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Campaigns Meetings

Meet our statewide candidates

Candidates for statewide office will bring their campaigns to the Lake of the Woods Democratic Club on May 8.

Three candidates for lieutenant governor and two for attorney general will participate in the meeting in Classroom II of the LOW Community Center. The meeting begins at 1 p.m. with socializing and the program starts at 1:30.

Virginia’s Democratic Primary Election will be held on June 17, and successful candidates will face statewide voters in the General Election on November 4. Early voting at the Orange County Registrar’s Office is already in progress.

Scheduled for the May 8 meeting are the following candidates for lieutenant governor:

  • Ghazala Hashmi of Richmond represents the 15th district in the Senate of Virginia. She worked as an educator and academic administrator for 25 years before running for office. 
  • Babur Lateef of Woodbridge is a physician, parent, and a product of public schools. He has served the Commonwealth as chairman of the Prince William County School Board and chairman of the University of Virginia Health System Board where he has focused on improving education and health care across Virginia.  
  • Victor Salgado of Arlington County served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice, specializing in complex prosecutions involving corruption and related misconduct at all levels of government — including senior government and elected officials — and crimes involving financial institutions.

Two candidates for state attorney general are scheduled to participate., though Shannon Taylor will speak via an online connection rather than in person:

  • Jay Jones of Norfolk is an attorney who focuses his practice on state attorneys general work as well as regulatory and policy matters, including environmental, social, and corporate governance issues. He previously served as an assistant attorney general for the District of Columbia, where he was a member of the Office of Consumer Protection.
  • Shannon Taylor of Richmond was first elected Henrico County commonwealth’s attorney in 2011 after years of service as a professional prosecutor at the local, state, and federal levels. She was honored by her peers throughout the state when she was chosen as president of the Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorneys Association, an organization that advocates for effective law enforcement reforms in the Virginia General Assembly and conducts important training across the state. 

Other Democratic candidates in the 2025 election cycle include Abigail Spanberger for governor; and Aaron Rouse, Levar Stoney and Alex Bastani for lieutenant governor. In addition all candidates in the Virginia House of Delegates will be up for election, including Forrest Miller in the 63rd House District.

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Campaigns

Miller seeks House seat

Forrest Miller, a retired U.S. Army veteran from Spotsylvania County has announced that he will seek to represent the 63 District, which includes Lake of the Woods, in the Virginia House of Delegates.

Assuming his nomination by the state party, Miller will oppose incumbent Republican Delegate Phillip A. Scott in the November 4, general election. No other Democrat has undertaken a campaign for the seat. The deadline for filing was April 3.

Miller was born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2000 and attended basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. In May 2009, he graduated from the Warrant Officer Candidate Course and later retired in 2021 as a Chief Warrant Officer 3.  

During his military career he served tours as the trip site director, White House Communications Agency; Commander’s Communication Team director, U.S. Northern  Command/NORAD, Colorado Springs, Colorado; and network operations director, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.

He served combat tours in Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, where he was awarded the Bronze Star medal. He also deployed to numerous locations such as the United Nations General Assembly, New York City and the multiple G8 Summits around the world in support of the President of the United States while stationed at the White House Communication Agency.

Miller holds a Masters in Network and Communication Management, a Bachelors of Science in Technical Management and an Associate of Applied Science in Network Administration.

He is married to Jamie Miller, who is a veteran and former law enforcement officer. The couple have two children, who attend Spotsylvania County Public Schools.

“As recently as last year, I would have told you that I was a moderate Republican,” Miller wrote on his web site. “However, today that is no longer the case. I just could not follow where that party was going any longer.

“In my military career, I learned how important values such as honor, respect, integrity, and selfless-service are. I believe that these are fundamental character traits that make us Americans and are hard to find in today’s Republican leadership,” he said.

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Campaigns

Sen. Kaine visits LOW

On Monday, Oct. 21, Sen. Tim Kaine was the club’s guest at a meeting at the LOW Clubhouse. He fielded questions from a standing-room-only audience  about health insurance, term limits, federal funding of programs for crime victims, Social Security, Supreme Court ethics and a variety of other topics. Sen. Kaine is running for his third term as U.S. senator.

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Campaigns

Sen. Kaine to visit LOW

Sen. Tim Kaine, who has served Virginia in the U.S. Senate since 2013, will visit Lake of the Woods on Monday, Oct. 21, to meet local voters as he seeks re-election to a third term.

The event, hosted by the Lake of the Woods Democratic Club, will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Club Room of the LOW Clubhouse. Everyone is welcome to attend and light refreshments will be served.

Sen. Kaine’s lifetime of service to the Commonwealth includes serving as mayor of Richmond, as lieutenant governor and governor of Virginia and as the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in 2016. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979 and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1983.

During his tenure in the Senate, Sen. Kaine has contributed to expanding educational opportunities and access to affordable health care for all Americans, improving the quality of life for our troops, reducing military spouse unemployment, funding local law enforcement, addressing the opioid crisis and lowering prescription drug costs.

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Campaigns Elections

Reserve your yard signs

Support Democratic candidates

Come grab your Democratic yard signs to show support for our candidates!

The Coordinated Democratic Campaigns will have a car full of yard signs to hand out from noon to 3 p.m. at the LOW Community Center on Thursday, August 29. Please sign up so we can have an estimate of how many signs to bring.

LOW Association regulations say that political signs are permitted from Sept. 6 until Election Day. Only one sign per candidate is allowed.

Click the button below and register to reserve your signs.

Let’s make our support visible until election day!