Virginia’s oddly timed primary election will be held one week from today — Tuesday, Aug. 4.
The strange timing comes because Virginia lawmakers asked us all to vote on a referendum allowing them to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the election. The primary was pushed back to give Virginia time to prepare for the new districts. Voters approved the referendum, but it was later thrown out in court. (If you’re new to this issue or want a refresher on the redistricting battle, get caught up here).
So, we’re all voting in our original congressional districts after all. And all voters in the state will have the opportunity to cast a ballot in a primary.
As we’ve mentioned before, Virginia does not require that a voter belong to a party to vote in that party’s primary. And this year, the Republican Party is holding a primary to select its candidate for Virginia’s U.S. Senate race. That primary is open to all voters.
Your guide to local elections in 11 central Virginia counties
The three candidates — Bert Mizusawa, Kim Farington and David Williams — all provided answers to the 2026 Central Virginia Voter Guide’s voter-submitted questions this summer. Data centers emerged as one of the biggest points of disagreement between the three candidates. From nuclear-powered data centers to stronger local control, the candidates offered competing visions for Virginia’s future. You can read those and other responses below:
Q&A with Virginia’s three Republican primary candidates for U.S. Senate
For some voters in central Virginia, only Republican primaries will appear on the ballot. Others will need to decide whether to vote in the Republican or Democratic primary. That’s the case in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, which stretches from Charlottesville and the western suburbs of Richmond through Lynchburg to Danville and the North Carolina border. In addition to the Republican U.S. Senate race, voters in the 5th District will also choose either the Republican or Democratic primary for the U.S. House of Representatives.
As with the Senate race, all three candidates for the Democratic 5th District primary responded to our Q&A: Rob Tracinski, Tom Perriello and Suzanne Krzyzanowski. The candidates shared similar concerns about housing costs and presidential power, but diverged on immigration enforcement, offering very different visions for the future of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Q&A with three candidates seeking Democratic nomination for Virginia’s 5th District
The Republican 5th District primary questionnaire remains incomplete. Only Melanie Lucero has responded.
Charlottesville Tomorrow reporters have been in regular communication with her opponent, Rep. John McGuire, asking for his participation. Members of his staff have indicated they’ll try to get us answers before Primary Election Day.
This feels like a good moment to pull back the curtain a bit on what goes into getting candidates to answer our voter-submitted questions. For every candidate Q&A that reaches your inbox, our staff at Charlottesville Tomorrow spend countless hours editing, fact-checking and reaching out to candidates.
My colleague Andra Landi, who spearheaded candidate outreach this year, offers a behind-the-scenes look below.
For this year’s primary election Q&As, we engaged in more than 100 individual communications — from phone calls, emails and text exchanges, to Facebook messages and showing up at candidate events — in order to make sure that our readers could hear directly from the candidates who are vying to represent them in the House and Senate.
Out of that 100, more than half of those communications were with the three candidates out of 11 who have not yet responded to our questionnaire — Rep. John McGuire in the 5th District, and Philip Harding and Doug Ollivant, who are both running as Republicans in the 7th House District — each of whom we’ve reached out to no less than 17 times since June.
We’re still working to publish those responses before Primary Election Day, and will update you if and when we receive them.
Q&A with Republican primary candidates for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District
That leads us to central Virginia’s final primary. In the 7th House District, which covers Prince William County, the Fredericksburg area, Culpeper and Greene County, three Republican candidates are vying to head to the general election: Rick Smithers, Harding and Ollivant. So far, only Smithers has returned answers to our Q&A. Harding and Ollivant, as well as their staff, have both previously indicated that they intend to take part in the questionnaire, but have not yet submitted their answers.
Q&A with Republican primary candidates for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District
Now, a few housekeeping things. For those of you who still wish to vote, early voting continues through Saturday, Aug. 1, either at your local registrar’s office or in satellite locations, depending on your locality. You can contact your local registrar’s office to find out where to vote in your area.
If you miss those, you can always head to the polls on Tuesday, Aug. 4!
Since this is an oddly timed primary, we’ll send out a couple more reminder emails this week and next.
Happy voting!
Jessie Higgins, Democracy Editor
