“For, besides what has been said, people are fickle by nature: it is easy to convince them of something, but difficult to hold them in that conviction.” – Niccolo Machiavelli
In 2017, Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates received a shellacking in Prince William County, the Commonwealth’s second-largest locality by population. That year, a whopping five Republican-held seats that held various portions of the county flipped Democratic during a blue wave propelled by animosity toward President Donald Trump. From Woodbridge to Gainesville, it seemed that in an instant, all signs of life for the Prince William County Republicans had been incinerated– hellfire rained down upon anyone on the ballot who had any “(R)” next to their name.
The remainder of Donald Trump’s first presidency would continue to worsen things for Republicans in the county. Board of Supervisors Chair and Donald Trump fanatic Corey Stewart would become the nominee against Tim Kaine in the 2018 US Senate race, only to lose handily. In 2019 and 2021, Republicans would fail to flip back any of the territory they had lost in the House of Delegates, despite their best efforts.
One of the House of Delegates seats which Republicans were hoping to win back during the 2019 cycle was the old District 50, home to the biggest upset of the 2017 election cycle. That year, Democratic socialist Lee Carter had handily ousted House Majority Whip Jackson Miller despite receiving little investment from the House Democratic Caucus in a seat that voted for Hillary Clinton by 14 points. Carter had been a designated target for House Republicans, given his far-left politics and a “B-Rabbit” moment at the beginning of the 2019 cycle, where Carter revealed any and all skeletons in his closet he could think of.
Former Manassas City Councilor Ian Lovejoy (R) ran against Carter in 2019 but came up short in a Democratic-friendly environment. But redistricting for the 2023 elections would open a door for him to run for the open HD-22, which contains portions of four of the five seats in the House that flipped Democratic in 2017.
2023 proved to be a great year for Republicans in Prince William County, relative to the Democratic-tilting statewide environment. Lovejoy won by 4.6% in HD-22, which contains wealthy suburbs, gated communities, and some of the few remaining rural swaths of Prince William County. Local outrage over the Prince William County Board of Supervisors approving a plan to build data centers in the “rural crescent” of Prince William County gave Republicans an opportunity to channel anger amongst residents to stick it to the Democrats.
Republicans failed to flip the county government despite electoral overperformances, but the effects of voters’ dissatisfaction with the data center proposal were visible in the state legislative races that year. Aside from Lovejoy’s victory, then-Delegate Danica Roem scraped her way to a promotion to the State Senate despite little investment from Democrats until the last minute, when they sensed an opportunity to pull off an upset in the seat thanks to the data centers.
The following year, Prince William County surprisingly swung significantly rightward by 9 points (a trend rightward by 3 points relative to the nation) thanks to Republican gains amongst non-white voters, including in District 22. The seat, which contains communities such as Linton Hall, Bristow, Nokesville, Buckhall, and Independent Hill, is 58% white, which is in the 49th percentile of the white population by House of Delegates district.
In his first bid for re-election, Lovejoy will be facing one of the most famous faces from the 2017 blue wave in Prince William County, former Delegate Elizabeth Guzman. Guzman is mounting a comeback bid after coming off a series of failed runs for higher office throughout the 2020s. In 2021, she ran in the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor before dropping out to hold onto her seat in the House of Delegates. In 2023, she failed to win a promotion to the State Senate while running to the left of State Senator Jeremy McPike (D) in the Democratic primary for State Senate District 29… by just 50 votes. In 2024, she placed a distant second in the open Democratic primary for VA-7.
Guzman is a dyed-in-the-wool progressive, having been the Virginia co-chair for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and holding one of the top-five most progressive voting records in the House of Delegates during the 2023 legislative session, the last time she was in the House of Delegates. Guzman is hoping to defy Downsian political theory and ride another anti-Trump wave to victory as she goes up against one of the top-ten most moderate members of the Virginia House.
This is a much redder district than the one Guzman represented in the House, though. Her seat in the House of Delegates voted for the Democratic candidates for President by ~10% in both 2016 and 2024. She ran about even with her seat’s presidential margin in 2017, but ran ~5% behind it in 2019 and ~6% behind it in 2021. In 2024, HD-22 voted for Kamala Harris by just 0.7%.
HD-22, unlike some other competitive Republican-held House of Delegates seats, isn’t exactly trending in either direction. 2023 was the best Democrats have done at the House of Delegates level in the seat, but when compared to the statewide environments over the years, it’s both trended leftward and rightward. HD-22 has only voted for Democrats at the federal level since 2016, including Tim Kaine in 2018, Joe Biden and Mark Warner in 2020, and Kamala Harris and Tim Kaine in 2024.
House of Delegates Election Results in District 22
| Year | Result | Swing | Trend |
| 2017 | GOP +6.3 | N/A (some parts uncontested in 2015) | N/A (some parts uncontested in 2015) |
| 2019 | GOP +5.7 | DEM +0.6 | DEM +0.2 |
| 2021 | GOP +5.9 | GOP +0.2 | DEM +6.9 |
| 2023 | GOP +4.6 | DEM +1.3 | GOP +3.5 |
Despite Lovejoy’s voting record being more in line with the district’s partisan lean, the district’s muddled electoral trends, and lack of proof in the pudding for the 22nd supporting a Democrat for the House of Delegates in the past, our forecast has had Guzman as a moderate favorite to flip the 22nd since it launched this Summer. Currently, the State Navigate House of Delegates forecast projects Guzman to win by 2.5%, with a 65% chance of victory.
We met up with former Delegate Guzman in Bristow on Saturday morning to ask her about her comeback bid this year before she went to knock on the doors of voters. Here is our interview.
On to the doors, we went with Guzman as she hit the stoops and porches of townhouses in the Bennett precinct, just outside of Manassas. It’s one of the more Democratic-leaning precincts in HD-22, having voted for Lovejoy’s opponent by 8.5% in 2023, and this morning’s objective for Guzman is to get low and mid-propensity Democrats to make a plan to vote this year. Guzman noted that earlier in the day, the AFL-CIO knocked on the doors of union members in the neighborhood, leaving pro-Guzman literature where they went.
In the first conversation Guzman had with a voter, she immediately introduced herself and laid out her background. She asked the voter when they plan to vote, and he said that he plans to cast his ballot on Election Day. When Guzman asked what his top issue was, it was perhaps unsurprisingly “Dominion and my electric bills.” Guzman immediately noted that Delegate Lovejoy had previously taken money from Dominion, and Guzman has sworn off money from Dominion since she first ran for the House in 2017.
Data centers are still a force to be reckoned with in Prince William politics, but with this new kicker: The cost of electricity. Virginians have seen their electricity bills rise this year in part due to the establishment of data centers, so the dominating issue of the cost of living is now inextricably linked to data centers. Guzman has been harping on Lovejoy throughout the campaign for previously taking money from Dominion Energy, who serve many customers in the district (Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative is the other dominating electric utility company in the 22nd). Lovejoy has thus far not taken money from Dominion during the 2025 campaign, but previously received $10,000 from their PAC in 2023. Guzman has taken $62,500 from Clean Virginia and Sonija Smith during the 2025 campaign as of August 31st.
We returned east after Guzman wrapped her door-knocking up to see what Delegate Lovejoy was up to. Lovejoy manned his campaign’s booth at “Braemar Day,” a fall festival for a neighborhood in the Marsteller precinct in Bristow. Marsteller is also a very Democratic-leaning precinct, having voted against Lovejoy by 9.9% in 2023. Before the festival started, we caught up with Delegate Lovejoy to ask about his re-election bid this year and the top issues in the district. Here’s our interview.
Lovejoy proceeded to walk around the festival after our interview and introduced himself to Braemar voters working their tables before returning to his own. When speaking with one family selling homemade soap, the issue of Dominion came up again. There’s a Dominion proposal on new, ~100 foot power lines to be installed, with one proposed route cutting straight through the Braemar community. Lovejoy addressed the voters’ concerns and noted that he met with the community’s board and is reaching out Dominion and the SCC to share their concerns. After making his rounds, he returned to his stand to greet more residents and shake hands. One elderly man came to the table and proceeded to ask Lovejoy: “When can Democrats and Republicans come together to get people back to work?,” referring to the ongoing federal government shutdown that began on October 1st.
Lovejoy hopes “this week,” he said. The shutdown is perhaps the first or second-most salient issue this year in the 22nd, which complicates Lovejoy’s odds of victory as polls continue to show voters across the country blame Republicans for the shutdown by a double-digit margin. There are approximately 21,000 federal employees in Prince William County, or 8.6% of its employed population. On October 10th, “reductions in force” (layoffs of federal employees) began, according to the Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, firing 4,000 employees thus far. A few days earlier, Speaker Johnson and a White House memo floated the idea of not giving back pay to furloughed employees.
Should Lovejoy’s hopes be dashed, it’ll likely be curtains for him, especially if the shutdown continues through the remainder of October (or longer). The gains Republicans made in Northern Virginia from 2021 through 2024 will likely be undone in an instant, unless voters prioritize their unhappiness with county and city-level government (which is largely controlled by Democrats), as well as Jay Jones’ texts, in their vote this November.
At the end of the day, the next Delegate from the 22nd will win based on what the preeminent train of thought is amongst the makeup of the electorate: is all politics still local, or is it national? If it’s local, and voters are still unhappy with the Prince William County government and Jones’ texts, Lovejoy will be able to pull off an upset. If it’s national, and voters care more about the economy (an issue where President Trump has some of his lowest job approvals) and what’s going on at the federal level, then Guzman will ride a blue wave to victory.
