loudounnow.com
One day before the General Assembly was set to open its 2025 session, eastern Loudoun voters selected their representatives to fill two seats.
Special elections were held to fill vacancies in the 32nd Senate District and the 26th House District.
Democrats Kannan Srinivasan in the Senate race and JJ Singh in the House race registered easy victories over Republicans Tumay Harding and Ram Venkatachalam. Both won more than 61% of the vote.
With the results, Democrats maintain their razor-thin majorities in the Senate and House.
While the districts have proven to be Democratic strongholds in past elections, state and national leaders of both parties put a spotlight on the races.
State leaders, including Gov. Glenn Youngkin who led a rally for Harding and Venkatachalam on Saturday, characterized the elections as a chance to flip control of the General Assembly. National party leaders sought to paint the races as a post-presidential election bellwether that could signal the voters’ moods heading into the 2026 mid-terms.
“Here is an opportunity to change the entire situation in Richmond,” Youngkin told supporters gathered at Freedom High School. He said with control of both houses, Republicans could push tax relief, improve schools and increase safety.
In a statement after the election, Democratic Party of Virginia Chair Susan Swecker said the results showed “voters in Loudoun County once again rejected Republican extremism.”
“Their victories ensure that we maintain our majority in the General Assembly so we can continue passing legislation that benefits all Virginians while rejecting harmful policies,” she stated. “With our majority, Democrats will be able to advance key constitutional amendments this session as well as pass bills that lower daily costs, protect our fundamental freedoms, create safer communities, and grow our economy.”
For the candidates the issues were local. Harding and Venkatachalam highlighted support for school reform and parents’ rights. Srinivasan championed issues including improved healthcare and greater transparency for Dulles Greenway tolls. Singh targeted lowering college tuition in addition to supporting abortion rights and addressing gun violence.
Srinivasan and Singh are part of the political leadership in Loudoun’s fast-growing population of South Asian immigrant families.
Srinivasan immigrated from India in 1992. He was elected to the House of Delegates in 2023. He jumped into the state Senate race in November after incumbent Democrat Suhas Subramanyam was elected to the 10th District seat in the House of Representatives. Singh is the son of Indian immigrants. Subramanyam, also the son of Indian immigrants, in 2019 was the first Indian-American and first Hindu to be elected to the General Assembly.
“I know Kannan and JJ will continue to fight for Loudoun families, working to lower costs, defend reproductive freedoms, and combat the rise in gun violence. I’m looking forward to a continued partnership and seeing all they accomplish in Richmond,” Subramanyam said in a statement after the elections.
Srinivasan said he is looking toward the future for his party in Virginia.
“2025 will be a pivotal year in Virginia politics and in national politics,” he told supporters Tuesday night. “We just set the tone tonight. We pushed back today, and we will continue to push back until we win the governor’s mansion.”
He said Democrats represent the “party of good governance.”
“Virginia will make sure that our education is not compromised. Virginia will make sure that 84 gun shootings last year in schools cannot be followed and Virginia will make sure that everybody feels safe, kids feel safe, people don’t get discriminated and we take care of people. That starts today because of every one of you,” he said.
Singh said their victories came from hard work during the short campaign window.
“We knocked on tens of thousands of doors, we made tens of thousands of phone calls, and we had a very clear message,” Singh said. “You know, that message was that we’re facing some tough times, and tough times call for tough people. And we had a very clear set of priorities that resonated. The first being, we need to codify reproductive freedom in our constitution. The second is we have a problem with gun violence in this country. Gun violence is the number one cause of death for kids. And the third thing is that college tuition costs have skyrocketed. And when I was talking on the doors with people, that resonated. Those three things resonated.”
While the General Assembly was scheduled to open its session Wednesday and to receive the State of the Commonwealth address from Youngkin, those activities have been postponed until Monday as Richmond works through a major treatment plant failure that left most of the city without potable water following the winter storm.