Author
Hala Ayala on Dominion donation flip: ‘People change their minds all the time.’
Del. Hala Ayala, the newly minted Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, drew harsh criticism in the final days of the campaign for flipping on a promise to refuse campaign donations from state-regulated monopolies. Her campaign ducked questions about the decision last week after finance reports revealed she had accepted a $100,000 donation from Dominion Energy, […]
McAuliffe’s sweep beat expectations that were already sky-high
Terry McAuliffe won Petersburg, the hometown of one of his top opponents, former delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy, who had accused him of neglecting the majority-Black city during his first term. He won in Richmond, where Sen. Jennifer McClellan had an advantage due to her strong local following. He won in Nelson County, a hotbed of […]
Democratic primary voters oust some of General Assembly’s most outspoken delegates
Primary voters in Virginia delivered a rebuke to the left wing of the Democratic party on Tuesday, sweeping three outspoken incumbents from office and rejecting progressive challengers in all but one race. By the end of the night, voters had booted Dels. Lee Carter, D-Prince William, the General Assembly’s only socialist; Ibraheem Samirah, D-Fairfax, a […]
Homicides in Virginia hit highest levels in two decades
Virginia’s murder rate climbed to its highest level since the late 1990s last year, according to crime statistics released by the Virginia State Police this week. Police reported 537 homicides in 2020, up from 455 in 2019, bringing the rate per 100,000 residents to just over six — a number last seen in 1998 as […]
With 17 Va. House incumbents being challenged, Tuesday could be a wild primary night
Del. Ibraheem Samirah, D-Fairfax, pitches himself as one of the most progressive members of the House of Delegates, but in this year’s primary, he’s fending off a challenge from a fellow progressive who says the district could do better. “He has seemed to be an incompetent and ineffective legislator, and I think that is not […]
Campaign finance reports: Ayala flips on Dominion, Youngkin self-funds and a big bundle of shadowy money drops
With Republicans and Democrats alike reluctant to put limits on Virginia’s wide-open campaign finance system, money has been pouring into primary contests in what’s going to be a high-stakes election year. And the batch of campaign finance numbers released this week seemed to have something for everyone not to like. One week out from the […]
Q&A: VMI’s new superintendent on report that says school has been ‘run by White men, for White men.’
Virginia Military Institute’s superintendent says he’s not surprised by the findings in a law firm’s scathing report released Tuesday that concluded the school long tolerated institutional racism and sexism. But he pushed back at assertions that leaders of the 180-year-old school were unwilling to change. The Virginia Mercury interviewed Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins about the […]
Mapping alliances in the Democratic primary
Endorsements don’t necessarily mean a whole lot when it comes to determining who’s going to win an election. But they can illustrate alliances, partnerships and factions that develop over time. To that end, the chart below traces 70 endorsements by sitting state and federal elected officials in Virginia in next month’s Democratic primary for governor, […]
Will the progressive prosecutor movement come to Richmond?
When a group of prosecutors representing some of Virginia’s biggest localities banded together to pursue criminal justice reform initiatives last year, one large, heavily Democratic city was conspicuously absent. Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Colette McEachin says she didn’t join the group, called the Virginia Progressive Prosecutors for Justice, because she “doesn’t need to join a club” […]
Officials in Richmond still won’t explain why police attacked hundreds of peaceful protestors a year ago
The police chief apologized. Mayor Levar Stoney now calls the attack “unintentional.” But a year later, officials in Richmond still won’t offer a full explanation of what exactly happened that led officers to unleash a barrage of tear gas and pepper spray on a crowd of hundreds of peaceful protestors. City officials also refuse to […]
Drugs continued to flow into Virginia prisons amid pandemic, raising concerns about corrupt staff
For years, prison officials in Virginia have focused on visitors as they sought to crack down on the flow of drugs and contraband to incarcerated people. They strip-searched children, banned menstruating women from wearing tampons and limited the number of people prisoners could put on their visitors list. So when the coronavirus pandemic hit, halting […]
New data shows Virginia police are more likely to stop and search Black drivers
Black drivers in Virginia are almost two times more likely than White drivers to be pulled over by police and three times more likely to have their vehicles searched, according to data collected under the state’s new Community Policing Act. The records offer a first-of-its-kind look at traffic enforcement in Virginia, even as the disparities […]