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How Hampton Roads’ candidates feel about housing, school safety, public transit and more

The entrance to a voting room at a Virginia Beach polling place in 2023.
Photo by Mechelle Hankerson
The entrance to a voting room at a Virginia Beach polling place in 2023.

WHRO asked readers what they wanted to know about local candidates, then we put those questions to the candidates themselves. Here’s how they responded.

Virginia voters have a full ballot in the upcoming election.

The presidential picks top the list, followed by a U.S. Senate race, U.S. House of Representative seats, a state constitutional amendment, county, city and town council seats, school boards and sheriffs. Some places even have special elections and unique locality-specific positions.

It’s a lot to remember, and there’s a lot of people to learn about, so WHRO asked candidates about the topics you said you were most interested in to help you as you prepare to head to the polls.

How we did it:

WHRO asked readers through its newsletter and on social media what questions they had for candidates running for local offices. Participants were asked to provide location information so their feedback could be matched with their locality.

WHRO looked for common themes in readers’ questions and when possible, included specific questions as submitted by readers.

Candidates’ contact information was taken from the Virginia Department of Elections candidate listings. If you are a candidate and did not receive a questionnaire link and would like one, please email news@whro.org.

WHRO lightly edited responses for spelling and grammar so readers could understand candidates, but refrained from making edits to the content of what candidates wrote. In cases where WHRO staff felt it was necessary for voters to have additional information to understand what candidates discuss in an answer, an Editor’s Note is included with links to third-party information about the topic.

If you don’t see your locality or district, it means candidates have not yet responded to our questionnaire. We will post responses on a rolling basis until Friday, Nov. 2:

U.S. Congress questionnaires (includes Virginia congressional districts 1, 2, 3 and 4)

Williamsburg

Newport News

Portsmouth

Norfolk

Suffolk

Chesapeake

Virginia Beach

Hampton

Western Tidewater (Emporia, Franklin; Surry, Sussex and Southampton counties)

Mechelle is News Director at WHRO. She helped launch the newsroom as a reporter in 2020. She's worked in newspapers and nonprofit news in her career. Mechelle lives in Virginia Beach, where she grew up.

Mechelle can be reached by email at mechelle.hankerson@whro.org or at 757-889-9466.

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