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

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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.”

Potomac District Supervisor Andrea Bailey: “PWC Potomac Shores residents, please join your Supervisor, Andrea O. Bailey, for a community Town Hall on Wednesday, June 14th at 6:00 pm at the Potomac Shores Social Barn. Come and hear first-hand updates on happenings in your community. See you there!”

The social barn sits at 1801 Potomac Shores Parkway, #100, near Dumfries.

Bailey faces Democrat Kim Short in a Primary Election on June 20. Bailey declined our invitation for an interview to discuss her reelection campaign.

Bailey has represented the Potomac District, which includes Montclair and Dumfries, since 2020.

Heather Mitchell is seeking the GOP nomination for Stafford County Treasurer.

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Bill Woolf is running for the GOP nomination to represent the new Virginia Senate 30th District in western Prince William County.

Woolf has worked in the US. Department of Justice, where he served as the director of Human Trafficking programs and later acting director at the Office for Victims of Crime. He also served as a special advisor to the White House for human trafficking and child exploitation.

Woolf began his law enforcement career as a police officer in Northern Virginia and later became a detective, working on a task force with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. Woolfe has lived in Gainesville for 21 years, has been a husband for 22 years, and is a father of six children between the ages of seven to 17.

There is no incumbent for the 30th Senate District. VPAP labels the district as competitive. Robert Ruffolo is the GOP challenger in the June 20, 2023, Primary Election. Find your polling place.

Democrat Danica Roem, representing western Prince William County in the Virginia House of Delegates since 2018, also seeks the seat during the November 7, 2023 General Election.

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

Where do you stand on the proliferation of data centers in Northern Virginia? The server farms have been praised for the additional cash they bring for county schools, roads, public safety, and other services. In contrast, others have panned them, saying they are bad for the region’s water supply and take up the last remaining rural land in Northern Virginia.

“I’m all about sustainable growth…I think that we do need a healthy balance between residential and commercial. I’m certainly in favor of efforts that will ultimately reduce personal property taxes and income taxes for individuals in the area. But I think that we need to have growth be very sustainable. I think that we should balance where the data centers are placed and make sure that we create those opportunities. …nobody wants to look out their back window and see a data center like the one going up over in Haymarket right now on Route 55. But I think that we also have to consider is we’ve been out knocking doors.”

During the 2023 General Assembly, we saw Virginia State Senator Chap Peterson and Delegate Danica Roem push legislation to require studies of water and environmental studies before a data center project may advance. We saw pushback from the governor and his cabinet, which has been very clear, it wants more data centers in Virginia. The Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin and his administration lined up with the Prince William County Board of County Supervisors, largely Democrats, who were working together to bring more data centers into Prince William County. If you’re elected to the Senate, would you support requiring these environmental studies to be done before a data center project is considered in your district?

“I think when we talk about solutions, they have to be common sense solutions that actually do something. I know Delegate Rome has spoken very passionately about the data centers. But I would ask Delegate Roem, why has she not talked to her Democratic colleagues on the Board of Supervisors in Prince William County and gotten them to see her point of view on this? I think that leaders in Richmond need to be working with their local governments to make sure that those views are reflected and that it needs to be a team effort.

“I do think we need to look at the data, and I do think we need to understand what’s happening. I’d want to look at what research has already been done. I suspect that the state already has some research, and I don’t want to be duplicative. There’s no need to waste taxpayer dollars to do research that’s already been done. But if we don’t have the answers, then absolutely we need to find them.”

Governor Youngkin has made efforts to fund lab schools and says he supports more charter schools as a means to improve education. Where do you stand on school choice?

“One of the big pieces of Governor Youngin’s agenda is to get Virginians into gainful employment. And I think that there are many different avenues to do that, whether that’s a university, whether that’s lab schools, trade schools. And I support him wholeheartedly in creating educational choices for young people.”

“But I think that also includes the ability to choose what type of education you want. As I mentioned, my oldest son just graduated from public high school. It was a fantastic experience for him. Very proud that battlefield high school is one of the top 30 high schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and he receives an amazing education.”

“However, our other kids are being homeschooled, and that’s been an extremely rewarding and enriching experience for them and for our family. We have seen them. We still have them take standardized testing. We’ve seen them consistently test at least two grade levels above where they’re supposed to be. So I think there are different options for different people, and we need to make sure that families all across Virginia, but particularly here in District 30, have the ability to choose what’s right for their family and for their children.”

Violent crime in Prince William County is up 70% since 2019. If elected, what will you do to ensure that the law enforcement officers who want to serve can do so in Prince William County?

“As a former police officer myself and being the third generation, my father and my grandfather before me served in law enforcement, I know the real risks that these women and men put themselves into every day to keep our communities safe. And I think that in the wake of the defund the police movement, what we have seen is a lack of support from leadership and elected officials. And we cannot ask these individuals to go into the community and do this job without making sure that they have the resources that they need.”

“They have competitive pay that are coming out of Richmond to make sure that they can do the job that they do. During the last legislative session, there was a bill to reduce assault on a police officer from a felony to a misdemeanor. That shows the lack of respect that we have for our law enforcement officers within the streets. So if I go to Richmond, my pledge is to make sure that the laws are reflective of what the officers need to do the job to keep their communities safe. But I’d also look at other common-sense solutions. Our governor right now is trying to get a budget passed through the Senate that would put 2000 more police officers on the streets in the Commonwealth.”

“But that budget is being blocked by the Senate right now. And it just doesn’t make sense to me why, when we know that we need these officers, to your point, when we can’t fill those roles when there are efforts to be able to do that, why are Democrats blocking those efforts?

An earlier version of this story reported the incorrect Primary Election date.

Editors note: This is the latest in a series of articles featuring candidates running in Virignia’s June 20, 2023, Primary Election.

Makya Little, 41, is running in a June 20 Primary Election to be the Democrat nominated by her party to run for the newly-created 19th District Virginia House of Delegates seat. The seat has no incumbent. Little has two Primary opponents, Natalie Shorter, and Rozia Henson.

The district leans strongly toward Democrats and includes a portion of Woodbridge in Prince William County and a portion of southern Fairfax County. Find your polling place.

Little followed in her mother’s footsteps and worked at the FBI for 16 years, first as a graphic designer and later as a program analyst. She retired in 2022 after 16 years to run for office.

Little is a single mother with three children in Prince William County Public Schools, ages 13, 14, and 15.

I interviewed Little about her race. You can see the entire interview video here.

Regarding transportation, what are the unmet needs in the 19th District? 

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Editors note: This is the latest in a series of articles featuring candidates running in Virignia's June 20, 2023, Primary Election. Matt Strickland, 39, is running for the GOP nomination in Virginia's 27th Senate District, including portions of Spotsylvania, Stafford counties, and Fredericksburg. Strickland, the owner of Gourmeltz restaurant in Spotsylvania, made national news in 2021 when he refused to adhere to then-Gov. Ralph Northam's coronavirus restrictions limit the number of customers in his restaurant. The state sued Strickland after he refused a health-department order to close, and Strickland won without ever having closed or implemented state-mandated coronavirus restrictions. Strickland is an Army veteran, a former intelligence analyst turned entrepreneur who opened Gourmeltz with his wife, Maria, in 2016. The couple lives in Spotsylvania and has four children ages 12 to 18. Politics of the district: Strickland faces Tara Durant, a one-term Delegate who chose to seek a seat in the Virginia Senate, in a June 20, 2023, Republican Primary.  Democrats Joel Griffin and Ben Litchfield are also vying for their party's nomination for the seat in the June 20 Primary Election. Stafford County Supervisor Monica Gary, an independent, will seek also seek the seat in the November 7, 2023, General Election. Find your polling place. There is no incumbent for the 27th Senate District, created in 2021 by the Virginia State Supreme Court in the state's decennial redistricting process. I interviewed Strickland about his race. You can see the entire interview here. Do you support school choice?  "The money should follow the student. So with school choice, I come at that from a business standpoint as well, the business mindset in that what breeds innovation in the business world is competition. And what I mean by that is me as a restaurant owner, if I'm the only restaurant in town, if I'm the only restaurant in the state that sells burgers, you have no choice but to come to me if you want a burger. So what motivates me to make sure I'm continuously innovating to make sure I have a unique burger, or I continuously innovate to make sure it's different?" "The public education system, they know that they have no competition. If you can't afford to send your child to private school and or if you're not able to homeschool your child, then you have no choice but to send your child to public schools. And the public education system knows that, and that's why they have a monopoly on things." "So what school choice will do is it will give parents way more options. It will allow a parent to choose a school of their choice that aligns with their values, that keeps some of this political ideology out of the schools and gets more curriculum actually back into schools."

Would you introduce legislation to remove social-emotional learning and CRT from public schools?

"Absolutely. I don't think they have any place in schools. I think what those are. They're just indoctrination, is all they are. So anytime any kind of curriculum teaches a kid to hate themselves or people like themselves or say that they're inherently racist because of things that happened 100, 200, or 300 years ago is wrong, and we shouldn't be teaching anything like that in our schools." "Now, people try to say, when you say you're against CRT, oh, you're against teaching the correct history of this country or what truly happened in centuries past in this country? No, absolutely not. We definitely need to teach about slavery and such, but we need to make sure that we're not teaching certain things that are in the CRT curriculum, like because you're white, you're inherently racist and such" "Those things, they do nothing good for society. They do nothing good for children. And if you watch children play, children don't give a damn about race. They don't care what color you are or where you come from. They just know you're another kid, and they want to play with each other. I truly believe racism is taught. So what we need to make sure we do is keep any kind of racial curriculum out of schools." It is Pride Month, and, in recent weeks, we've seen parents protest drag show performances held in the public square. As a legislator, would you create legislation banning such public performances?  "Absolutely. And the reason is that nobody can argue that these drag shows are not sexual in nature. They're absolutely sexual in nature. And for that reason, kids, children should not be exposed to that. Pedophilia is something that almost everybody in society is against. And the reason for that is because our children should be protected from any kind of over-sexualization." "Now, if you want to do that in private, and you want to do it for an adults-only kind of event, Roger that, do your thing, that's your right. But when you're exposing children to it in a public place like that, that should not be allowed." "And if you're doing it in a public atmosphere, then you don't give parents the choice to avoid that. Because, for example, if they're doing it downtown or something and parents want to take their children downtown just to walk around for the day and boom, you walk up on a drag show or something like that, where these sexually explicit performances are happening, you don't give the parent the option to keep their kid away from that. They've already seen it. So for that reason, I think that things like that should be done in private, and it should be adults only." Over the years, there has been talk about creating something similar to the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority for the Fredericksburg region, a taxing authority that would dole out public funds for transportation projects. Would you create a transportation taxing authority in the Fredericksburg region? "First of all, we don't need another tax here in this area. We are already taxed enough. But when it comes to this area, in particular Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg, and Stafford, we need more help than any other locality in Virginia when it comes to infrastructure in roads and transportation because our stretch of [Interstate 95] is some of the worst traffic in the entire nation. And where we have been let down is at the General Assembly level. So they put the onus on us here down in the localities...to fund all of this infrastructure for the most part. And we're on the hook for figuring out how we relieve all of this insane traffic that we have, and the General Assembly has let us down." So what I'm going to be doing, and I think this is one of the most important issues in our area besides all of the hot topic issues like we just talked about, infrastructure and transportation is one of the biggest issues we have in our area. So I'm going to fight like hell to make sure that we remedy that problem in our section of the I 95 corridor." "And I truly believe that this area, because it is so congested and Virginia has set us up for such failures, that our district, our localities here, where we're at in the 27th, should be funded a lot more from the General Assembly level than we are. And the owner shouldn't be put just on the counties for us to collect taxes from the local residents to fund these roads. No, everybody here in Virginia, and not to mention out of state, use our roads in this area." "One of the worst deals in Virginia history are those E-ZPass lanes. So they took our HOV lanes and sold them to a private equity firm that is not even from the United States. So our roads are owned by a foreign company that should not be allowed. One of the worst deals that ever happened in Virginia and one of the things I'm going to do is look at that contract and see if there's any way we can get out of it because our legislators have gotten us into some insane deals here in Virginia."