Welcome to Red Wine & Blue Virginia

Virginia is a safe haven for abortion rights in the South. Without federal protection for abortion access, we need to enshrine our current state law in our state constitution by passing the Fundamental Right to Reproductive Freedom ballot measure this year.

It’s not just abortion rights we need to protect. In 2024, the Virginia legislature passed the Right to Contraception Act to protect birth control for all Virginians. But despite broad support for this bill, Governor Youngkin vetoed it, putting our right to birth control like the pill, IUDs, and emergency contraception at risk. And at the federal level, extremists in the U.S. Senate won’t even pass the right to in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Here in Virginia, extremists have been extremely vocal about their plans to strip away all of these reproductive rights. That’s why, in addition to electing candidates who will protect our reproductive freedom, a top priority for us this year will be to pass the Fundamental Right to Reproductive Freedom ballot measure.

The Fundamental Right to Reproductive Freedom ballot measure will constitutionally protect our access to contraception, abortion, prenatal care, postpartum care, miscarriage management, and infertility care. Our reproductive healthcare decisions should be between us and our doctors. Let’s get this passed and keep politicians out of it!

Public education in Virginia is under attack. Extremists at the local level are banning books, rewriting history, and making LGBTQ+ kids, Black kids, kids of color — all children regardless of how they identify — less safe in the classroom. Anytime kids are targeted or bullied in a school environment, all of the kids at the school are less safe. All children benefit from a safe and accepting school environment.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is at the forefront of these so-called “parents’ rights” attacks on public education. That’s why in 2023 we launched our “Parents, Not Politics” campaign, and it’s working! In 2023 we defeated two-thirds of the extremist school board candidates in the races we targeted, and in 2024 we had an 87% success rate!

We are riding this momentum into 2025, continuing our fight to protect public education for all students. That means showing up at school board meetings, pushing back on book bans, and promoting a safe and inclusive environment in which all children can succeed.

Virginia has made great progress in the last five years to increase voting access in the state with same-day voter registration and no-excuse absentee voting. But Governor Youngkin has been laying the groundwork for voter suppression. Extremists want to reverse our progress and make it harder to vote in Virginia. Thankfully in 2023, we defeated many of them, helping to protect our voting rights against Youngkin’s extremism.

Despite the success of 2023, there is still so much work to do. The Youngkin administration pulled us out of ERIC, a bi-partisan national organization that works to clean up voter rolls and ensure accurate and fair voter data across state lines.

We are also one of only two states that still bars people previously convicted of a felony from voting in elections, even after they have served their sentence. This law dates back to the Jim Crow era and directly targeted Black voters. It has disenfranchised an estimated 9.8% of Virginia’s voting-age Black residents. No one should lose their right to vote without a chance to get it back. This is why it’s so important to update the Virginia state constitution to allow those convicted of a felony to regain their voting rights. We can do that if we pass the Right to Vote — Restoration of Rights ballot measure.

Passing the Right to Vote — Restoration of Rights ballot measure will make sure that people under guardianship will not automatically lose their right to vote, and it will automatically restore people’s right to vote once they are released from incarceration. Let’s close the book on Jim Crow-era laws in the former capital of the Confederacy and ensure that all of our rights to vote in Virginia are protected into the future.

71% of Virginians agree — same-sex couples should have the same rights as heterosexual married couples. But if Donald Trump’s radical Supreme Court justices overturn legal same-sex marriage, which they’ve hinted at doing, Virginia has an outdated constitutional ban that will automatically take effect.

That’s why we have to help pass the Same-Sex Marriage ballot measure this year. It will overturn Virginia’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and protect everyone’s fundamental right to marry.

Before Governor Youngkin and extremists in the legislature took power, Virginia passed common sense gun violence prevention laws that the overwhelming majority of Virginians support. This includes background checks, red flag laws (which allow guns to be removed from individuals who present a danger to others or themselves), and a one-gun per month purchase limit. Cities and counties also create gun-free zones at places like parks, recreation centers, and sports facilities, creating safer spaces for all our families. No one needs a firearm at a kids’ baseball game!

But under Youngkin’s leadership, extremists proposed legislation to loosen gun restrictions such as concealed carry without a permit. They made it a priority to dismantle the recent gun safety legislation. But their ideas are out of step with the majority of Virginians, and in 2023 we won back control of the state legislature. It’s more important than ever that we continue to push for gun violence prevention legislation and maintain control of the Virginia legislature in 2025.