To: Interested Parties
From: Lee Francis, Chief Program and Communications Officer
Re: Virginia LCV-PAC’s Role in the 2025 Elections
Date: Monday, Nov. 3, 2025
Tomorrow, voters across Virginia will elect a new Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and all 100 members of the House of Delegates in pivotal elections that will shape the trajectory of environmental policy and affordable energy in Virginia for the next four years.
Virginia LCV’s Political Action Committee played a major role this cycle, spending upwards of a combined $3 million on field, mail, digital, and direct contributions to elect pro-environmental candidates up and down the ballot with the goal of securing Virginia’s next pro-climate trifecta, committed to securing a clean, affordable energy future and a safe, healthy environment for all Virginians.
2025 Electoral Program Toplines:
- 208,000 doors knocked
- 660,000 pieces of mail
- 400 volunteer shifts
- 42,000 phone calls and texts
- 8.9 million digital impressions
- 6.6 million video completions
Energy Costs, Data Centers Were Key Issues
Energy affordability is increasingly top of mind with voters across the country and here in Virginia is no exception. Virginia leads the nation in data centers and residents are already seeing their utility rates increase over 11.25% this year alone. Rising energy costs were front and center throughout this year’s election at every level of the ballot.
Virginia LCV-PAC completed robust polling across battleground House Districts in Virginia, including traditional surveys, and focus groups. What poll after poll found was that Virginians are concerned about household costs, including their energy bills, and believe that big corporations, the data center industry, and the Trump Administration are to blame for rising costs. Our polling also found that standing up for affordable, clean energy, and holding polluters accountable was a winning message with voters.
Addressing rising costs, including utility rates, was central to Abigail Spanberger’s campaign. Spanberger released plans to tackle energy affordability that call on data centers to pay their fair share and committed to lowering costs by expanding renewable energy generation and increasing production of cheaper, more reliable energy. While Spanberger has been laser-focused on lowering costs, her opponent, Winsome Earle-Sears doubled down on divisive culture war issues, ignoring the most pressing economic concerns of voters.
Pro-clean energy candidates in the House of Delegates also championed energy affordability in their campaigns. Data centers were prominent in several races in Northern Virginia, which is home to roughly one-third of the world’s data centers. In HD30, which includes Fauquier and Loudoun Counties, Virginia LCV-PAC’s digital buy went exclusively toward calling out incumbent Republican Geary Higgins’s record enabling data center development and taking money from the industry, while doing nothing in Richmond to control energy costs or hold the industry accountable.
Data centers and energy costs were also prominently featured in the news cycle with outlets like The Washington Post writing, “Anger over soaring utility bills is shaking political fault lines, as electricity shortages and price spikes take center stage in nationally watched gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia — and threaten to haunt candidates throughout the country in next year’s midterm elections,” and NBC News saying, “The sleeper issue that could play a huge role in Virginia and New Jersey —and the midterms: Data centers are spreading across the country and contributing to rising electricity bills. It’s becoming a political issue…”
Field
Our investments in field this cycle were by far the largest component of our campaign. Our $1.65 million canvass operation kicked off in August and resulted in 208,000 knocked doors for Abigail Spanberger, Ghazala Hashmi and Jay Jones in Greater Richmond, with overlap in three competitive House races: May Nivar in HD57, Leslie Mehta in HD73 and Lindsey Dougherty in HD75. Our canvass was the largest paid canvass operating in the state outside of the coordinated campaign itself.
On top of our statewide ticket canvass operation, we also ran our largest GreenRoots program to-date. Led by our grassroots mobilization team Climate Action Virginia, six organizers in five House Districts (HDs 57-Nivar, 73-Mehta, 82-Pope Adams, 89-Carnegie, and 97-Feggans) mobilized upwards of 200 volunteers to complete more than 400 volunteer shifts reaching out to voters on the ground and on the phones, urging them to support Virginia LCV-endorsed statewide and House of Delegates candidates.
Digital
Our paid communications program went live in early October in four House Districts: HD30 for John McAuliff (Loudoun/Fauquier); HD57 for May Nivar (Western Henrico); HD82 for Kim Pope Adams (Petersburg, Dinwiddie, Prince George, Surry); and HD97 for Michael Feggans (Virginia Beach).
The $300,000 program centered on themes of energy affordability, corporate polluter accountability, and data centers – all informed by our internal polling and developed in full coordination with the campaigns themselves.
These ads will continue running through Election Day and have garnered upwards of 8.9 million impressions and 6.6 million video views to-date.
Mail
In total, we invested $385,000 in turnout mail to encourage Democratic voters to vote by Election Day and support pro-environmental candidates committed to lowering the cost of energy.
We sent three rounds of social pressure mail to a 200,000 household universe corresponding with our statewide canvass operation in Greater Richmond. These pieces were designed to encourage stronger voter participation following our direct face-to-face engagement with the same set of voters.
On the House side, a suite of “Get-out-the-Vote” mail hit mailboxes a week before Election Day in seven battleground House Districts: HD22 for Elizabeth Guzman (Prince William), HD30 for John McAuliff (Loudoun/Fauquier), HD64 for Stacey Carroll (Stafford), HD57 for May Nivar (Western Henrico), HD71 for Jessica Anderson (James City/Williamsburg), HD73 for Leslie Mehta (Chesterfield), and HD 89 for Kasey Carnegie (Chesapeake). This mail program went to approximately 60,000 households.
Direct Giving and GiveGreen
To ensure pro-environmental candidates had the resources to win outside of the districts where we made larger programmatic investments, we also made $475,000 in total direct contributions this cycle through Virginia LCV-PAC.
GiveGreen, a joint program with NRDC, and our national affiliate, LCV, raised an additional $615,000 this cycle in direct contributions to candidates committed to securing a clean, affordable energy future.
About us:
The Virginia League of Conservation Voters serves as the political voice of the state’s conservation community, working to make sure Virginia’s elected officials recognize that our natural heritage is an environmental and economic treasure for all. Virginia LCV works with conservation leaders across Virginia and strives for a conservation majority in state government. We secure good public policies on the state level and hold public officials accountable for their positions on environmental issues. For more information, visit www.valcv.org.