An Unexpected Scandal Could Lose Democrats the Virginia Legislature
The Washington Post published a story on Monday that may harm Virginia Democrats’ chances of preventing a complete Republican state government takeover this November.
Based on a tip from a Republican operative to whom the Post granted anonymity, the paper reported that a Democratic candidate running for a House of Delegates seat in a competitive district has livestreamed videos of herself having sex with her husband on the online platform Chaturbate.
In livestreams viewed by the Post, more than a dozen of which were captured and uploaded onto other public sites, Susanna Gibson encouraged viewers to send her tips—“raising money for a good cause,” she told them—in exchange for performing whatever sex acts the tipper desired. The couple had more than 5,700 followers on Chaturbate.
No matter how the residents of Virginia’s 57th District feel about their would-be delegate doing sex work on a public platform, this revelation sure does complicate the election campaign Gibson, a nurse practitioner, is currently running against Republican David Owen, a retiree and former homebuilder.
The district is one of the few true toss-ups in November’s election, in which all 100 seats in the House of Delegates and all 40 seats in the Virginia Senate will be on the ballot. In 2021 Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin won the district, which encompasses a suburban area just outside Richmond, by about 3 points. Then, in last year’s congressional midterm elections, its voters went for Democrats by just 0.9 points.
In other words, Gibson can scarcely afford to have her candidacy bruised by a scandal. And Democrats can scarcely afford to forfeit a winnable seat in the state Legislature. They need to win a majority in either the House of Delegates or the Senate if they are to have any chance of blocking the GOP’s agenda in Virginia.
Though Democrats controlled both chambers of the state Legislature and the governorship just a few years ago, as it stands, the only thing they have is a slim majority in the state Senate. Those few Democrats have been the only bulwark against Youngkin as he and Republican lawmakers have attempted to enact the right wing’s entire wish list in Virginia: They blocked a 15-week abortion ban, a bill that would have forced schools to out students with any “gender incongruence,” and attempts to repeal progressive climate change policies and expansions of voting rights passed by Democrats in recent years.
Now the revelations of Gibson’s sex work make it even more likely that Republicans will retain control of the House of Delegates and assume the power to reverse years of progress in Virginia at a critical moment for the climate, voting rights, and access to abortion and gender-affirming health care.
What’s worse, Gibson dramatically outspent her Republican competitor in their respective primaries, putting her at a major financial disadvantage going into the general election. In the Democratic primary earlier this year, Gibson spent $300,000 of the $377,000 she has raised to beat rival Democrat Bob Shippee, while Owen, the Republican, spent just half his funds, since he had no primary opponent.
In a better world, Gibson’s history of sex work would have no bearing (or even a positive impact) on her ability to clinch a competitive seat in the Virginia Legislature. There is nothing wrong with what she and her husband do to earn money and/or have fun, and it’s despicable that political operatives would surface these livestreams to shame her. But in this world, in the midst of a nationwide sex panic, Gibson spent hundreds of thousands of other people’s dollars to win a primary with the full knowledge that her side gig could compromise her ability to win the race. At the very least, she should have retained the services of a professional who could have scrubbed the internet of those videos and images before the launch of her campaign.
It reflects poorly on the Virginia Democratic Party that there was no care taken to thoroughly vet the candidates in this toss-up district before the primary, such that Gibson’s videos might have been unearthed and erased. With two months to go before the election, who knows what the GOP might dig up next?
