This election season is midterms; get to the polls!
Before you go, I want to make sure my fellow Longwood voters know what’s on their ballot this year. First, I’ll go through Senate and House elections, then local town positions like mayor and at-large. Finally, I’ll go over Virginia amendments and the local tax referendum. All information I provide will be nonpartisan or bipartisan, with major positions from both sides’ websites and links to those websites at the end. Most importantly, early voting ends October 31st, and election day is November 3rd. I
f you want more information on how to vote, read Dakota Wolley’s “A College Girl’s Guide to Survive: Your Vote, Your Voice”.
In the Senate, Virginians will be voting for either Mark Warner or Bert Mizusawa. Mark Warner is the Democratic candidate in this race and the incumbent, which means he is currently our senator and is running again. The three issues on his page that I will cover are lowering costs, universal healthcare, and preparing for AI.
His main plan to lower costs is within the housing market and includes encouraging rehabilitation of existing structures, speeding up permitting, and making it easier for first-time homebuyers to get their first mortgage. He also has plans to continue addressing the child care labor crisis. Warner has previously expanded healthcare by working on the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare), and he plans to continue by lowering premiums, keeping the healthcare system sustainable, and ensuring Americans have access to basic forms of care.
His site mentions that when people have no access to healthcare, they end up in emergency rooms, which is the most expensive type of care and raises costs for everyone.
The final policy I’m going to mention is his plans to prepare for AI; he wants to ensure AI corporations pay their share to cover the strain they cause on our energy grid, and that we all prepare the workforce for the way AI will change employment.
Bert Mizusawa, the Republican challenger, is also running on affordability, lowering healthcare costs, and energy issues. His plan to lower costs for Virginians is to lower the tax on selling your home and to lower other tax burdens on Virginia families.
Mitusawa’s plan for healthcare is to hold insurance companies accountable for their rates for Virginians. He also wants to obtain funding for rural hospitals, many of which are in disarray and missing an OBGYN department.
His policy on energy is to bring a new nuclear power on-line to slash energy prices in Virginian households. I would recommend you visit both their websites and do outside research on their political pasts and their policy before you vote!
There are three candidates on the ballot for the House seat here in the fifth district. First is the Republican incumbent, John McGuire, then the Democrat challenger, Tom Perriello, and finally an independent named Cooke Harvey. John Mcguire’s “for Congress” website contains little about what he will implement if he is reinstated as the fifth district’s representative; however, he does have his positions on abortion, religion, the Second Amendment, and the executive front and center. The website reads “Pro-life, Pro-God, Pro-Gun, Pro-Trump”. He’s also been endorsed by President Trump.
On his main page, which is his official house.gov page, you’ll see he’s introduced or worked on many bills, including the FAIR Act, intended to lower utility costs for all Americans, especially working families and rural communities; the Home Savings Act, which would remove tax penalties for withdrawing from a 401K account if those funds go towards purchasing a home; and he voted for the Big Beautiful Bill, which was the presidents vision for the countries spending in the coming year.
Tom Perriello, the democratic challenger’s biggest positions are on corruption, housing, and rural communities. Perriello vows to keep dark money out of Congress and ban insider stock trading. He himself does not take AIPAC, corporate, or lobbyist money. His housing commitment is to cut common corporate practices that raise prices, cut bureaucratic red tape, and build more housing. His promises to rural communities are to reverse the closing of their local health clinics and to end the trade wars that have raised the prices of fuel, food, and fertilizer, as well as to fight energy corporations to slash those costs for the average Virginian farmer.
Cooke Harvey does not have an official website; however, his participation in interviews and on social media could give constituents a good idea about him. He does not accept monetary donations; he does not believe in a two-party system because it causes polarization and gridlock in Congress; he plans to end the war in Iran because it would bring immediate relief to current affordability issues; he is also anti-Flock cameras, believing they violate Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights. I would recommend you visit every website I provided on these candidates, research their past in politics, and gain your own knowledge and positions about their opinions.
To understand why we vote on amendments to the Virginia Constitution, you must understand how they made it to your ballot. An amendment must go through two separate sessions, proposed first in the Senate or House of Delegates, tabled until after the next general election, assuming it is passed, and then passed again in a new General Assembly. Then it goes to a voter referendum (your ballot), where constituents vote, and the amendments can be passed by a simple majority.
The first amendment is aimed at allowing Virginian citizens the ability to make decisions on prenatal care, childbirth, birth control, abortion, and fertility care. It would also prevent doctors and nurses from facing any punishment for these decisions. Finally, it would allow restrictions on abortion in the third trimester.
The second amendment would remove the ban on same sex marriage, which is only legal by federal law, not state law; Obergefell v. Hodges was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015, making same-sex marriage legal and superseding Virginia’s constitutional ban. If Obergefell V. Hodges were to be overturned, same-sex marriage would once again be banned by our Virginia Constitution. If this amendment is passed, however, it would remove the same-sex marriage ban, and there would be no prior legislation preventing same sex marriage in the case that Obergefell v. Hodges is overturned.
The third and final amendment would allow felons to vote once they’ve served their time if passed. To clarify, if you vote yes, you vote to add these amendments to our Constitution, and if you vote no, the opposite is true. Please research these amendments on your own, and learn about arguments from both sides of the aisle.
Finally, on things only found on the local ballot (Prince Edward County or Farmville), we have the Mayor race, elections for wards A, B, and C town council members, an At-Large council member, and a referendum for a tax on luxury goods. For Mayor, our options are the Incumbent, Brian Richard Vincent, and his challenger, W. Christian Fox. Vincent has been mayor since 2022, and his accomplishments include playground renovations, a new town charter, and the town’s first credit rating.
For housing, he points to the unused land within Farmville town limits to expand housing options and believes in growth while maintaining Farmville’s history. Christian Fox is running on transparency between Town Hall and the community, protecting residents from tax increases, and supporting better economic opportunities. To understand our town council elections, you must know that Farmville is divided into 5 wards, labeled A, B, C, D, and E. Council members serve four-year terms, and their elections are staggered: A, B, and C are held two years away from D and E. This year we are reelecting A, B, and C.
The only person running for Ward A’s council member is John F. Hardy. The only person running for Ward B’s council member is Adam B. Yoelin. In Ward C, both Patrick B. Carwile and A.D. “Chuckie” Reid are running. Farmville has two At Large members, who also serve staggered four-year terms. This year, only one person is running, and his name is John D. Miller. He is a Longwood professor in the English and Modern Languages Department. Finally, for the tax referendum in Prince Edward County, the proposal is a 1% tax raise on luxury goods, where the funds raised would go towards county schools.
Voting is so incredibly important and a civic duty for Americans, which is why I aimed to provide you with the most accurate, unbiased information I could. People under 25 will inherit this political climate and economy, so we should start to have our say in it now. Remember, early voting ends October 31st, election day is November 3rd, and Virginia is a same-day registration state, so if you aren’t currently registered, you could still vote. The links to all the sources I used are attached below, and I encourage you to visit them:
Cardinal News 2026 Virginia Voter Guide
Nov 2026 Proposed Amendments and Local Referenda