could do an earned income tax credit. We could increase TANF; we could cover all kids with health care. We could provide rental assistance to families. There are lots of things Virginia could do with the surplus that would address the child poverty crisis.
Michael Pope
That's interesting. You just heard a list there from Kim Bobo. She lists five different things. Guess what, Thomas? All five of those things could be funded with this surplus money that's on the table right now.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. But Michael, we've got to think about CEO poverty; we've got to protect them too. And they need tax cuts.
Michael Pope
Yes, yes. I mean, tax cuts are appealing to a lot of voters. I mean, this is an important part of the story that's going on right now with this ongoing budget impasse, which we will talk about later in this podcast is a lot of voters look at food stamps. And they say, Well, I don't get food stamps. So I don't, that doesn't help me. Or they look at the Rent Relief program. And they say, Well, I don't need a Rent Relief program. That doesn't help me. And then they look at Medicaid. And they say, Well, I don't get benefits from Medicaid; that doesn't benefit me. But I've benefited from tax cuts. So do something to help me. And you know, that is appealing to a lot of people, a lot of voters.
Thomas Bowman
Sure. We all benefit from having smart neighbors. So whether or not you have kids, you want smart neighbors because, I mean, have you ever had to live next to a dumbass like it's not fun. Also, kids in school and better-educated kids mean that even if you are not a parent, if you're, for example, running a business, you're going to have a better pool of employees. There's a really high cost to asking poor families or needy families to pay for a lot of these things themselves. And if you are pro-life, for example, the thing that you should be aiming for, you know, their promised land is to make it a situation where you're removing cost barriers to people who want to have families of their own. So various childcare tax credits, TANF, Food Stamps, all of those things. If people who lack financial resources have those, they become less of an institutional burden on society, which is not necessarily the way to think about these people. There are people who are down on their luck, and that's why we need to strengthen the safety net, and that's a conservative argument.
Michael Pope
Yeah. You know, this issue of all these things that people could be investing in this list that you heard from Kim Bobo, Earned income tax credits, increases to Food Stamps getting kids on health care, rent, assistance to families, those are kinds of things that might not benefit you, the person listening to this. However, you know, there's a social good in reducing child poverty. I mean, so this is something that I think is a conversation worth having with people who say they want tax cuts; those things that you're talking about don't benefit me; I want tax cuts. Well, there's an argument to be made here that those programs actually provide a lot of good for society for Virginia. And perhaps the best argument for that is the child poverty rate; right, the number historic low last year, the number of children who lived in poverty was at a historic low, and those children had much better lives. And they will have much better outcomes in the future. And so, like, that is perhaps the chief argument for making these investments in these social programs. Sure, it won't benefit you. But it will benefit everybody, especially the child who won't grow up in poverty.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, and think about who pays the most taxes here. So if most individuals are not necessarily paying a ton of taxes, it's pound for pound at least; it's coming from wealthy individuals who pay more taxes than less wealthy individuals and businesses. So while yeah, you and I could stand hypothetically to get maybe $200, a few $100 in our pocket, and that sounds like a great idea. You're talking about giving thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, back to the wealthy and corporations. So what is the framing of this debate? Do we do tax cuts for individuals? Or do we do long-term spending that can benefit society as a whole? The real framing around this narrative? Are we going to take money away from poor and needy kids? And give it to wealthy adults? That is the moral question before the government of the Commonwealth of Virginia at this moment.
Michael Pope
Do we take this huge pile of money that's on the table right now and help the child not grow up in poverty? Or do we give it to the wealthy CEOs, so they can make a few more million dollars? I think that's kind of where we're at with this. But that is a debate that continues. So we will move on to our next story. This election will feature a record number of female candidates and a record number of Black candidates, especially for the State senate. So take a look at the State Senate candidates; you've got 28 female candidates and 17 Black candidates. So we're talking about a chamber here that has 40 members, 28 female candidates, 17 black candidates. Jennifer Victor at George Mason University says the parties have a very different approach to identity politics.
Jennifer Victor
Democrats are using it as a way to say we represent everybody and we're here for diversity. And we're going to run candidates that look like the population in lots of different ways. Republicans are using it as a way to motivate conservative voters who have concerns about how race is taught in schools or access to health care in different ways.
Thomas Bowman
J Miles Coleman at the University of Virginia pointed out that the legislative black caucus was opposed to the redistricting commission because members were worried about minority representation.
J. Miles Coleman
One of the reservations that some of the Democrats had on it was, you know, would these maps be adequate for minority representation? I think you could still maybe debate the merits of that. But we could still have an increase in the number of nonwhite elected officials in the legislature, regardless.
Michael Pope
Yeah, that's a really interesting point that Coleman from UVA makes because, you will recall, when this idea of the redistricting commission was being considered in the General Assembly, the Legislative Black Caucus thought this was a terrible idea because they were worried about minority representation, they said, if you go through with this minority representation will be harmed. And yet, now we're on the other side of this, and we've got a record number of black candidates. And also, we may be on the verge here of having the first black Speaker of the House. So, it is really interesting that there was this opposition from the Legislative Black Caucus that said, hey, what about minority representation now that we're on the other side of it? I think minority representation is faring pretty well.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, you know, look, Dems like to run candidates who look like the population, and Republicans are running to appeal to candidates who are afraid of certain elements of the population. I think of Chris Saxman's, in that episode that from over a year ago at this point, conservative thought as they're trying to hold off the Enemy at the Gates, and they're the last stand defending against righteousness. But it's important to know that regardless of the electoral outcomes, we're going to have seven to nine Black senators. And so the real question is, between descriptive representation and substantive representation, can a woman only be represented by a woman? Republicans tend to prioritize when they go for diversity as a more descriptive kind of diversity rather than a substantive kind of representation, which actually, in preparation for this, I've found some really interesting political science articles. So the American Journal of Political Science, Michael, in 2019, did a survey of over 80,000 congressional inquiries. This is Congress, not necessarily the General Assembly. But their findings suggest that shared experiences operate as the critical mechanism for representation. So the lack of political consensus is not necessary for substantive representation, and the causal relationships identified by their work have observable implications in the daily work of Congress. So what's good for the goose is likely to be good for the gander here; again, that's from 2019. And then, of course, there was a 2016 study that had like a really interesting analysis here. This is from the Social Science Quarterly in February 2016. And granted, that's an eternity ago, in the lifetime of politics, but voters may overestimate policy congruence or downplay its importance while evaluating politicians who look like them. So what they found is a unique sample of Black, Hispanic, and white Americans were asked to evaluate a fictitious member of Congress whose race, ethnicity, and policy positions were randomly manipulated. And what they found was regardless of their actual policy positions, Black people will perceive greater substantive representation from Black politicians, and also, holding policy consistent, white people approved of white politicians at distinctly higher rates. And education could moderate the effects, such as that less educated white people respond more negatively to representation by nonwhite legislators. So the conclusion there was that being represented by someone of the same race can actually diminish accountability for legislator's substantive records, and that is an important cost of descriptive representation. So this is an active field of study in political science; over 10 to 15 years ago, when I was in college, we were learning about this. So the debate continues.
Michael Pope
Yeah, I mean, that's a really important debate. Because I mean, you have to evaluate these people on what they do know what they look like. So like, are they doing stuff that benefits my community, Or the community that I'm interested in? Or do they look like me? I mean, I guess that is the basic way of describing that. And so, of course, looking at the General Assembly and saying that this is a group of people that looks like me, that should not be overlooked. I mean, like, think about the next general assembly here; we might have a Black woman as Majority Leader of the Senate and a Black man as Speaker of the House. I mean, like, that actually could happen, like, next year. So I mean, this is, then, it's really interesting that we have so much minority representation after the redistricting commission when that was a worry. But we've got a very, very diverse field of candidates, and also the female candidates. We've got a huge number of female candidates. I will say Republicans are struggling. They the last election cycle, the Republicans had a record number of candidates for Republicans. They have not met that yet. It seems like this election cycle, they've struggled a little bit with recruiting female candidates. But they'll get there. I think in the next election, the next few election cycles, I think if they increase their recruitment effort, they probably could get more female candidates. And I think everybody would benefit by having more female representation in the General Assembly, even on the Republican side.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, it's complicated. And it's gonna play into something we'll talk about later in the water cooler. But the bottom line is that substantive representation is a lot more valuable, or people perceive that as more valuable than descriptive characteristics. And the knowledge of candidates and their shared experiences usually play an even bigger factor than descriptive representation. But having candidates who look like you is a really important first step that you can't overlook if you're trying to have a more diverse set of experiences. So sometimes that means you do need to opt for the Black woman or the Black man over the white woman and the white man. If you're a white person and you need to be open if you're a nonwhite person, to the capacity of people to represent you on a substantive basis because those descriptive characteristics will deceive you into being biased in favor of or against the people who look like you or don't look like you.
Michael Pope
Alright, well, let's move on to our final story for the day. In December, Governor Glenn Youngkin will unveil his legacy budget, that's only four months away, and that means state agencies they're already hard at work crafting the next two-year budget. Meanwhile, the budget amendments that were supposed to be in place a month ago, while they're still caught up in this disagreement between House Republicans and Senate Democrats. Now when the latest financial projections were released last month, Governor Glenn Youngkin was hopeful that might break the logjam.
Glenn Youngkin
And I think that will be a catalyst for us to get together and to get past this impasse, which I think is far more politics than reality. And I'm going to inject some reality into it to make sure that what's best for Virginians is represented and that we can get a budget and move forward.
Thomas Bowman
Democrats criticized that governor's numbers as voodoo estimating. They think he's got a trick up his sleeve, Michael, but of course, his vest famously doesn't have those. Senator George Barker says it's possible lawmakers may never reach a compromise on the amendments.
George Barker
And I think we're making progress in terms of what we're dealing with now. And so I think we actually have a good shot at getting the budget amendments in place, but it does not rule out just sticking with, what we passed last year, and the skinny budget that we did in February.
Michael Pope
Okay, you heard it there from Barker, that does not rule out the progress that they're supposedly currently making behind closed doors, or that progress does not rule out the idea of sticking with what we've already got, or maybe even sticking with the skinny budget. In other words, progress does not rule out that nothing will happen and no amendments will ever take place. You're hurting audio there, a Barker admitting that we actually also saw the House appropriations chairman make similar public comments. So I think the House Republicans and the Senate Democrats are both laying the groundwork for, Hey, folks, we might never get around to having budget amendments.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. And one of the concerns that Democrats have is they don't have a clear picture of how much money is actually in that surplus, which is an artifact of having a very complicated budget. But one thing that you need to keep in mind in this debate is, do we do tax cuts? Or do we backfill old spending or, along with new spending, that $1.5 billion is already committed to going back to taxpayers? That's due to a law that Chap Peterson patron in the wake of the Federal Tax Code changing back in 2017. For the states to backfill some of those tax deductions back to individuals who no longer qualified for a very large amount of federal tax deductions. That action was apparently blessed by the IRS. So that $1.5 billion, which is already baked into the law to go back to you, is on top of this fresh billion dollars that the governor has proposed for tax cuts. And so what they're really asking for is two and a half billion dollars out of what might be $3 billion, what might be $5 billion to go back. And so what the Democrat's problem with that is they don't know what they're actually negotiating for because they don't know how much money they actually have to spend or to give back.
Michael Pope
Yeah, that's the Voodoo estimating that Janet Howell was being critical of, you know, one thing that's important to keep in mind about this debate is that this is a temporary pile of cash that's on the table right now; this is leftover stimulus spending from the pandemic. So one thing that Senator Deeds pointed out to me when I talked to him about this last week, and it sort of a light bulb went off in my head, I was like, oh, yeah, that's an interesting point, which is there's a problem with making permanent tax cuts because there's the expectation that we will have a permanent surplus, but we're not going to have a permanent surplus. This is a one-time pile of cash that's on the table here. So if you have a one-time rebate, that's from his perspective, that's a more responsible thing to do. I mean, if you want to give money back to taxpayers, Senator Deeds is saying, Okay, you can do that this with a one-time rebate for this one-time pile of cash that's on the table, but making permanent tax cuts with this one time pile of cash on the table is going to be a problem. Um, five years from now, six years from now, seven years from now. And so, like, that's kind of where they get caught up in not coming to an agreement on this.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. And to be clear, this amount of money does represent a generational opportunity to either backfill spending or create new spending to do things like mental health teacher increases,
Michael Pope
Keeping kids out of poverty.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. So like, that's not something we should abandon. But the Democrats want to bake in long-term spending. And the Republicans want to bake in long-term tax cuts, which means there's a really, to me, obvious compromise, which is everybody's just going to do one-time things rather than long-term recurring things.
Michael Pope
All right. Well, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll play a round of trivia and read your comments.
It's time to go around the Commonwealth. The University of Virginia and Virginia Tech will no longer ask applicants if they are legacy, instead asking if they have a personal connection to the university, which is kind of the same thing.
Thomas Bowman
Look, UVA loves a good loophole, but it was better when your dad went there.
Michael Pope
In a further attempt to protect youth exploring LGBT content, the Chairman of the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors wants to raise the age for checking out a library book, raise that age to 18.
Thomas Bowman
Age restrictions let me get a pack of American spirits, a fifth of Jack Oh, and the color purple. Here's my ID.
Michael Pope
Without consulting, the faculty administrators of Virginia Commonwealth University eliminated mandatory classes about race and racism for this upcoming school year.
Thomas Bowman
To defend themselves. The administrators said they're allowed to do it because their best friend is actually taking a class on race and racism.
Michael Pope
And police oversight group in Chesterfield County requested the payroll of their local police department and received a list of 530 names, of which 500 were redacted.
Thomas Bowman
And the 30 names they did get, Captain, what's her name, Lieutenant? Forget about it. And Detective Dingus.
Michael Pope
Yeah, Captain Crunch too. Governor Youngkin has been celebrating the success of his bold blue-line campaign, which increases felony arrests.
Thomas Bowman
Not to be outdone, Donald Trump created a campaign called Lots of red tapes in which he gets arrested for a felony.
Michael Pope
Again and again and again. All right, let's play some trivia. Last week, we asked you about the most expensive primaries in Virginia history. As it turns out, seven of the most expensive primaries ever happened this year. So there was Louise Lucas vs. Lionel Spruill, which was the most expensive Senate primary in Virginia history. More than $3 million was raised and spent on that. Then there was Airs vs Morrissey. That was $2.9 million.
Foy vs Ayala $2.5 million
Deeds vs. Hudson $2.1 million
Pekarsky vs. Barker $1.8 million
McPike vs Guzman $1.8 million
Marsden vs Drauschak $1.7 million.
All that adds up to $16 million. The most expensive primaries ever in Virginia history.
Thomas Bowman
Who, Michael? That's a lot of history in 2023. All right. So what was the previous record?
Michael Pope
All right, so this is our trivia question. The previous record was 1.6 million, which was the 2019 primary between Dick Saslaw and Yasmine Taeb. So in the last four years, they really move the decimal point on this. All right, and we have a winner. Congratulations to Sam Edwards, who posted the correct answer on threads. So this is the first time that we've ever had a trivia winner on threads. So also, congratulations to Mark Zuckerberg as well, Thomas. Tell them what they won.
Thomas Bowman
You've won a platinum single from celebrities singing to End CEO Poverty called we bought the World.
Michael Pope
Thomas and I will not be singing it. So that's actually your prize.
Thomas Bowman
That is the real prize, for sure. All right. What about next week? It was a trivia question this time, Michael.
Michael Pope
All right. So, Thomas, I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase NIMBY, right?
Thomas Bowman
All too familiar.
Michael Pope
Did you know that this is a phrase that has its origin in a Virginia newspaper article from 1980? So the headline of this article was. No one wants a backyard nuclear dump. That's a pretty cool headline. Here's the lead. Some call it the NIMBY syndrome that's not in my backyard, which is where everybody wants to put a Virginia dumping ground for low-level nuclear waste. So here's the trivia question. What Virginia newspaper added the phrase NIMBY to the vernacular.
Thomas Bowman
Alright, well, if you think, you know, hit us up on social media, and you might even want a shout-out.
Michael Pope
Let's head over to the water cooler. Thomas, what's the latest? Do you hear around the water cooler?
Thomas Bowman
Well, Michael, there is so much drama politicking for future leadership for both the House and the Senate. And this is really causing a lot of dysfunction within the caucuses. The big candidates here are Locke and Surovell, but you also have leadership from across Hampton Roads, and losing about 40% of their members guaranteed no matter how the elections go, is really throwing them for a loop to figure out, like, okay, well, who should be you know, not who could be but who should be the next group of leaders in the Senate. So Michael, between the two, Scott Surovell, or Mamie Locke, Northern Virginia, broadly speaking, has a ton of votes so that you would think the money the votes are in Scott Surovells favor. But this also kind of ties in with what we said about descriptive representation versus substantive Representation of Black female leaders would be a historic opportunity for Democrats, however, because we know substantive representation absolutely matters. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the best choice for Democrats and leadership. But here's what's kind of frustrating to me about all of that, just speaking as a Virginian who cares and also happens to vote Democrat, it's all putting the cart before the horse. They're making all of these plans. And it could very well be that none of them get to be the Senate Majority Leader because the Democrats could lose it to the Republicans or, similarly, with all of the posturing and angling to be the Democratic Speaker if they win the election. They forget that you've got an election first. And by the way, you have two months or more to figure it out after that election. I'm concerned that everyone's taken their eye off the ball. The Democrats are running on this, like 100 days to the election. Well, shoot, Michael, early voting starts in two weeks,
Michael Pope
Two weeks, August 22nd is the first day of voting, and that's like two weeks from now.
Thomas Bowman
And Glenn Youngkin has figured that out, the Republicans are making a huge absentee ballot push, and Democrats are all of a sudden looking at a November push. Well, it's now that they got to get themselves into high gear.
Michael Pope
Well, I would say that this battle, this sort of behind-the-scenes battle for who becomes the next Majority Leader, there's not necessarily taking their eye off the ball. I think you can walk and chew gum at the same time. I mean, this is actually not a public fight that they're having for who becomes the next Majority Leader, something that's going on kind of behind the scenes. And it's a really complicated game because we don't know who's going to vote, right? We don't really know who's going to make up the next Senate. You could create a kind of a possibility of, here's, like, one possible iteration of who could be in the next Senate. And then you could do a whip count of those people. But we don't know whether those people will be in the Senate or not. So I think it probably is possible to be focused on the campaign focused on winning a majority in the Senate while also trying to game out who becomes the majority in the next Senate.
Thomas Bowman
Look, it's a natural pastime that staffers and legislators alike do over lunch and spend countless hours on it. But I will point out to them respectfully time is a zero-sum game. And every minute that you spend talking about gaming out those hypotheticals that may never even come to pass is a minute you do not have your candidate on-call time. It's a minute; you're not knocking on a door. It's a minute; you're not working to actually make that future your reality. And that's true for Republicans or Democrats. And so it's all energy that you're expending in vain. And it's not the best use of our time, which is very limited. What about you, Michael? What do you hear at the water cooler?
Michael Pope
So last week, we talked about how leadership in the House and leadership in the Senate are sitting on a huge chunk of change. This is actually particularly true in the House because on the Senate side, the candidates that have the largest amount of cash on hand, most of those are people in competitive races. So they obviously need the money for their own personal campaign in the House. It's a totally different story. All of the people with large dollar amounts in the House are all leadership people. So there are some grumblings among some Democrats that some of those leadership people, one in particular, are not sharing this big chunk of change. Charniele Herring is the caucus chair, and she's raised a lot of money. But apparently, I'm hearing concerns among more than one Democrat here that she has not yet handed that money over to the caucus. So why is she sitting on it? I mean, perhaps she's waiting till later in the election cycle. Why would she be doing that? There obviously, is lots of talk about her potentially running for Attorney General. There are, you know, other people that might want to be attorney general; Shannon Taylor, apparently, is thinking about this; Jay Jones is thinking about this. So like, Charniele Herring, if she wants to be AG, she's got to figure out a way to navigate to that. Also, there might be some tension between Charniele Herring and Don Scott. And so, like, there is this concern that she has not yet handed over this big chunk of change that she has raised to the caucus. Of course, she doesn't have to do that until September or ever. I mean, she could actually just keep the money. And it is her money. You know, she raised it; it's in her account. She could do with it what she wants. But it is kind of raising concerns among people who would like to see Democrats take the majority. And then you were just talking about all the kind of behind-the-scenes machinations about, Okay, so who gets leadership positions if Democrats take the Senate, there's a similar argument to taking place on the Democratic side of the House. So if the Democrats take the House, sort of the obvious choice would be Don Scott for Speaker. But then there are other people that also look in the mirror and see potential Speaker of the House of Rip Sullivan, apparently, is someone who might be thinking of himself as a potential Speaker of the House. So I think if Democrats do end up taking the House, there's the obvious choice, Don Scott, the first Black male Speaker of the House, but there might actually be some kind of a leadership struggle there. Similarly, for the majority leader, there has been some talk about Dan Helmer being the majority leader if Democrats take the House, but then Marcus Simon could also be a contender for that Charniele Herring would be the obvious choice because she's a former majority leader. So like, these are the kinds of things that people are, in fact, talking over right now and trying to figure out, well, if Democrats take the House, who gets these leadership positions? And now is the time when all these people who want leadership positions are trying to line up votes, right? And it's done in the context of shelling out the money from the caucus. So like, there's an important point about following the money because that is a process that might involve some commitments about who gets the votes and from whom when they do these leadership elections.
Thomas Bowman
You know, Michael, since the last few episodes, we've been making references to Scripture; I'll do another one, you know, putting on my childhood evangelical hat here. So Proverbs 19:21 says, "Many are plans in a person's heart, but it's the Lord's purpose that prevails." So the counsel I would provide here is that making plans, of course, isn't a bad thing. At the same time, though, you're gonna have to hold those plans loosely because you don't have the full picture.
Michael Pope
All right, Thomas. Go ahead and open up that Pod Virginia mailbag. What are our listeners talking about?
Thomas Bowman
Well, we got some feedback on our discussion of how Virginia might end up losing the battle for the location of the new FBI headquarters.
Michael Pope
Yeah. Claire Gastanaga heard our discussion of Governor Youngkin's description of the FBIs search of Mar-a-Lago as a selective, politically motivated action, and she posted this on threads Youngkin, once again placing politics over our common interests.
Thomas Bowman
John Preston Brown posted this on threads. The administration showed us that they aren't afraid to punish Tuberville in Red Alabama by yanking the move of Space Command. Would they do the same with Youngkin and light blue Virginia and the FBI headquarters? Yeah, that's a good question. And also, that's a lot from threads.
Michael Pope
That is a lot from threads. It's popping. So if you don't already have a threads account, get go over there and check it out over on the old fashion X. Fred Hussein heard our discussion with Sam Shirazi about the House races, the hottest House races, and posted this. We need Pod Virginia to bring on Sam Shirazi as a full-time contributor. After analyzing the 2023 Virginia General Assembly elections, yes, Sam Shirazi is very popular among our listeners.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. And also, a clarification that when we were talking about all those campaign finance numbers, we did not include the PAC numbers, so it is absolutely true. Tommy Norman's got a lot more money in his pack, as of the last report, than the $250,000 in his campaign account. Overall, this isn't the last report; he's looking at about $750,000. And apparently, Saslaw has also parted with much of his cash, and the background report suggests he's down to about $500,000. So as of that last report, it was represented to me, based on this correction, that Dems are about $650,000 behind Republicans, and that doesn't include all of the money that Youngkin has brought in.
Michael Pope
Yeah, I actually also heard from somebody who was involved with a primary campaign who wanted to shed some clarification on our discussion with Trevor Sutherland about campaign spending. So we were looking at how the campaign spent its money on TV ads and direct mail. And this person associated with one of the campaigns said that in our discussion with Trevor Sutherland, we pointed out that the campaign finance records showed that one of these particular candidates had spent more on direct mail. And this person was making the point to me that that's not really true because the campaigns actually ended up having the same amount of direct mail. However, that wasn't shown in the campaign finance records because a lot of the direct mail was done on credit. And so what you see reflected in the campaign finance numbers is money that was actually paid for direct mail. And so what you don't see as directly represented in those campaign finance records is direct mail that actually went out and went into the hands of voters but was not paid for. So it's important to point out when we talk about these campaign finance numbers that some of this is essentially dark money, right? Like there's spending that's going on that's not reflected in these campaign numbers, or it is reflected on a different schedule. So if you're looking at direct mail, it won't be in the part of the campaign finance numbers where you're talking about direct mail; we'll be talking about, you know, the schedule where they talk about debt, or they talk about, you know, unpaid bills. And so, yeah, important point out the campaign finance numbers are interesting and worth looking at. And we accurately represented the campaign finance numbers in the episode that we did with Trevor Sutherland. But there was more to the story because a lot of those direct mail pieces that went out weren't paid for by the campaign, and so they're not reflected in the same way in the campaign finance documents.
Thomas Bowman
Hmm, yes, well, if I've learned one thing, it's that there's always more to the story, always more.
Michael Pope
to the story, which is why you continue to tune into Pod Virginia because we will keep you updated. All right. Let's celebrate some birthdays this week.
Thomas Bowman
Today. Monday, August 7th, is the birthday of Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger of Glen Allen, who is also apparently running for governor.
Michael Pope
Yeah, big buzz about Abigail Spanberger potentially running for governor, which you heard first here in Pod Virginia because we talked about that a number of times. But Friday, August 11th, is the birthday of Secretary of Health and Human Services John Littel.
Thomas Bowman
Also, this week is assistance dog week.
Michael Pope
Bow wow, wow yippy yo yippy hey, can I help you cross the street?
Thomas Bowman
Deep cut, Michael. Today Monday, August 7th, is also purpleheart day, remembering those who were wounded or died on the battlefield.
Michael Pope
Friday, August 11th is 811-day, reminding people to call 811 before they start any outdoor digging.
Thomas Bowman
I could dig it.
Michael Pope
Well, you better call 811 First, all right. And then Sunday, August 13th, is the Spirit of 45 days, honoring the can-do attitude of the greatest generation.
Thomas Bowman
All right, well, we can do that. And this is the end of this episode Pod Virginia.
