by Jonathan Mususa, politics and government reporter
In the November 2025 elections, Democrats won all three statewide races – Abigail Spanberger for governor, Ghazala Hashmi for lieutenant-governor, and Jay Jones for attorney general. In the race for control of the House of Delegates, Democrats extended their majority from 51 to 64, coming three seats short of a supermajority.
More than a month later, Democrats are preparing to assume undivided control of state government for the first time since 2020, before Spanberger gets sworn in on January 17th and the sitting of the 164th General Assembly begins.
With Democrats now having the ability to enact legislative priorities without fear of a veto from outgoing Republican governor Glenn Youngkin, what can Virginians expect from Richmond in 2026?
Constitutional amendments
On November 17, Virginia House Democratic leadership announced that they had pre-filed a series of bills to be debated once the session starts. The first three bills on the Democratic agenda are constitutional amendments. Approved by the General Assembly during the last session, Democrats will have to approve them again this session in order to put these proposals before voters in a statewide referendum.
This upcoming session, Democrats will attempt to pass proposals to enshrine access to abortion, automatic restoration of voting rights for ex-felons, and the right to same-sex marriage in the Virginia Constitution which would then be subject to referendums on or before November 3, 2026.
“To me, it seems as though we are clearly stating we are with where the American people are,” Sam Rasoul, the Democratic Delegate for the 38th district, said.
Rasoul’s district contains most of Roanoke, save for the southwest corner of the city located in the 40th district. First elected in 2014, his strongly Democratic district re-elected him for a sixth term. Of the proposed amendments, he is especially excited about the restoration of voting rights for ex-felons.
“This amendment, to me, actually only goes halfway,” Rasoul said. “It says, once you’ve served your time, your ability is automatically restored. I think we should even go further, but that is for another time. I am excited to, at least, take this significant step.”
Wren Williams, the Republican Delegate for the 47th district, who is especially opposed to the abortion rights initiative, hopes that “the people in Virginia will stand up and realize that, ‘no, this isn’t what we do here’ and step up and be strong and say, ‘we the people, we give the guidance to our representatives and this is beyond what we said we wanted in November.’”
Williams’ strongly Republican district contains Carroll, Floyd, and Patrick counties, as well as the city of Galax and parts of Henry County, and re-elected him to serve his third term in office.
The redistricting question
Democrats are also proposing another constitutional amendment: changing the redistricting process in Virginia so that the General Assembly can redraw congressional district lines between decennial censuses if other states do the same. This comes as states across the country are redrawing their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms, in response to President Donald Trump calling for legislatures in Republican-controlled states to redraw districts to help Republicans hold onto control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Currently, Virginia has a bipartisan redistricting commission composed of legislators and citizens from both parties. In the last redistricting cycle in 2020, however, gridlock on the commission caused the state Supreme Court to appoint two special masters from both parties to draw the current maps for the U.S. House and the General Assembly.
Del. Rasoul describes himself as “very passionate about redistricting reform” and supported the bipartisan commission. However, amid the nationwide pattern of partisan redistricting, he feels that Virginia Democrats are merely doing what they have to do.
“I think it would behoove us to do something to be able to say, ‘We know this is a sad moment, but what can we be doing to protect the fabric of the republic?’” Rasoul said.
Nicholas Goedert, a professor of political science at Virginia Tech with a research interest in the redistricting process, sees few short-term drawbacks to pursuing this strategy for Democrats in 2026, but believes that there would be potential adverse effects further into the future.
“It does have more medium term potential drawbacks for Democrats in that, if they try to win as many seats as possible, they probably have to draw some of these seats to be only slightly Democratic,” Goedert said. “If we were to see a Republican wave election, perhaps, in 2030, which would be the last year that such a map would be in effect, you could see a lot of those seats won by Republicans because they will be only marginally Democratic and they could swing back to the Republicans’ direction.”
“To me, it seems as though we are clearly stating we are with where the American people are.”
– Del. Sam Rasoul (D–Roanoke)
Affordability, energy policy, and Virginia’s economy
Affordability has been an important plank in the Democrats’ platform, with pre-filed bills aimed at raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2028, mandating an hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked in 2027, and authorizing localities to exercise a right of first refusal on property sales to the end of creating affordable housing.
Also on Democrats’ mind is energy policy, with legislation promising energy cost reductions for low-income families, efficiency mandates for Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power, and weatherization and retrofitting for low-income families’ homes by 2031. Del. Rasoul hopes that measures like these will help lower energy costs for Virginia families.
“I would venture to say that the largest tax increase in Virginia history has been the increase in our utility costs over the past decade, and people are getting hit from so many different angles, and, in this past year, we had, in AEP territory, not just people talking about $1,000 electric bills but even some cases of $2,000 electric bills for an average-sized home,” Rasoul said. “It’s really gotten out of control and it’s just for the wealth of a few.”
Del. Williams, on the other hand, finds Democratic proposals unfeasible and could lead to energy bills becoming more expensive and life in the Commonwealth becoming more unaffordable.
“The idea that the Democrats can legislate their way into a better economy is absolutely insane,” he said. “They need to back off. We need to cut regulations. We need to let the free enterprise market control, and we need to see small businesses thrive so that we can continue to be an economic and business leader in the nation.”
Governor–General Assembly relations
Some of the pre-filed bills had already passed the Democrat-controlled General Assembly, but were vetoed by Republican Governor Youngkin. Now, with a governor from the same party, Democrats in the General Assembly have a smoother path to delivering on campaign promises, with Virginia Tech political science professor Karen Hult calling it “somewhat less of a fraught-with-conflict situation than we’ve seen in the past.”
However, Spanberger’s background as a moderate Democratic Congresswoman could possibly lead to friction between the Governor’s Mansion and the General Assembly when it comes to the details of exactly how to implement their shared priorities.
“There may be some differences in priority and detail on a whole range of issues that Governor-elect Spanberger is going to be trying to push in the General Assembly, but many of those match the same kinds of matters and issues that members of the House of Delegates ran on as well,” Hult said.
To Del. Williams, Governor Spanberger might find herself out of step with her fellow Democrats in the General Assembly.
“Abigail Spanberger is going to want to paint herself as a moderate and she does not have a moderate backing when it comes to the General Assembly and their majority – their expanded majority,” Williams said. “She is really going to have a hard time keeping any kind of control or say over those legislative bodies because they’re going to do whatever they want and then they’re going to hand it to her and say, ‘your move.’”
“I hope … that the people in Virginia will stand up and realize that, ‘no, this isn’t what we do here’ and step up and be strong and say, ‘we the people, we give the guidance to our representatives and this is beyond what we said we wanted in November.’”
– Del. Wren Williams (R–Patrick County)
The Republican minority
The road to the Democrats’ expanded majority in the House of Delegates ran through 13 Republican-held districts. For Williams, these losses were indicative of a failure on the part of Republicans to put forward an appealing message to voters in the face of a wave of anti-Trump sentiment.
“I don’t think that we brought a real cohesive message of how we were going to make life better for the constituents of the Commonwealth,” Williams said. “We just had an absolute failure to attract those independents, to give them the motivation to turn out, because I’m not sure that they could articulate what we were going to bring to the table if we had been handed those reins.”
Williams will be part of a 36-member Republican House caucus. Republicans will find themselves in the minority in the State Senate as well, with Democrats controlling the upper chamber 21–19 since 2024. Despite being in the minority, he said that he is looking forward to working with his House colleagues of both parties.
“We have to make sure that we are doing our duty by looking after the constituents that sent us to Richmond, which means advocating for smart policies that best benefit our communities,” he said, adding that he hoped that “the Democrats, rather than steal our legislation and slap their name on top of it, will join us in those bipartisan efforts to pass good-sense legislation and policy.”
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