The Daily Signal - Primary Day Politics: John Reid on Virginia's Lieutenant Governor Race

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

On Virginia's primary day, Republican lieutenant governor nominee John Reid joins The Daily Signal's Joe Thomas to discuss the upcoming general election battle and what's at stake for the commonwealth.    Reid breaks down the Democrat field of six candidates vying to face him in November, sharing his thoughts on frontrunners and underdogs.   The interview covers key issues driving Virginia voters, including the controversial car tax, rising property taxes, and education policies that have parents concerned about their children's schools. Reid explains his vision for protecting Virginia's right-to-work status and economic competitiveness while pushing back against what he sees as radical progressive policies.   From his campaign stop in Virginia Beach, Reid also shares insights from conversations with voters across party lines and his strategy for winning moderate voters   00:00 Introduction and Opening Remarks 00:24 Primary Day in Virginia 01:00 Lieutenant Governor Candidates 02:49 Critique of Candidates 05:05 Voter Sentiments 07:14 Economic Policies and Tax Issues 12:45 Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thanks for listening to this bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast. I'm your host, Joe Thomas, Virginia correspondent for The Daily Signal. Before we dive into today's interview, I want to thank you for tuning in today. If you're a first-time listener, The Daily Signal, brings you fact-based reporting and conservative commentary on politics, policy, and culture. And I hope you join our band of regular listeners to our podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and also take it. Take a moment to rate and review us wherever you get your podcast.

You can find additional content at DailySignal.com. Now, let's get started with today's conversation right after this. At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure growth and expansion advice, and we can talk your ear-off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do. business so join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact

Desjardin today we'd love to talk business so it is a primary day and we just watched New Jersey's primary last week Cherelli taking the nomination of Republican I still you know I have family in New Jersey they still don't know who the young lady is who's running as the Democrat for governor that might bode well later this poll said it's a rounding error in between the two. I looked at the poll results. It almost looked like, you know, one of those, well, would you vote for the generic Republican or the generic Democrat?

But here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, it is our primary election day. And the man who is the nominee for lieutenant governor is going to find out who his opponent is going to be in a little analysis from the other side of the aisle. John Reed. Good morning, John. How are you doing, sir? Hey, I'm feeling good. I'm wondering what the answer will be tonight. I figure there's six Democrats running for lieutenant governor. It's really clear that that party is serious about pumping money into Virginia. They want to win. They want to take over the state. I am going to do everything I can to restore kind of a reasonable kind of fair outlook.

on state government, which I think is the exact opposite of where the Democrats are. But I don't know. I've called around for two or three days. Like, hey, who you think the Democrats are going to pick? And there doesn't seem to be a consensus. Oh, boy. Thank goodness they're not using ranked choice voting. We could be here for weeks. You're right.

So let me ask you this. And I know that two of them are kind of the two attorney general candidates are sniping at each other over, you know, fundings and campaign funding from Dominion Energy and stuff that cripples Virginia political figures all the time. You know, oh, we regulate your business. Oh, look, the biggest provider of whatever it is you do is my biggest campaign contributor. What do you see amongst these lieutenant governors, not to give away, but I hope they're busy right now and not listening to the radio. You know, who would you like to face off?

LeVar Stoney, you broadcasted to his town while he was mayor for a long time. You surely know his record. Is that who you'd like to face or one of the lesser known candidates? Well, I think they're all really crazy radicals. So whoever gets it, I think I'm in a good position because I've tried to establish a career that's in business, whether it's government affairs and public relations or broadcasting. I think I'm pretty grounded. And I think I'm more aligned with where the average of Virginia is than these

social justice warriors. As you point out, LeBarstone, he was the mayor of Richmond for eight years. Everything he touched while he was mayor was a disaster. He took great pride in tearing down the Confederate statues. The problem is he tore them down and let the mob be the catalyst for that instead of having an organized plan to take a vote. Now, I wouldn't vote to take those statues down because I respect our history, and it's a big tourist attraction for Richmond. But when his own lawyer told him he was about to break the law, he said he didn't care. So to me, that's a disqualifier. Then you get to the water crisis in Richmond where, you know,

the General Assembly had to leave for a week because we didn't have water in the state capital. And, you know, hospitals couldn't have surgeries. Give me a break. I mean, this guy was a disaster. Zala Hashmi, the senator, from Chesterfield, she very proudly proclaims herself as a left-wing progressive. And while the rest of us have been celebrating the 250th anniversary of Patrick Henry's famous speech, give me liberty, give me death, and other major attractions, she's been out in

front with a bullhorn screaming about Trump. I mean, she's, I hate to say it, I like to be respectful, but she's a total, you know, radical too. And then down in Virginia Beach, you got Aaron Rouse, who was on the city council that kind of stumbled his way into the state Senate. He's trashed the cops over and over again. So, you know, I feel pretty good that whoever the Democrats pick, it's going to be a great contrast. And I think normal Virginians who just want to live in peace and raise their families and feel good about life in Virginia, that they're going to pick somebody like me who's normal. So it's become the political paradigm here in our flagship state, John Reed on with us running for Virginia lieutenant governor, he's the GOP nominee, that in

order to win in Virginia, you need to increase the Republican vote by about 5% in the golden sickle. I mean, Crescent, I always see a sickle when I look from northern Virginia through Richmond and out through Hampton Roads. And Hampton Roads is really where you can make a lot of, hey, because of the military families, because of the air base there and the joint station. Is that where you're seeing it? I know you've held some huge rallies down that way. Are people who traditionally had voted for whoever was on the D team turning around and saying, ah, this is just, they've pushed too far? Yeah, I think the Democrats have really overstepped. They have become radical.

They doubled and tripled down on it. It's the trans ideology that just permeates these public schools to telling parents, you know, we don't care what you think. We're going to do what we want. I mean, people didn't like that when Terry McCallop was running for governor. That's why Glenn Yonkin is the governor. And I'm actually talking to you this morning from Virginia. Virginia Beach. I spent the last two hours with voters in Virginia Beach. And I didn't know whether I'd be dealing with Republicans or Democrats, but you know, they are mad. Everybody, everybody is mad about the car tax. They just paid it in most places two weeks ago. They had to write one big check for, you know, an asset that's diminishing in value. And they get, people are tired of it. And, you know, Jim Gilmore ran for governor. trying to get rid of it and everybody jumped all over him and prevented that from fully taking

place. I think there's a growing consensus amongst Republican voters and now Democrat voters that this thing's got to go. And that's one of the issues I'm really going to attack during the campaign and his lieutenant governor. Well, I'm going to bring up some statistics here. You may not have seen it. Governor Yonkin here in Virginia just said collections. I'm sorry, they use the word revenue, John. And I always rewrite it. It's. collections, tax collections in the commonwealth were up 6% or $1.5 billion year over year from the first 11 months of fiscal 2025. I think there's enough money to give some money back to the taxpayers, don't you? I do. And especially this big car tax payment, you know, if you're making $300,000

a year, you can write the check. You might even have a really expensive car in your garage. But for, you know, the average working family to write a check all at once to pay for a car that they, you know, finally maybe have paid off the basic note, but they still owe money to the state. That symbolically is bad. You know, we don't exist to work for the government. The government's supposed to work for us. And I think there's a fundamental readjustment that has to happen in the way we approach the tax policy in the common. wealth of Virginia and you know quite frankly all across the United States well it's not

just the the believe me I'm looking at red ink on my ledger right now because we just paid our payroll taxes this month I mean those we've we've created jobs I think there's so much more nitrous oxide in the tank for job creation anywhere you know there are simple fixes where you lift the yoke of government off of a business and all of a sudden two three people at each of these small businesses get hired talking with John Reed for Lieutenant Governor. First thing today on the Talk Media Network by Joe Thomas, the second most famous Thomas in Charlottesville. But now it's my candidacy.

I'd appreciate it. If you vote for me, I want to be Vice President. Vote for me. The latest from Iran and Israel coming up, we'll get back to that. Also, Stefan Padfield, he had to run off for a moment back from the Free Enterprise Project coming up, you and me as well at 434-882-4217, brought to you by first free in the morning coffee, our bespoke blend of beans that can help you get your day started, made by 127 roasters of central Virginia here, and a ministry that helps orphans with the money you spend on our coffee. First free in the morning coffee by 127 roosters.

You get it online at 127.comffee. John Reed, lieutenant governor-candidate is awaiting as it is primary day here in our flagship, who his opponent might be for the general election in Virginia. And John, you were talking about the car tax. But people I talk about, you know, look at the car tax much in a lot of the same way they say, well, is tax on tips impacting a lot of people, that kind of thing? What do you say to that? Yeah, look, the car tax, you know, getting rid of taxes on tips, we're finally going to take

care of the working people. And, you know, the Democrats always say they care about the working people. Well, Republicans, I think, help create those jobs. They want people to stay in Virginia and be happy. I think this is a real opportunity. Then you get to your real estate taxes, which is another abomination. I mean, there are people who have spent 30 years paying off the note on their house, and suddenly the real estate assessment goes up on their house.

They're on a fixed income. They can't afford the new tax. And guess what? They're about to lose their house. Now, that's sick. That's wrong. That shouldn't happen in most. modern America and in Virginia, we're going to do something about it. And I also have to tell you,

we've got to protect Virginia's economic ecosystem. You know, we've, we've had decades where people might lose a job. They can generally find another job. It might not be tomorrow, but they're not destitute. If we let the right to work go away and you're forced to join a union, that means a lot of businesses aren't coming here anymore. If we let the Democrats get away, with raising minimum wage as one of the lieutenant governor candidates proposed to $20 an hour in Arlington and Alexandria and in Bristol for goodness sakes. You know, I don't know. Maybe in Arlington and Alexandria, maybe, maybe they can, you know, absorb that, but I promise you they can't in other parts of the state. This is the economic illiteracy of the modern Democrat party,

and you need somebody like me who ran communications at the U.S. Chamber. of commerce who's been a part of startup businesses and big businesses. I was a big partner in a government relations firm for a number of years. I know how this stuff works, and we've got to protect Virginia's economy and workers. And at the end of the day, you said you're out there, you're talking with folks. Democratic primary is going on right now, but we don't register as Democrats. I'm sure there are Republicans out there, since there isn't a primary in the Republican party just exercising a franchise there. But come November, or actually late September, when our 45-day ridiculous voting period starts, you're hoping that some of the folks who are voting,

or maybe just not voting today in the Democratic primary, because it's not, I'm hearing voter turnout is, you know, is very soft. And then as soon as I hear that from several people, I'll see an article in the Richmond Times saying, oh, no, it's robust. Everyone's all. There's a, There are no lines that we can find, but surely there are people are voting from somewhere. You know, are you expecting, have you heard from Democrats that say they like what you stand for and they're done with the crazy? I think there are a lot of Democrats who are normal working people who are fed up with the crazy stuff, the trans stuff, you know, their kids, the threat that they're kids.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this story about these poor boys who were being persecuted, essentially, because they didn't want a girl videotaping in their locker room. Hello, yeah. That's the problem. Yeah. People don't like that, and they don't like the higher taxes. And, you know, I hate to say it, the modern Democrat Party has really gone way to the left, even in Virginia.

Yeah. And one of the reasons that I left my radio show and jumped into this race was, I think we need really strong conservative leadership that's willing to get into a tussle, if need be. But the goal is to explain these issues and to win over those middle of the road voters who had kind of sworn off the Republican Party. I'm going to bring them back. Amen to that, John. God bless you, sir. It's John.

It's readforvorgia.org, right? Johnreadfor Virginia.com. Our EID, I really would value people checking it out. And, of course, I could always use a little extra money. These things are expensive. I have no idea how bad it was. It's terrible. You know, you're learning in the crucible of an election cycle.

Bless you, sir, and you have a great morning. Hey, thanks, Joe. Always appreciate it. That'll do it for today's show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new episodes from The Daily Signal. Every weekday you can catch top news in 10 to keep up with the day's top headlines in just 10 minutes. And every weekday afternoon catch Victor Davis Hanson's thoughtful analysis for the Daily Signal. If you like what you hear on this show, would you take a minute and leave us comment?

We love hearing your feedback. Thanks again for being with us today.