Episode 23: Dwayne Yancey Interview on the View from Southwest Virginia

Hi, everyone. I'm Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode, I will interview Dwayne Yancey. He is the founding editor of Cardinal News, an independent news outlet covering Southwest Virginia and Southside Virginia. And I feel like Cardinal does a really good job covering that part of the Commonwealth that is not always covered in the traditional media.00:26.54Sam ShiraziAnd I also wanted to note that Cardinal has a podcast, which I think is really interesting. And it's always good to have more Virginia podcasts. So definitely check out that podcast if you're interested. And yeah, anyways, Dwayne, thank you for joining me.00:38.79Dwayne YanceyGood to be here. Thank you.00:40.86Sam ShiraziSo I guess to begin it with, you know, why did you want to start Cardinal News? And where do you think it fits in today's ah current media environment?00:49.34Dwayne YanceySure. Well, that like that's a softball to start off with. so in Some background. I was with the Roanoke Times for 39 years. And in its day, the Roanoke Times was the dominant newspaper in the western part of the state.01:06.00Dwayne YanceyAnd unfortunately newspapers are in a state of decline all over. And so the, the founding group of us who started Cardinal in 2021, 2021, most of us have been associated with the wrong old times and in some way. Yeah.01:32.18Dwayne YanceyUm,01:33.65Dwayne YanceyYeah, another board member, you know former editor there, our executive director, been a reporter there. So that was where we all sort of came out of.01:44.67Dwayne YanceyAnd we set out to fill a void that we saw in news coverage as newspapers were shrinking. And the void we saw was in sort big picture enterprise journalism um in that part of the state.02:00.83Dwayne YanceySo, you you know, we started in 2021 with a staff of two reporters. The first two reporters we had a political reporter and a business reporter because those were two areas where we, you know, saw a gap.02:13.57Dwayne YanceyWhat we did not count on um was how quickly newspapers would continue to shrink after that and how quickly people would come to us, you you know,02:23.79Dwayne YanceyYeah, and tell us, okay, you're you're our main news source, which is both flattering and also a little frightening because yeah I'm very aware of all the things that we can't cover. yeah we We are now up to a staff of 10, which is great.02:38.22Dwayne YanceyYou know, 10 reporters. But yeah, i remember when the Rungo Times had, you know, more than 20 reporters. So the niche that we have sort of carved out, I guess, is sort of a megaphone for our part of the state. One of our state legislators, State Senator Bill Stanley, R. Franklin County, said that we do a good job of explaining Southwest Virginia to the rest of the state and the rest of the state to Southwest Virginia.03:07.58Dwayne Yanceyand And I thought that was a pretty good slogan he had there.03:10.98Sam ShiraziWell, that's certainly ah ah ah ah interesting backstory and I think certainly a role that is really important, especially now that, you know, as you know noted, other what types of media and journalism is as...03:23.06Sam Shirazinot as Big as it used to be. So, you know, keeping in mind Southwest Virginia, I did want to kind of shift to the elections this year. And, you know, often in the elections, there's talk about Northern Virginia, Richmond area, Hampton Roads, the urban crescent in the eastern part of the state. And obviously that's important. There's a lot of votes there, but there isn't a lot of talk about Southwest Virginia necessarily or Southside Virginia.03:46.58Sam Shirazibut What is the view on the election, big picture from that part of the Commonwealth?03:52.58Dwayne YanceyWell, first of all, let me sketch the lay of the land. if I did that, I would use up a lot of red crayons because Southwest and South Saigon is a very red part of the state.04:05.38Dwayne YanceyThere are some blue islands there. Roanoke, Blacksburg, Ragford, a few other places. But this is an overwhelmingly Republican part of the state i in the basically the Western third of the state that we claim as our coverage area.04:22.52Dwayne YanceyUh, we have precisely one democratic state legislature, delegate Sam Rasool from Rojo everywhere else is represented by a Republican. Uh, and we're going to say these are Republican areas.04:36.62Dwayne Yanceyyou know, most of them start in the 70% range and work their way up. Uh, I, I live in Bogota County, it's about a 72% Republican County.04:46.75Dwayne YanceySo just to give people some some sense of things. So this is not a competitive part of the state, but the question is always, what will the turnout be?04:57.100Dwayne YanceyGlenn Youngkin won 2021, partly because he generated a very large Republican turnout, comparatively speaking, in this part of the state.05:10.60Dwayne Yanceyyou You saw voter turnout in many rural counties, including Southwest Virginia, go up by double-digit percentage points. Russell County's voter turnout went up by 15 percentage points over the the previous elections.05:26.26Dwayne YanceySo um some of your listeners in Northern Virginia you may, you know, yeah Republicans should thank Southwest Virginia. others Others may, you know, have the opposite point of view.05:36.61Dwayne YanceyBut if you're a Republican, know, you want to look at Southwest Virginia and you know you're going to and you know you're going to get yeah certain percentages. But what you need to do is make sure that turnout is as big as possible.05:51.00Sam ShiraziYeah, and and that that makes sense. And I guess one thing I wanted to ask specifically about South West Virginia is the Democrats' chances in terms of doing better this year. And obviously, after the last election, there's been a lot of talk about Democrats not doing well in rural America.06:10.22Sam ShiraziI'm not quite old enough to remember this, but in 2001, Mark Warner really focused on north on Southwest Virginia. There's a famous song he he created called Hero of the Hills. And Mark Warner actually did pretty well in Southwest Virginia in 2001 and again in 2008 when he ran for Senate.06:27.29Sam ShiraziBut ever since then, you know Democrats have really not done well in Southwest Virginia. I mean, obviously, they're not going to win it anytime soon. But what do you think Democrats can do to at least improve their margins a little bit in Southwest Virginia?06:39.35Dwayne Yanceyuh, the first thing would be to spend more time here. Um, yeah, there are good strategic reasons why they don't, there aren't many votes here. Um, but people in rural areas and in the further Southwest you go in Virginia, the more people feel estranged from their state government.06:58.78Dwayne YanceyAnd so any politician who comes and spends even a little bit of time there gets remembered. Um, Rick Boucher, who is the Democratic congressman from southwest Virginia for many years, has tried to preach that for many years. The Democrats need to show up and spend time there. and of course, that yeah know works against the need to spend time in northern Virginia.07:23.04Dwayne YanceyBut that that would be step one. i got yeah I've written some columns pointing out yeah how few of the candidates have been to Lee County. You mentioned Lee County. Mark Warner carried Lee County.07:33.98Dwayne Yanceyyou know, now it's an 80% Republican County. Um, yeah, my, my advice would be, you know first of all, go there. yeah.07:42.96Dwayne YanceySecondly, the, the issues, i mean, there, there are certain cultural issues that, you know, the, the way politics have evolved, you Democrats just are not going to connect ah to rural areas on, you things like guns and abortion.07:57.29Dwayne YanceyYou know, their their pitch needs to be on economic grounds. But, know, they need to yeah be able to yeah come here and seem authentic about it.08:06.87Dwayne YanceyAnd that may prompt other questions, but me shut my trap for a while.08:10.54Sam ShiraziYeah, no, I mean, I think that makes sense. And oftentimes I hear things from all voters that showing up is, you know, the most important thing and and the first thing you can do. And to your point about Southwest Virginia feeling, guess, alienated, i mean, I sometimes hear these stat statistics, which I think is true, is, you know, parts of Southwest Virginia, I mean, Atlanta is closer to it than Richmond. And so there really is a little bit of a distance, but also cultural divide. And, you know, in terms of,08:40.63Sam ShiraziWhat any governor, regardless of who gets elected, if it's a a Republican or Democrat, this election or any election, you know what do you think the politicians on either side, both sides of the aisle, can do to help bridge that divide between, let's say, north Northern Virginia, which is such a different environment and culture that as compared to somewhere like Southwest Virginia?09:01.90Dwayne YanceySure. first First of all, yes. Parts of, i we we have a map that was done that shows how close each part of Virginia is to to other state capitals.09:16.89Dwayne YanceyAnd if you get way out to the further southwestern tip of Virginia, in in the Ewing area of Lee County, you're closer to nine other state capitals than Richmond.09:28.62Dwayne YanceySo,09:29.41Sam ShiraziYeah, no, I mean, yeah, it's definitely the geography of Virginia is unique.09:29.83Dwayne Yanceyyeah Yeah.09:33.31Sam ShiraziAnd I think that that part of Virginia, especially.09:36.03Dwayne YanceyYeah. It's that little wedge out there that, you know, just becomes sort of geographically, you know, problematic when you're, you know, mapping things to Richmond.09:48.18Dwayne Yanceybut to, to, to answer your, your question substantive wise,09:48.09Sam Shiraziso web09:52.55Dwayne YanceyYeah, here here's the challenge. and And, you know, if this were easy, it would have been done, right? You know, the modern day economy, you know, does not really work to the benefit of rural areas. It yeah works to the benefit of, know, metropolitan areas that have lots of people and, know, lots of well-educated people.10:15.34Dwayne Yanceyknow, the educate excuse me the educational attainment level in rural areas is generally low. um When you have populations that are declining, you know, companies see that, you know, and they want to make sure there's a workforce, you know, not just now, but in the future.10:32.78Dwayne YanceySo, you know, that works against any rural area. So, you know, that that's a hard sell, know, yeah It's not like a governor or anyone else can just you know go to the store and get some jobs and yeah and say, hey, here they are. um you know If it were that simple, someone would have done it.10:50.81Sam ShiraziYeah, no, I mean, that makes sense. And I think it's it's not uniquely a Virginia problem. I mean these are issues that we're seeing across the country. And I guess one thing I wanted to ask you about, because oftentimes I talk to Democrats and there's a sense of, for example, with the latest reconciliation bill that was passed that President Trump calls the big, beautiful bill, there are potentially cuts to Medicaid and that's going to hurt lower income areas.11:15.36Sam ShiraziThat's potentially going to hurt places like Southwest Virginia. And Democrats often say things like, Well, you know, the Republicans are you know hurting a rural America or the hit they're taking rural America for granted, even though they vote, rural America votes for Republicans.11:29.67Sam Shirazifrom your vantage point, is that the sense that the people on the ground have? Because I know that there's alienation from the Democratic Party, but do you think that there's any sort of alienation from the Republican Party or do you think the Republicans just have such a stranglehold that it you know doesn't really matter what they do in terms of governing and how it might affect rural America?11:49.90Dwayne YanceyIt's sort of the latter. And also any, I had a column about this a few weeks ago, the the negative impacts of that bill will take years to play out. Let's, let's take rural hospitals for instance, you know, which depends heavily on Medicaid patients.12:10.74Dwayne YanceyWell, you know, with the changes in Medicaid is, you people are warning that some rural hospitals are going to close. That may well be true, but yeah know it's not like that's going to happen next week yeah or even next year. By the time that happens, yeah lots of things will have happened, and so it may be hard to you know12:32.61Dwayne Yanceyyeah draw a connection and say, okay, because you voted for this candidate, this is what you got. Well, you know historically speaking, that may be true, but yeah That may take a long time to to play out.12:44.32Sam ShiraziYeah, and I think that's one of the things that is a little bit tricky for the Democrats to unlock because, as you mentioned, there are those cultural issues and and often it's just hard to you know move past that if maybe that's the main thing that some of the voters care about. But I think it will be interesting to see how this bill will specifically impact Southwest Virginia and if there might be some changes down the line.13:10.35Sam ShiraziI did want to shift focus a little bit to ah ah specific race in Southwest Virginia this year, because i as you mentioned, almost all of Southwest Virginia is very red, except the one portion of it in Roanoke.13:23.94Sam ShiraziAnd there is a neighboring district, ah ah the 41st House District in Southwest Virginia, which includes most of Blacksburg and And it has a bunch of rural areas. And so it's basically like a 50-50 district, maybe slightly leans towards the Republicans, was one of the closest seats in 2023.13:43.12Sam Shirazibelieve the Democrat, Willie Franklin, who's running again, only came up short by about 183 votes.13:48.96Dwayne YanceyYeah. yeah13:49.49Sam ShiraziSo can you to just talk about that race? Because I think it's really interesting dynamic. And it's really the only race, and frankly, in like most of Western Virginia that is competitive.13:59.69Dwayne YanceyYeah. Yeah. that That is the only truly competitive, um, district we have out there or out here. And it's one of the 13, targeted races in Virginia that Democrats, um, house Democrats have identified.14:14.93Dwayne Yanceywhich I don't know if it was formally identified as a target race two years ago, but it was clear the Democrats did not pay much attention to it. This is a rematch of of the race two years ago. But let me sort of back up. Two years ago, this was an open seat.14:34.92Dwayne YanceyAnd you you did a good job of explaining it. It's Blacksburg, which is very blue, surrounded by a lot of rural areas that are very red. And you you mix them together, you get a very competitive district, which is very unusual for this this part of the world.14:50.52Dwayne YanceyTwo years ago, Republican Chris Obenshain won that by 183 votes. I forget his margin on election night, but it was much larger. his...15:00.79Dwayne Yanceya is mail ballots got counted, in the days that followed his margin kept slipping. Franklin had put a big effort, big push on Virginia tech students, in particular and, you mail, mail ballots, a lot, know, a lot of those tech students, you know, were Canada's provisional ballots and had to get adjudicated afterwards.15:26.10Dwayne YanceyAnd, know, she came up short by 183 votes, but it was a lot closer than, you know, Republicans thought it would be on election night. And after that election, Franklin said that, you know, Democrats basically just wrote her off. They didn't think any Democrat could win in this part of the state.15:41.47Dwayne YanceyI would have to go back and look at her statement, but, you she had kind of somewhat different profile than other Democrats around the state. She was not running a cookie cutter kind of campaign.15:52.56Dwayne Yanceyyou know, she was trying to run something very tailored to that district. And, you know, for whatever reason, you Democrats did not put as much money in in her race as they did others.16:03.30Dwayne YanceyUh, if they had, she might've won two years ago. Well, this time around, clearly Democrats have recognized their error. Uh, and she is very well funded, um, particularly for a challenger.16:16.73Dwayne YanceyI don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but they're, know, they're very large and she has a lot more money than Obenshain does. and so that, that is going to be, you a very well watched race all, ah all around the state.16:31.86Sam ShiraziYeah, I think that's going to be one of the closest races. And we'll have to probably wait for the provisional ballots. But I do think the Democrats want to win that seat to show that they're winning across Virginia, including in southwest Virginia.16:45.72Sam ShiraziSo definitely a race to watch.16:47.62Dwayne YanceyAnd I will also point out, you know, I mean, if if you're a Democrat, you you would think any Republican has done something wrong. But trying to be more objective here, Obenshain has not done anything wrong.17:00.09Dwayne YanceyAnd in fact, he has cut a different profile from many Republicans. He was one of the few Republicans, for instance, to vote for legalized retail sales of cannabis, you know, which is not a position you would expect from a yeah Republican. Yeah.17:17.70Dwayne YanceyOne, a Republican, particularly one who's an assistant Commonwealth's attorney. Um, but yeah yeah, I don't doubt that those are his views, but you know, that is very well tailored, you know, to that particular district.17:29.77Dwayne YanceyUm, Um, and yeah, I'm, I'm sure, you know, that, that was, you know, maybe somewhere in his mind.17:36.18Sam ShiraziYeah, I mean, I think when you're in a college town, that's probably a pretty popular stance to have. So, yeah, I do think it's going to be interesting to see how that race shapes up.17:47.74Sam ShiraziSo I wanted to ask you question little bit different, not so much political, but I would say maybe more cultural or geographic in nature. So I live in Northern Virginia. I live in Arlington, which I would say is both geographically and culturally very different than Southwest Virginia.18:02.72Sam ShiraziAnd, you know, I think it's interesting to follow um um what's going to on down there, both on Cardinal News and and just following it politically.18:14.41Sam ShiraziAnd I wanted to kind of get your sense on what people miss about Southwest Virginia in terms of you know what is not being covered or or things that people might not think about. And the reason I say this, and it might sound a little bit silly, but honestly, I think this is one of the ways people know Southwest Virginia.18:30.97Sam ShiraziThere was a recent book that was pretty popular called Demon Copperhead. ah it talks, it was set primarily in Lee County.18:38.90Sam ShiraziAnd frankly, I mean, I do think for a lot of people in Northern Virginia, i mean, that was one of the main ways they learned about southwestster Southwest Virginia. So what do you think people can learn from that book, but, and and just generally should know about Southwest Virginia?18:57.91Dwayne Yanceysure. Well, I've got read that book, but Barbara Kingsolver lives in Southwest Virginia. Um, So I have to assume that it is very, you know, authentic to the region.19:08.93Dwayne YanceyUm, Um, beyond that, I would say people, it is always difficult for people outside the area. i think sometimes understand how complex the region is, know, and they look at the, you know, the election returns and well, you know, it's 80% Republican. How, you know, how complicated you can it be?19:28.88Dwayne YanceyAnd you sort have to set those aside you know, look at the communities and in other ways.19:37.70Dwayne YanceyAnd, yeah, i'llll yeah i always tell people, you know, one of the things we try to do is pre in Cardinal is, yeah presenting authentic view of the region that is a more nuanced view of the region. yeah Over the years, we've had lots of reporters from of town, particularly from a certain large newspaper across the Potomac from you that will go nameless.20:00.92Dwayne Yanceyum Yeah, show up and write about us in ways that we don't recognize. And20:10.41Dwayne Yanceyand you know, there are a lot of, yeah, ours is a very easy part of the state to stereotype. And, you know, a lot of those stereotypes may be true, but they are not wholly true.20:24.18Dwayne Yanceybut, yeah, for instance, in my County here in Bogota County, um,20:30.21Dwayne Yanceythe The county recently took a survey trying to figure out how many online how many remote workers were in the county. And in the course of that, and they turned up up people and yeah in in the county who were working for Nickelodeon and Microsoft and Google, Google, um NASA. um you know this This is a more complex part of the state than yeah people may realize.20:56.44Sam ShiraziWell, I did want to ask one final question, kind of a combination question. What d would you say is your favorite part of Southwest Virginia or the thing people don't always place people don't always think about in terms of Southwest Virginia? And maybe give a pitch about why people should vacation in Southwest Virginia, because I know that's one of the ways that they're trying to improve economic opportunity by growing the tourism industry.21:20.46Dwayne YanceyOh, wow. I never expected you to be a pitch man. Yeah.21:24.89Sam ShiraziWell, you know, i think Cardinal does a good job giving us, Cardinal News gives a good job of explaining Southwest Virginia. And I think it's, you know, good important to raise the profile of that part of Virginia.21:37.58Dwayne YanceyWell, but when I was with the wrong old times ah capacity to hire people. And, you know, even now, I always tell people that, you whatever you're looking for, you can probably find it here. Now, you may not find it in the, you know, the quantity you were expecting, um but you can find it here.21:56.00Dwayne YanceySo it sort of depends on what people are looking for. If people are looking for, know, the outdoor experience, you know, hiking, canoeing, camping, you know, that is what this region is yeah all about from, you the Appalachian Trail,22:11.30Dwayne Yanceythat runs through the region on down to there's some new parks and the furthest part of Southwest Virginia, Clinch River State Park. And yeah know the Clinch River is fascinating because it's one of those biologically diverse parts of the country for reasons biologists can't explain.22:30.10Dwayne Yanceyeverybody's heard of the natural bridge. yeah Natural tunnel down in Scott County is even more impressive. It's like yeah natural bridge only you know, bigger and longer.22:39.65Dwayne YanceyYou You know, people are looking for more cultural things. You know, you've got the Barger Theater in Abington. You know, there's a very rich theater scene in the Rungoke-Lynchburg area. You've got the American Shakespeare Center in Stanton. We don't really count Stanton as part of Southwest, but you got go through there to get here.22:58.22Dwayne Yanceyum You know, music-wise, yeah There's a very rich musical heritage here that is celebrated in the Crooked Road Heritage Music Trail that that starts in Franklin County and winds all the way down to almost of the Kentucky line.23:16.33Dwayne Yanceythe The Harvester Performance Center in Rocky Mount is an old tractor dealership. It's really big name people. um So yeah I could go on and on there.23:29.71Sam Shiraziah Well, Southwest Virginia is certainly such a beautiful part of Virginia and i encourage everyone to visit if they get a chance. i so I certainly will try to make it down the next opportunity I have. And, you know, i appreciate you coming on and,23:42.78Sam Shirazitelling a little bit more about both the politics and the nature of Southwest Virginia. So thank you so much for joining me23:49.24Dwayne YanceySure, happy to be here anytime.23:51.71Sam ShiraziAll right. Thanks so much. And this has been Federal Fallout, and I'll join you next time. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com