LYNDON GERMAN: Delegate-elect May Nivar, thank you for joining us today.

Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your district?

MAY NIVAR: Well first, thank you for having me.

Really excited to represent House District 57, which is Western Henrico Eastern Goochland.

And I'm a mom of three public school graduates, a wife, I'm also a, you know, community leader and a business leader as well.

And I decided to run because I felt this district needed better representation and and thrilled that I have the opportunity to be able to do that.

LYNDON GERMAN: This district was formerly held by Republican Delegate David Owen, who I believe narrowly won this seat in 2023 by a few hundred votes.

Come to November 2025, you are able to defeat Owen, garnering 56 percent of the vote.

How's the district changed in the last two years and why do you think you won?

MAY NIVAR: Well, let me just take a step back a bit.

In 2023, it was an open seat.

And Delegate David Owen won the seat by 715 votes.

So that was two percentage points.

And what made this district very comtetitive was because of that and also Henrico County has just leaned more and more blue.

The other indicator for us was the fact that Kamala Harris won this district in 2024. by 9.4 percentage points.

So just mathematically, it's already very a winnable and flippable seat.

It just took the right candidate to come in and here I come and I feel like I just have the lived experiences to better represent this district given my business background, given the work that I've done in the community.

And so we just hit the ground running really hard in terms of leveraging my name recognition and the work that I had already done in Central Virginia.

And just applying it toward this campaign, hitting the ground running with, you know, fundraising, with knocking on doors, taking advantage of a lot of the relationships that I have built up in the past decade, whether it was in the nonprofit community or with other elected officials, other leaders in the community to come out and support my campaign.

LYNDON GERMAN: Well, your victory was part of the Democratic Party's sweep of the state legislature in 2025.

How does that shift to the majority motivate you going forward?

And what issues are you planning to tackle?

MAY NIVAR: Before the election, on the House side we had a 51-49 slim majority.

And so it was really important for us Democrats to defend every seat that we have but also to expand the seats.

I ran on four key things.

One is want to fully fund public school education and raise teacher pay.

This is such an important issue for many teachers, for our infrastructure, our public school system and infrastructure.

So, to also focus on improving career and technical education is another thing that I've heard a lot at the doors.

The other is reproductive freedom.

I have two young daughters, young women who, you know, I don't want to live in a society in which they have fewer rights than I did growing up.

And so I want to be in a position to pass the constitutional amendment to enshrine reproductive freedom.

The other thing is affordability.

You know, affordability— a lot of voters in my district were talking about the high cost of housing.

"Rent's gone up," "I can't downsize," "I can't upgrade," "I can't do a lot of things," right?

And the other thing I've talked about is just "fill-in-the-blank care," right?

Elder care, child care, health care are all things that have been affecting many Virginians.

And so it's important to really try to help not only families feel like they're just surviving, we need to help them thrive.

Another— the other thing is public safety, right?

Ensuring that our communities are safe and healthy.

So, whether that is environmental protections, it's strengthening our gun laws while maintaining responsible gun ownership.

So those were the top four things that I ran on.

LYNDON GERMAN: You mentioned affordability and a thing that's kind of been a focal point in both parts of Goochland and Henrico are rate increases, energy uses, particularly as it pertains to data centers.

So I'm curious, do you have an opinion on this divisive issue?

Whether or not the state has a role regulating the growth of this industry?

MAY NIVAR: Well, I think there needs to be a balance and I know this has become a very hot topic in my district.

My philosophy has always been that we need to make sure that we bring all the right stakeholders to the table.

And we need to do this in a very thoughtful— thoughtful way where we do have an opportunity to hear from residents, to hear from the developers, hear from the local electeds, business leaders, environmentalists, right?

I do believe that these— In terms of the data centers, particularly that are impacting my district, that things are just moving way too quickly.

And I think part of it is that we're not putting the right people at the table to have the right conversations and understand what's at stake.

And so that's going to be my philosophy with not only with regard to data centers, but just pretty much any particular issue.

Is it's important to have all the right stakeholders at the table and understand what are the pros, the cons, consequences.

Because in the end of the day, my constituents have chosen to live in this district.

To have beautiful homes and raise their families, right?

And so it's really important to maintain that way of life.

But at the same time, understandably, there needs to be the appropriate growth that is necessary.

LYNDON GERMAN: In terms of Virginia as a whole, what do you think is the biggest issue you'll have to tackle coming coming into the January session?

MAY NIVAR: The biggest issue, one, is changing the tide of where this country is going.

And I think protecting Virginia and our way of life of, you know, just being able to protect our democracy.

I mean, I've heard this at the doors.

I mean, what has come out of DC and the Trump administration has really hurt Virginians.

Between the federal budget cuts, the job cuts... You know, I have a daughter who's a federal employee who has now, you know, left Virginia.

And I talked about this during the campaign is that what has happened is that you know, these jobs have been cut and it's hurting our economy.

It's hurting our way of being, you know, a top state for business.

And my daughter is a prime example of someone who, unfortunately, has gone somewhere else out of the state to find a better opportunity.

And she's not alone, right?

And so we have to stop the bleeding of that that has happened, right?

So, we need to really focus on the workforce and just helping families get back on their feet as a result of that.

We have Medicaid cuts, there's SNAP cuts that are happening and that just means that the state, we're going to have to do more.

Digging into our state budget, that has been allocated for other things, now to help support these budget cuts to fill some of those holes, right?

And so we have an opportunity at the state level to really mitigate some of that, but it's going to come at a cost, unfortunately, and a lot of that is due to the Trump administration and what they have been doing.

So we need to protect Virginia as much as we can and help our families.

LYNDON GERMAN: Delegate-elect Nivar, thank you for joining us.

MAY NIVAR: Thank you.