The 6 Democratic candidates for Virginia Lt. Governor, in their own words
Virginians will get to choose among six candidates seeking the Democratic Party nomination for lieutenant governor in the June 8 primary.
The winner will face off against a GOP nominee, to be selected Saturday in that party’s convention.
Nominally the No. 2 post in state government, the lieutenant governor’s powers are limited to presiding over the state Senate, with the power to cast tie-breaking votes on some bills, though not on the state budget. The lieutenant governor also steps in if the governor dies or when the Attorney General, the President pro tempore of the state Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Delegates, or a majority of the total membership of the General Assembly declare the governor is unable to discharge the duties of office.
Here are the candidates, and what they have to say about why they are running and their goals if elected.
Hala Ayala
Why are you running for lieutenant governor, and if elected do you plan to run for governor in 2025?
I believe my life experiences enable me to be a bridge builder, so that we can move our Commonwealth forward into a strong, just, and prosperous future. I’m proud of the progress that we’ve made in the General Assembly, including expanding Medicaid for more than 500,000 Virginians, as well as the relationships that I have built to make progress for Virginians.
What is your top priority to accomplish as lieutenant governor and how would you expect to do it?
As Lieutenant Governor, I will be a champion for expanding access to affordable, quality healthcare by implementing a state reinsurance program, strengthening our Medicaid program by creating a statewide Medicaid “buy-in” option on the exchange, and providing financial support for families struggling with healthcare premiums..
What else do voters need to know about you, your qualifications, your priorities and your plans if elected?
Every day since being elected, I have worked tirelessly for the people of Virginia. As Chief Deputy Whip, I was proud to lead the effort to pass the most progressive legislation in Virginia’s history, including marijuana legalization, the Virginia Clean Economy Act, and Governor Northam’s G3 program to help with college affordability and to promote job growth in our high-demand industries.
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Mark Levine
Why are you running for lieutenant governor, and if elected do you plan to run for governor in 2025?
Virginia deserves a full-time year-round Lieutenant Governor who is committed to meeting and listening to citizens throughout Virginia in order to solve your problems in both the Legislative and Executive branches. People feel disconnected from their government and believe that big-money special interests and corporations get more attention than they do. I have a track record of taking on tough battles and fighting for all Virginians.
What is your top priority to accomplish as lieutenant governor and how would you expect to do it?
My top priority is finding solutions to improve the lives of everyday Virginians. Tough problems require creative solutions, and that’s why I will transform the office of Lieutenant Governor beyond its traditional priorities of presiding over the Senate and breaking tie votes. I’m committed to listening to Virginians all across the Commonwealth by traveling to every county and city and meeting folks face to face. I will implement your best ideas through a bold legislative agenda, through working with the Governor on executive action, and through convening workgroups to solve problems.
What else do voters need to know about you, your qualifications, your priorities and your plans if elected?
My passion for fighting injustice stems from personal experience as a brother who lost his sister to domestic violence and as a gay man. I know the pain of bad laws, and I know how good laws improve people’s lives. In my years of activism and public service, I’ve had four goals: fight injustice, solve problems, increase transparency, and improve people’s lives. My six years of experience, the two important subcommittees I chair, (Public Safety and Constitutional Amendments), and the Virginia Transparency Caucus I founded and lead prove I can get the job done. Whether it’s making healthcare and child care more affordable, increasing broadband access, helping working people, promoting civil rights, reducing climate change, or leading the fight for common-sense gun safety laws, I have been and will continue to be a leader on the issues the people of Virginia care about.
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Andria McClellan
Why are you running for lieutenant governor, and if elected do you plan to run for governor in 2025?
I am running for Lieutenant Governor to continue my work of expanding equitable access to opportunity and breaking down barriers for all Virginians who are struggling to get ahead. I know what it’s like to be there. I was raised by a single mom who juggled multiple jobs to make ends meet....I have a proven track record of building coalitions and getting things done. ...I created our Coastal Resilience Committee, which brings local elected officials from throughout the region to address one of our most pressing issues: flooding. Additionally, I am helping to create our regional broadband fiber ring, which will bring more affordable, high speed internet options to the region ... And, as the only Lieutenant Governor candidate from Hampton Roads, I bring an important perspective and will give a voice to the 757 and other communities who too often feel forgotten in our commonwealth.
What is your top priority to accomplish as lieutenant governor and how would you expect to do it?
A lack of access to opportunity and economic inequality are some of the greatest issues facing Virginians. Outside of presiding over the Virginia Senate, I plan to work full-time the remaining ten months of the year to use my statewide platform ... to address: 1) ensuring reliable, affordable high-speed internet access for all to bridge the digital divide; 2) supporting access to capital for small businesses, especially women and minority-owned businesses; and, 3) enhancing our “talent pipeline” from youth to adults, through better early childhood and K-12 educational funding and support for much needed workforce development training.
What else do voters need to know about you, your qualifications, your priorities and your plans if elected?
When my husband and I returned to Hampton Roads in 1998 to be closer to my mother and his parents as we started to have children of our own, I saw too many families also struggling as my mom had, and I decided to get involved. I have served in leadership roles with amazing non-profits, including Samaritan House, the Virginia Family & Children’s Trust Fund, and The Up Center to find resources to help victims of domestic violence, homeless families and individuals who had been recently incarcerated learn job skills. I have also been very active in supporting our small business community ... I am passionate about the environment and mitigating flooding. I wrote the region’s first Climate Action Plan.
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Sean Perryman
Why are you running for lieutenant governor, and if elected do you plan to run for governor in 2025?
I didn’t plan to run for office. But the current moment presents so many crises for our communities—a deadly pandemic, an economy that has fallen out from under working people, an unfair criminal justice system, a full on climate emergency—that we need candidates who are ready to meet this moment. The unofficial motto of my campaign is “do what feeds your soul.” For me, that’s advancing justice, fighting for equity, and ensuring all Virginians can prosper. I don’t want to be counted among those who see the Lieutenant Governor’s role as a simple stepping stone to higher office. My intention in running for office is to win the race for Lt. Governor, and to reimagine the role as one that advocates for ideas and policies that are important to Virginians. My ultimate goal is not to run for higher office, but instead to be an agenda-setter in Richmond who can break the status quo.
What is your top priority to accomplish as lieutenant governor and how would you expect to do it?
Like all Virginians, I am sick and tired of waking up each week to the news of another Black person beaten or killed by police. Just recently here in Virginia, we saw a horrifying video of Lt. Caron Nazario being harassed, threatened, and assaulted by police in Windsor. In March, Donovon Lynch was killed in Virginia Beach by an officer who turned off their body camera. This issue isn’t theoretical for Black people like me, it’s personal and dangerous. It’s part of the larger issue of our broken criminal justice system that was built on unfair foundations. Reforming that system to be more compassionate and equitable is one of my top priorities. I have the most experience of any candidate in this race working on criminal justice reform and racial justice issues. We saw over the past year that a vast majority of people are ready to act to create a system that keeps everyone safe and ends the legacy of the racist Jim Crow era. As Lt. Governor, I will work to move the needle on crucial policies like repealing mandatory minimums, ending cash bail, reforming parole, and ending qualified immunity. I will also use my platform as a statewide elected official to push the emphasis towards investing in mental health, housing, and education rather than jails and incarceration.
What else do voters need to know about you, your qualifications, your priorities and your plans if elected?
I’m the son of an immigrant father and a mother born in segregated South Carolina. I was the first in my family to go to college, from which I went on to law school and became a civil litigator. When my law firm asked me to represent Donald Trump in a suit about his hateful rhetoric, I quit. I went to work for Rep. Elijah Cummings on the US House Oversight Committee, where I eventually helped investigate the Trump administration. Locally, I became education chair of the Fairfax County NAACP, then became vice president, and then president in 2019, becoming the youngest-ever President in the chapter’s 102-year history....Our chapter successfully fought to keep cops out of elementary schools, lowered arrests in Fairfax County public schools by 75%, provided emergency relief to Black and Brown owned small businesses during the pandemic, and changed the name of Robert E. Lee High School to John Lewis high school. At the statewide level, I have been an advocate for years on legalizing marijuana, strengthening worker’s rights, and expanding access to the vote for all. I also plan to fight for climate legislation that gets us to 100% renewable energy by 2035, serious campaign finance reform that levels the playing field in our democracy, and big investments in affordable housing, early childhood education, and public transportation.
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Sam Rasoul
Why are you running for lieutenant governor, and if elected do you plan to run for governor in 2025?
As a business professional with ten years of experience in health caremanagement, and as a member of the Black Caucus and the Rural Caucus in the House of Delegates, I’ve long understood that our communities are not being served equitably and that we need broad, intersectional coalitions to create the necessary changes to achieve that equity... I have fought for the people of Virginia by fighting to expand Medicaid, passing legislation that expands vaccine capacity and access to medical providers, passing budget amendments to expand TANF assistance to the food insecure, and authoring successful bills that protect our drinking water. I’m also running to be the first statewide official in Virginia history whose campaign is funded entirely by individuals. Zero dollars into our campaign are from corporations or super PACs.
What is your top priority to accomplish as lieutenant governor and how would you expect to do it?
The top job of every statewide official must be to help Virginia recover from this pandemic, and come back stronger than ever... To that end, my first comprehensive policy rollout of this campaign was a Marshall Plan for Moms because the data is crystal clear that women and moms have borne the brunt of this pandemic, and the best short-term and long-term investment we can make is to invest in our mothers and families. If elected, I’ve committed a member of my senior staff to be a Director of Mothers Advocacy, and will leverage the connections I’ve made in both the House and Senate and with grassroots organizations to pass legislation enacting paid family and medical leave, expanding pre-K and childcare to be universal, instituting fair scheduling for workers, and creating a new caregiver tax credit.
What else do voters need to know about you, your qualifications, your priorities and your plans if elected?
As a teenager who had to work two jobs to make my way in high school and college, I know the value of work and that’s why I have for years supported a $15 minimum wage. I have seen the negative effects of mass incarceration in the low-income, largely Black, Roanoke district that I represent, and that is why I introduced criminal justice reform focused on expungement going back to my first term, and in this term introduced legislation to make police camera video public after fifteen days of violent incident. If we are going to refocus our government to work for the people we must get corporate influence out of our politics, which is why I have always rejected corporate PAC money and have fought to prohibit corporate PAC donations.
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Xavier Warren
Why are you running for lieutenant governor, and if elected do you plan to run for governor in 2025?
I’m running because Virginia is in a COVID-19 crisis, a racial crisis, a climate crisis and an economic crisis that has caused hundreds of small businesses to close, thousands of people to lose their jobs, 1 in 3 people to suffer pay cuts, 1 in 4 people to go hungry and many people to lose their homes due to evictions. I have the experience to take on these challenges that while great, are not insurmountable.
What is your top priority to accomplish as lieutenant governor and how would you expect to do it?
Beyond presiding over the State Senate and performing tie-breaking votes, the lieutenant governor serves on business committees that focuses on three things: Generating economic development, advancing entrepreneurship, and creating jobs. My focus is for every adult in the Commonwealth to have a job with a livable wage. ... We need to ensure economic empowerment and stability for all by passing a comprehensive stability strategy for families. Virginians deserve a sustainable economy, and I will focus on sound policy to continually build upon what we have. Part of this is attracting new development while making sure our existing companies large and small stay and thrive. Another is ensuring a livable wage. I fully support a $15 minimum wage. Additionally, a critical part of any thriving economy is education. We need investment in early childhood education, free certificates and associate degrees for Pell-eligible students, and stronger K-12 partnerships with our career and technical centers, community colleges, HBCUs, and Hispanic-serving institutions.
What else do voters need to know about you, your qualifications, your priorities and your plans if elected?
A native of Danville, I have lived and worked throughout the Commonwealth in Hampton Roads and Arlington County. My extended family members live in Newport News, Norfolk and Portsmouth, and we spend family vacations at Virginia Beach.
Dave Ress, 757-247-4535, dress@dailypress.com
