VPAP: Republican Delegate Tara Durant is projected to beat Matt Strickland in the Republican Primary Election for Virginia’s 27th District Senate Seat. Durant was elected to the House of Delegates in 2021 and outraised her opponent three to one.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin endorsed Durant.

Strickland owns the Gourmeltz restaurant in Spotsylvania County and defied Gov. Ralph Northam, who ordered him to close his restaurant during the coronavirus pandemic.

VPAP: Democrat Joel Griffin won his party’s nomination for the 27th Senate District, beating challenger Ben Litchfield by 20 points. Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger endorsed Griffin.

The party that wins the 27th district race is seen as the seat that will control the Senate in 2024. The district, comprised of portions of Stafford and Spotsylvania counties and Fredericksburg, leans Republican.

See our interviews with Durant and Griffin.

Voters will head to the polls today to nominate the candidates they want to seek to advance to the General Elections in November 2023.

Both Democrats and Republicans are holding primaries for state and local races. The polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Find your polling place by clicking here.

• Prince William County: Who’s on the ballot?
• Stafford County: Who’s on the ballot?
• Spotsylvania County: Who’s on the ballot?
• Manassas: Republican Primary only. Who’s on the ballot?
• Fredericksburg: Who’s on the ballot?
• Manassas Park: Republican primary only. Who’s on the ballot?

Democrat Ben Litchfield is running for his party’s nomination for the Virginia Senate District 27 seat in portions of Stafford, Spotsylvania, and Fredericksburg.

Litchfield, 36, is a consumer protection attorney who has worked at the National Credit Union Administration writing regulations governing the payday lending industry. He attended college at George Washington University and Howard University School of Law.

He served as the Stafford County Democratic Committee Chairman from 2017 to 2021. Litchfield married his wife in 2015.

According to VPAP, the district leans Republican. Litchfield is running against Joel Griffin in the Democrat Party Primary Election on June 20. Find your polling place.

See my full interview with Litchfield here. You can also see my interview with his challenger, Griffin, here.

Where do you stand on school choice?

“I’m a huge supporter of our public schools. I think that one of the problems with that is that you see disinvestment in these public schools that may not be performing up to standards. And really, what I think we should be doing is putting more money into them, looking at why they’re not performing, and really investing heavily in them. I think every public school should be just as good as the next one.

We saw a big budget battle this spring between the Stafford County Public Schools and the Board of Supervisors, which gave the schools $16 million, its largest one-time investment. But, it was still far short of what the schools requested. So how do we get those underperforming schools to become more like the “rich” school, as you put it, the good school? How do we do that while funding those schools in ways that people can afford to do so in these areas? Because frankly, many people move here because it is cheaper than living closer to Washington D.C.

“Well, I certainly made that choice myself, so I’m sympathetic to it. I think that the business model way of looking at it is a little bit wrongheaded because, unlike a traditional business where you can shop with your feet, you can’t exactly change your geography. You can’t move from Falmouth to Garrisonville and vice versa. Theoretically, you could, but most working families can’t. They are where they are in the schools that are in that area are the ones that they typically send their children to. And I don’t think that many working families have the resources to try and shop around and pick what school is best for them. We need more teachers, obviously. I’ve been talking to some of the supervisors and Stafford about adjusting cost to compete so that we can get more money for teacher salaries for paraprofessionals.”

“And we need to elect school board members who are really committed to making sure that funding is adequate for all of our schools and that it’s fair and equitable. I think that sometimes what we see with politicians across the board is that they’re happy to get their little slice of the pie, but they don’t really think about the county as a whole.”

Where do you stand on CRT / social-emotional learning in schools?

“We need to start by being very clear that CRT is not taught in our schools. This is an advanced topic that I learned in law school at Howard. What I do think that we should be learning is true history. I think it would be a very sad state of affairs if our students didn’t learn about Dr. King, Rosa Parks, about the civil rights movement. Because that’s part of the fabric that makes America such a great country, is that we can express civil discontent, that we can fight for civil rights through these mechanisms, and that we’re always working for a more perfect union. I think it’s part of the great story of our nation. And so it would be very sad that if we didn’t study these things, it would be very sad if we didn’t study the Civil War. It’s all part of who we are, and I don’t think that anything about that is teaching our children to hate America. For example, I push back pretty forcefully on this idea that by learning about the civil rights movement, we’re going to somehow teach our kids not to love this country.”

Do you know of a school where that’s happening?

“I was deeply concerned with some of the History Sol revisions that we saw. There was huge pushback from the Virginia NAACP. There was discussion about how some of these standards weren’t age-appropriate, how certain things were left out teaching about indigenous people, for example.”

“Social, emotional learning, I really don’t have a problem with it. My nephew has mindfulness classes. It teaches him to make friends. He has autism, and this has been really helpful for him to make friends and to be mindful about his personal space and about his relationship with others. I don’t really have a problem with it. I don’t see the cause for upset. Social, emotional learning, I really don’t have a problem with it. My nephew has mindfulness classes. It teaches him to make friends. He has autism, and this has been really helpful for him to make friends, to be mindful about his personal space and his relationship with others. I don’t really have a problem with it. I don’t see the cause for upset.”

If you’re elected to the Senate, what will you do to make sure that the law enforcement officers who want to serve are able to do so to protect the community?

“I agree that we are facing a real challenging time for our law enforcement. We’re asking them to do more and more, and we’re putting a lot of stress on them, and it’s a very stressful time to be in law enforcement. I think that there are a lot of things that we can do to make their jobs easier. And this is actually part and parcel of what criminal justice reform advocates are saying.

“We can implement and fund the Marcus David Peters alert so that we have mental health professionals responding to mental health incidents instead of law enforcement. We can have conversations around policing in schools. I really think that we should not be asking our law enforcement officers to serve as a backstop for discipline in our public schools. Now there is a role for SROs, and I think that SROs keep us safe, as we’ve seen in Spotsylvania.”

“But what I am concerned about is this idea that, all right, there’s an SRO in the school, so discipline issues go to the SRO instead of having school officials handle it. And so I obviously think our law enforcement need to be compensated competitively. I think that we need to provide them with any mental health treatment that they need just to give you a story about that.”

Democrat Joel Griffin is running for his party’s Virginia Senate District 27 seat nomination.

The district includes portions of Stafford and Spotsylvania counties and Fredericksburg.

Griffin, 49, served in the Marine Corps Honor Guard and later became a government contractor. He attended Penn State University.

Griffin is married to his wife of 25 years, a public school teacher, and has two children, ages 20 and 21. His oldest daughter, Gwyneth,  died in 2012 after suffering a heart attack at school. She was the focus on Gwyneth’s Law, carried by former Delegate Mark Dudenhefer, which required defibrillators or AEDs in all of the public schools.

Griffin serves on the Stafford County Economic Development Authority, which loans cash to businesses.

According to VPAP, the district leans Republican. Litchfield is running against Joel Griffin in the Democrat Party Primary Election on June 20. Find your polling place.

See my full interview with Griffin here. You can also see my interview with his challenger, Litchfield, here.

Where do you stand on school choice?

“I think public schools are the great equalizer in our society. A well-educated society is what makes a democracy function. And so for me, taxpayer money goes to public schools and making sure that the students and the teachers have the resources that they need.”

“It’s been an interesting transition to two years ago during COVID when teachers were our heroes. Teachers were doing everything possible. They were doing everything out they could to make sure that students were still being educated in a remote way, which has never been done before. And here we are today where we’re talking that teachers are not performing as well as they should and that test scores are down. I think that teachers and being married to one, I have to be sure I make this clear. Teachers are doing the best that they can.

“And it’s been interesting to me to see parents say that they don’t have any voice in the schools when the reality is they’ve always had a voice. You’ve always had the option as a parent for your student, for your child, to say, I don’t want them to watch a video, or I don’t want them to take that class, or I don’t want them to read that book, and they’ve had that option, and that option still exists.”

“I think we need to make sure that the teachers and the education that we are providing are not only well funded but also we ensure that the curriculum is being managed well so that we are teaching for the 21st century. We try to teach a lot of material in a very condensed time frame. We have really not updated our school system in probably 40 or 50 years. And so as the next state senator, the schools funding the schools, making sure that teachers are defended, that’s something that I fully intend to do.”

If elected, will you help the Stafford County Board of Supervisors as it seeks more state funding to pay for the cost of living increasing for public school teachers?

Not only will I aid, but I will lead the fight for [Cost of Living Allotment]. This is something that this new district represents a real opportunity for us to be reflected as a region.”

So if you’re elected to the Senate, what will you do to ensure that police who want to serve and protect can do so adequately?

Well, I will say that I have very close personal friends of mine, men and women that I served in the Marines with, who are law enforcement officers. So let me first say that I commend them for the work that they do tirelessly day in and day out, defending our streets and making sure that everyone is safe. But I would go one step further and to say that we need to be pragmatic and understand that within any organization, there’s a percentage of people who are not adhering to the rules and not following policy. And in those instances, we need to root that out, and we need to address it. I would say the first thing that I would do as a senator is to make sure that groups are coming together and having communication.

“As a business owner, if we were having negotiations, we didn’t negotiate with one group in one room and another group in another room. We had all the parties come together to talk about how we can improve things. And I think the culture of the Republican Party has been to divide and conquer, to create segments of our society where organizations, and community partners, can’t work together.

I’m the complete opposite. I want to make sure that if there are issues, all of the parties who have a voice should come together and communicate. So that includes bringing additional mental health resources to our police officers. Just like with school teachers, I think police officers are under the tremendous burden of having to be all things to all people. And we need to make sure that in our schools and on our streets as well as within our community, that we have the resources necessary.

“Whether that’s counselors, whether that’s mental health facilities with access to beds, whether that’s resource officers that can deal with instances so that police officers can transition to other emergency situations and hand it off to someone who’s properly trained. This is something mental health in our nation is something that we don’t really talk about. It’s sort of swept under the rug. It’s marginalized.”

“And I think any number of individuals in our society should feel it’s okay to talk about, you know, needing counseling or needing therapy to to deal with, you know, the dilemmas that they may be facing. And so once we recognize it and accept it that people need services, we also need to make sure those services are provided, particularly for those who are representing our communities, our teachers, and our first responders.”

Tara Durant is seeking the Virginia Senate seat for District 27, which includes southern Stafford County, Spotsylvania County, and Fredericksburg.

Durant, 50, is a one-term House of Delegates member who won her 2021 election and was part of a red wave of Republican candidates who won a slim majority in the House of Delegates, as well as Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s first Republican Governor since Bob McDonnell won in 2009.

Durant garnered national media attention in 2020, in the wake of the death of George Floyd, when she and her child called 911 for help after rioters surrounded their vehicle on a Fredericksburg street and prevented them from leaving. A 911 operator told her police would not be able to help her by order of city leaders.

Durant is a school librarian at Holy Cross Academy in Stafford County, where she has also taught. She is married to her husband of 25 years. The couple shares three children, ages 15 to 25.

Durant faces Matt Strickland in the GOP Primary on June 20, 2023. VPAP lists the district as “leans Republican.” Find your polling place.

You can see the full interview with Durant here and my interview with her challenger here.

Where do you stand on school choice?

“I strongly support school choice, and that’s why right after I was elected, I was asked to attend a conference in Florida, which is really the tip of the spear. They’ve been champions…There are a lot of different ways that school choice can be broken down into and offered as an option for families who are trying to find the best fit for their child… But like many of the legislative challenges, we have a brick wall that’s controlled by the Virginia Senate that is really blocking a lot of the priorities that govern what we were elected to do two years ago, a priority for this administration, a priority for the Republicans that are in the General Assembly.”

“And so that’s a challenge that we still continue to face. And that’s one of the key reasons why I’m running for Senate, is so that we can tear down that brick wall and be able to deliver exactly on the promises that we made when they elected us two years ago.”

“This can be done in Virginia, and it should be done at Virginia… If we are able to tear down that role, and when we do, and we have a general assembly that the governor can work with, then you’ll see that coming up in the next General Assembly. I believe it continues to be a priority, and you will see it again this upcoming year. And there are a lot of different ways, again, that school choices can be charter schools, it can be lab schools. Those are public school options. And really, that’s what other states have been successfully realizing, is that this can be a benefit for all involved.”

In the wake of rising crime rates, police continue to struggle with recruiting and retention, mental health cases, etc. Offenses like having a broken headlight are now secondary and not enough of a reason to stop someone. How do we better serve the law enforcement officers who want to protect and serve our communities?

“With the former primary offenses, now to secondary offenses: I’ve heard from law enforcement this is a key priority for them. It’s really handcuffing them, and no pun intended, to be able to do their jobs, they need to be able to pull them over. If there’s unsafe equipment, they have a broken taillight and if their muffler is too loud, or it’s just a whole myriad of things. And so it’s very frustrating. That was a bill that I carried this year at the request of the administration. And it’s a partisan issue. It’s really unfortunate.

“I go back to thinking about when I was a teacher in second grade. One of the first units you do in elementary is you cover community helpers. And we have always kept our community helpers, our law enforcement, our nurses, our teachers’ hero status. And I’m determined as long as I’m in office that I will do everything I can to restore the dignity and respect that professional law enforcement deserves. It’s really infuriating to me, and it’s personal. But another component of the challenges they’re facing in law enforcement right now is on mental health. And it’s absolutely unsustainable.”

Where do you stand on CRT / social-emotional learning in schools?

This goes back to listening to people from the district starting even two years ago. They’re very concerned. I hear it all the time about what’s happening with our children and in schools right now. They want their kids to be able to get the education they need. They want them to be focused on learning the core subjects that they have. Instead of focusing on the learning loss that we saw, particularly as a result of COVID, we have. Instead, our conversations have been diverted over to these other more really divisive concepts as they are with CRT.”

“And we did see legislation that came through last year on that very subject. And at the end of the day, we must tear down this Senate, this Democrat brick wall that’s controlled by the Senate, so that we can really focus on exactly what people care about in this district and in the commonwealth, which is ensuring that our children are learning what they’re supposed to learn in school and really tackle learning loss instead of having these other just diversions that are really instruction as to how we’re supposed to be functioning as a commonwealth.”

You’ve outraised your opponent, who has criticized your funding sources, and your co-campaigning with Gov. Glen Youngkin. Others say if he wins the Primary Election, he’s too “MAGA” and won’t appeal to middle-of-the-road voters in the General Election. What do you make of these criticisms?

“I go back to think about the very beginning when I got into politics, and it was a grassroots effort that we started really from ground zero on building it all up. And that takes all resources. And I will never apologize for raising what you need to do in a race like this and in a very competitive seat. I am the northernmost delegate in the Commonwealth holding line right now, and I’ll never apologize for raising what it takes to be able to be successful.”

“And that’s exactly what I did two years ago, and we’ll continue to do so. When I ran two years ago, I spent a lot of time knocking on doors and connecting with people, my friends, my neighbors, and making even new friends, too. And it’s really important that you connect with people who are independent, who are swing voters, who listen to what matters most to them. And it was really kitchen table issues. It was jobs in the economy; it was education. It was public safety. Those were, what I heard over and over again, and those continue at the first and front most of what is on people’s minds as we move forward in this race.

“And when I ran two years ago, and I won the delegate seat, I had the most significant shift in the entire state when blue flipped it by eight points. And that’s not insignificant at all. It’s critical to be able to do so because that’s exactly what this region is like. And so I am now, with two years under my belt, with some experience in the General Assembly and a job that I truly, generally, really love.”

The last day to vote early in the June 20, 2023, Primary Elections for the Republican and Democrat Party primaries is tomorrow, Saturday, June 17, 2023.

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Nikki Rattray Baldwin is running in a GOP Primary Election for the Virginia Senate 29th District seat, which includes portions of central and eastern Prince William County and a portion of North Stafford.

Baldwin is a Navy veteran, a wife of a U.S. Marine of 13 years, and the mother of a 9-year-old boy. In the Navy, Baldwin worked as an EMT, disaster search and rescue, and as a protocol officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree focusing on psychology and a Master’s Degree in public administration.

Baldwin said she decided to run for office after watching a WJLA-TV news report showing Delegate Elizabeth Guzman, a Democrat also vying for the seat in a Democrat-Party Primary Election on June 20, said she would introduce legislation criminalizing parents for not affirming their child’s chosen gender.

So I got into this because, actually, really, I never had any intention of running for office. My husband ran for delegate back in 2021 against Elizabeth Guzman.

Baldwin is running against Maria Martin, who has unsuccessfully sought state office since 2019. The 29th district leans toward Democrats. Jeremy McPike (D) has represented the district since 2016.

You find your polling place here. You can watch and listen to our full interview here.

Where do you stand on school choice? Should the money follow the student, or should it go to a particular school building?

“So the funny thing is, my platform I’m running on to protect our future…school choice is the perfect example of how we can do this, because, let’s face it, families don’t need like rich families don’t need school choice because they already have their education paid for. Now, all that means is that because of the misconceptions that you were talking about, this is it. It just means that a percentage of that money follows the student to the new school, and most of the money will remain at that old school district.”

“[If] you have $100 that is allocated to that student in that school. Well, if that parent decides to take that child somewhere else instead of taking that full $100, let’s say they only take 25% of it. So you have $25 of that $100 going with that student to that new school.

“Well, you have $75 left at that old school. So my son has 30 kids in his classroom. So if five students left their school because they chose school choice and did something else, but now we have 25 students in that class, and we have more money than the students that the teachers and the school board and everyone can work with. And for me, I see that as a win.”

Where do you stand on the possibility of a new Washington Commanders stadium built in Woodbridge, in the 29th Senate District?

“I have so many questions, and the biggest thing for me is I question, what don’t I know? So if the goal is to help all of our constituents, traffic sucks. Everyone knows that traffic sucks. Let’s just get that out of the way. So does this mean expanding the express lanes on [Interstate] 95 to make them go in two directions? Are we talking about recognizing that the I-95 Corridor from Washington to Richmond is the most critical corridor for interstate commerce in the Mid-Atlantic region? I mean, freight rail can’t cover everything that’s needed to be transported. So having an expansive, efficient method of interstate highway transportation is essential to helping to reduce the cost. So bringing in the stadium, I can see the positives, but I can also see the negatives. And we really have to go at the root cause and say, hey, how can this help us if this is what they’re going to do or this is what we’re going to do?

What are your transportation priorities?

“Transportation goes hand in hand with economic growth, which means it has a direct impact on revenue that the commonwealth collects. I would promote incentives for employees to have more of their employees work remotely because that will cut down on some of the traffic. The money saved [on commuting] can be then recaptured by local restaurants, businesses, service companies, which service companies here in Prince William County as well as Stafford…Instead of giving [Washington D.C.] our tax revenue.”

Violent crime is up 70% in Prince William County. Police officers are contumely asked to deal with more challenging situations, especially when it comes to helping those suffering mental-health breakdowns. What more could you do as a legislator to make sure that the law enforcement officers who want to serve and protect the community may continue to do so?

“I’ve spoken to the police association like I’ve spoken to a lot of police officers. First and foremost, thank you for what you do because I was in the military for a decade and it’s nothing compared. Yes, I protected my country, but you protect us every single day. And I will make sure that not only our police officers are taken care of…I’m going to promote legislation that’s going to provide them better access, better help to help serve our community. But the problem is, I grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood, and we had a major distrust for police officers. But for me, I feel that if we have better community relations with our police officers and we get our HOAs and our community involved and say, ‘Hey, we need to do this together and work together, I think the relations will be a lot better, and we can grow more, and we can give them more what they need.”

Mike Sienkowski, 39, is running for the GOP nomination for Stafford County Treasurer.

Sienkowski has worked for the Commissioner of the Revenue’s Office (the office that determines county property values) for the past 17 years. After 17 years as a county employee, Seinkowski wants to oversee the treasurer’s office (the office that produces the tax bills, mails them, and collects payment).

This is his first run at political office. He aims to replace Laura Rudy, who held the seat since 2008 and is not seeking reelection. Rudy endorsed Heather Mitchell, who works in her office and is also seeking the GOP nomination.

Commissioner of the Revenue Scott Mayausky endorsed Sienkowski. The treasurer and commissioner of the revenue offices sit next to each other on the second floor of the county government center.

Sienkowski is married to his wife of 13 years and has three children, ages 9, 5,  and 6 months.

The GOP Primary Election is June 20, 2023. Find your polling place.

I interviewed Sienkowski about his race. You can see the entire interview video here.

Why do you want to be treasurer?

“We’re talking about a lot of money here, and I feel like you have to give it to somebody who kind of knows how the system works and somebody who has a firm foundation in the government, understands how all the departments work. I feel like I’m the best person for this job because I spent my career working within the system and also trying to improve it for the taxpayers. And the treasurer is a very critical role in this county, and it needs to have somebody that’s a professional who has the experience and the education to do that job. And that’s really why I’m running. I feel like it’s that important that I need to run.”

Are there any processes that you see that could use improvement in the treasurer’s office?

“So, as an elected official, I think one of the really important things is you want to make systems that work for the citizens. Right. So customer service is always key. I think we need to expand the office hours.”

“Currently, the office closes prior to the building, and that creates headaches for a lot of other departments and citizens I know, like utilities, if they shut your water off and you run out here to get it resolved, and then you can’t go pay. So that causes some headaches there that I want to fix on the county’s website. It still doesn’t have your payment history up there. Me having kind of like an It project manager background, I see that as a simple fix, something that should easily be corrected, but it’s been sitting out there for eight months, not corrected.”

“As I’ve been talking to citizens, a lot of them don’t know what their options are when it comes to if they have trouble with paying their taxes. I think there’s a lack of communication from the office. So people don’t really know what their options are until their wages are garnished, or there’s a DMV stop, and they can’t renew their tax. So it’s like, I feel the office right now may do the most efficient route to get the money collected, but it needs to communicate with the taxpayers better.”

What about online tax payments?

[Laura Rudy] brought online payments to the county, so I just feel like the more recent upgrade or system change that they did was somewhat rushed, and that’s why there are things that are important that still aren’t showing up there. So I give her credit for the online payments. That’s great. There’s one issue that’s looming over us, and that is that we’re on a 30-year-old cashiering system.”

“So as you know, technology changes fast and so we do have to start considering our options. And I’ve seen in other localities what happens when you don’t have a strong leader with good institutional knowledge, and they pass the buck to their It department to pick a software solution for them, and it can create a huge disaster. And so that is something that I’ve already started actively kind of looking into because we handle stuff on the billing side too. That’s something that’s looming over us. That’s something that needs to be addressed as well.”

Your opponent, Heather Mitchell, is endorsed by Laura Rudy, the outgoing treasurer, whose held the job since 2008. You’re endorsed by the Commissioner of the Revenue, Scott Mayauysky. The two offices sit next to each other at the County Government Center. With the heads of those two departments supporting different candidates, has that made for interesting times?

“It certainly has. It’s been a little stressful just having that sort of conflict between the offices. I personally got along with Laura just fine. And when I told her I was running, I said, ‘Hey, you know what, I’d welcome your support if you ever change your mind.’ But I applaud her for she told Heather she was going to support her, and she stuck to it. But I have concerns that Heather doesn’t have the skill set to carry out this job because it’s not a political role in the typical sense. Right. It’s not the same as running for a senator or state delegate. This is a professional job. I’m a department manager, director. So I need to have that expertise in order to do my job efficiently.”

Washington Post: “The last time former Virginia delegates Jennifer Carroll Foy and Hala S. Ayala campaigned, both were chasing history before each ultimately fell short.”

“Carroll Foy sought unsuccessfully in 2021 to become the first African American woman to be elected governor of any state. Ayala — who identifies as Afro-Latina, Lebanese and Irish — aimed to be the first woman of color to hold a statewide office in Virginia during her unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor that same year. In Virginia, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run separately, not on a traditional two-person ticket.”

“Now, the two former Prince William County lawmakers are trying to return to the General Assembly. But redistricting has meant that, after years of camaraderie as onetime activists who helped energize their party when entering the House of Delegates in 2017, they are in each other’s way.”