Fact Check: Is Virginia Dem Establishment Abandoning 27 House Candidates?
To test the proposition suggested in recent Virginia Mercury reporting, I analyzed the new campaign finance filings.
Just as we experience elections every year in Virginia, we also endure a perennial complaint: the Democratic Party establishment isn’t supporting candidates in districts they don’t believe are “winnable.” This critique emerged yet again in Virginia Mercury reporter Charlotte Rene Woods’ article last week entitled “‘Virginia Value Pack’ candidates push fundraising, say Democratic party needs to invest more in them.”
From the article:
[Cindy] Green said it’s “ironic” that Democratic leadership in Virginia touts having 100 candidates this year, while not financially backing all of them.
She said she understands most resources should be directed at those in competitive or potentially flippable seats, but says a little bit would go a long way for candidates like herself.
“A campaign like mine, it doesn’t take a lot of money to provide support,” Green said.
Her money goes toward brochures to hand out when door-knocking, yard signs, radio ads, and billboards. With a small campaign of volunteers who have full-time jobs like herself, she doesn’t have to worry about paying staff or consultants or large advertisement blitzes.
“We’re scrappy,” Green said. “We know how to get stuff done.”
It’s true that Democratic Party leadership has been bragging about running candidates in all 100 House of Delegates districts this year, despite playing a limited role in recruitment. Here’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger on the record. Here’s House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott (D-Portsmouth) discussing it with Roland Martin. And here’s Del. Dan Helmer (D-Fairfax), who’s leading the House Democratic Caucus’s campaign efforts, according to Virginia Mercury reporter Markus Schmidt back in May:
Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, who chairs the House Democrats’ campaign efforts, praised the recruitment effort and called it a reflection of the stakes facing the country in 2025.
“This is a unique moment in the future of America in which those who want to preserve our systems of government, our economy, and our freedoms, know they need to step forward,” Helmer said in a phone interview Wednesday.
“We are going to win seats this year. We’re going to hold a majority. We’re going to protect Virginians. We’re going to make sure that we are the bulwark in the storm that is the Trump-Musk administration.”
Since Charlotte Rene Woods didn’t have access to the most recent campaign finance reports by the publication date of her piece, I reviewed all of the new reports yesterday in an effort to fact check the proposition that 27 Democratic candidates for the House of Delegates have been effectively abandoned by the Democratic Party establishment.
Campaign Finance Reports Reveal Reality
Woods’ article focuses on an ActBlue fundraising page setup by Michigan activist Charles Gaba in concert with Dr. Fergie Reid Jr., a page designed to split contributions 27 ways to a set of Virginia House of Delegates candidates “who are contesting the 27 most Republican-leaning districts.”
Here are the districts, candidates, and partisan leans based on 2024 election results included on the ActBlue page:
HD-031 (R+27): Shane Boswell, HD-032 (R+21): Jonathan Lucci, HD-033 (R+47): Catherine Rec, HD-035 (R+43): Jena Crisler, HD-036 (R+19): Makayla Venable, HD-037 (R+40): Andrew Hartless, HD-039 (R+41): Eric Klotz, HD-042 (R+25): Biko Agozino, HD-043 (R+68): Mary Sumner, HD-044 (R+53): Cindy Green, HD-045 (R+67): Joshua Outsey, HD-046 (R+58): Jamie Hendry, HD-047 (R+54): Yvonne Rorrer, HD-048 (R+28): Melody Cartwright, HD-050 (R+19): Earnadette Powell Farrar, HD-051 (R+52): Joy Powers, HD-053 (R+39): Sam Soghor, HD-056 (R+22): Angela Chainer, HD-059 (R+16): Scott Konopasek, HD-060 (R+28): Andrew Ward, HD-061 (R+26): Jac Bennington, HD-062 (R+23): Sara Ratcliffe, HD-063 (R+19): Forrest Miller, HD-067 (R+20): Mario Haggerty, HD-068 (R+34): Elaine Walters, HD-072 (R+23): Randolph Critzer, and HD-090 (R+17): Rodney Nickens.
I reviewed the most recent campaign finance reports filed by these candidates, and I found that they have been effectively abandoned by the state and national Democratic Party apparatus, as well as by almost every incumbent Democratic lawmaker in Virginia.
To the extent they’ve received any funding or in-kind support at all, it’s been from their all-volunteer, mostly rural, local Democratic committees. Most of these local committees have donated $1,000 or less to their local House of Delegates candidate. These committees generally are not funded by the state or national party.
Of these 27 candidates, none reported contributions from the Democratic Party of Virginia, the Virginia House Democratic Caucus, Speaker Scott’s Virginia Future Generations PAC, or any national party entity.
Eight of these candidates reported single $500 contributions from the Democratic Party of Virginia’s Women’s Caucus.
Five of these candidates reported single $500 contributions from the 9th Congressional District Democratic Committee.
Five of these candidates reported single $250 contributions from the Democratic Party of Virginia’s Rural Caucus.
And three of these candidates reported contributions from an incumbent state lawmaker.
Democratic Party Deflection
When Charlotte Rene Woods sought comment from Democratic Party leadership concerning allegations of underfunding, here’s what she got:
Though DPVA and the House Democratic Caucus have not directly supported the candidates in donations, caucus spokeswoman Amber Gantt said that Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, and DPVA Chair Sen. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, have given money to Rural Ground Game, an organization supporting rural candidates.
Locally-rooted organizers are otherwise taking matters into their own hands.
Rebecca Daly, chair of 9th Congressional District Democratic Committee, said she has done what she can to boost rural Democrats in deep Southwest Virginia. That included hosting candidate training for 13 of the 27 “Value Pack” Democrats within the district.
She said that behind the scenes she has been “preaching” to the state party officials for years about investment in that side of the state.
So the House Democratic Caucus deflected, suggesting that giving to Rural GroundGame, an organization aligned with the Democratic Party, was a sufficient substitute for supporting these 27 candidates. For folks familiar with Rural GroundGame, which has never had a large staff or tremendous resources, this deflection may seem confusing and unfair.
A review of the most recent campaign finance filings demonstrates as much. None of these 27 candidates reported direct or in-kind contributions from Rural GroundGame this cycle. Although Speaker Scott’s PAC did donate $25,000 to Rural GroundGame on July 25, 2025, the vast majority of their funds come from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hunter Carson Bourne III, and Win Virginia. And the vast majority of their funds appear to be spent on organizational overhead, again demonstrating the absurdity of a state political party or legislative caucus holding this organization publicly responsible for supporting 27% of their Virginia House of Delegates campaigns.
Over $82,000 Raised via Grassroots Fundraising
At the time Woods published her article, the ActBlue page setup by Gaba and Reid to support these 27 candidates had already raised $60,000, or approximately $2,200 per campaign. As of today, the page has raised over $82,000, exceeding $3,000 per campaign. As Woods reported, this sum includes online contributions to the page from Sen. Jennifer Boysko (D-Fairfax), Sen. Saddam Salim (D-Fairfax), Sen. Kannan Srinivasan (D-Loudoun), Del. Sam Rasoul (D-Roanoke), and Del. David Reid (D-Loudoun).
To my knowledge, prominent Virginia elected Democrats like U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, who’s currently fundraising for his 2026 campaign despite reportedly being worth hundreds of millions of dollars himself, have not contributed. Neither have the vast majority of incumbent Democrats in the General Assembly or any of the three Democrats on the statewide ticket this year, in part due to a culture of control I reported on earlier this month:
This widespread, mostly rural underfunding by the Democratic Party may not surprise seasoned Virginia politicos. But if you believe Democratic Party national and state messaging about the gravity of the political moment, how do you square the Party’s neglect of a quarter of their candidates in one of only two states nationwide with statewide and state legislative elections this year?
How do you contend with the decision from the top to blame Rural GroundGame instead of stepping up and providing even a modicum of support for Democratic nominees, particularly when tens of millions of dollars are flowing through Virginia Democratic campaigns this year?
Candidates and activists on the ground don’t let questions like these get in their way. Just as the recruitment of candidates in all 100 districts was a largely grassroots effort, so apparently will be the task of funding them. And, so far, a single fundraising page has already generated more for these 27 candidates than all state and national Democratic Party politicians and entities combined.
As Chair of the Ninth District Democratic Committee I would like to add that we provided each of our thirteen House of Delegate candidates with $500 and training and a support team at no charge.