Virginia’s Ballot Dilemma

Politics gets messy when your values and your ballot don’t line up. We dive straight into Virginia’s statewide races to unpack a real voter’s dilemma: a controversial AG candidate whose private texts ignited a public storm, a lieutenant governor race clouded by identity-over-policy branding, and a base deciding whether to split tickets, write in, or hold their nose. Along the way, we tackle the questions that keep serious voters up at night: When does conscience say “no,” and when does prudence say “lesser evil”? How much power does each office actually wield, and how should that change your vote?

We also zoom out to the system that produces these choices. If a party keeps offering candidates misaligned with its own voters, the answer isn’t apathy—it’s leadership. We share a practical blueprint for taking back party machinery at the precinct level, recruiting early, and building a bench so the next four-year cycle looks different. Because ballots are cast in November, but candidates are built in March meetings, county committees, and quiet planning rooms where rules and platforms are forged.

For a needed dose of good news, we spotlight a brand’s swift course correction: Cracker Barrel tried to abandon its core identity, faced a backlash, and reversed. It’s a reminder that institutions—business or political—survive by listening, not lecturing. We close by framing border security statistics that claim historic reductions, modeling how to interrogate outcomes without falling for easy headlines. If you care about faith-informed citizenship, electoral strategy, and practical steps that actually change results, this conversation gives you tools and the courage to use them. If it resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and tell us: where do you draw your voting line?

Chapters

• 0:00 Good News Friday Setup
• 0:23 Virginia Election Anxiety
• 2:13 AG Candidate’s Texts And Context
• 4:16 Party Responses And Intent
• 6:10 The Lieutenant Governor Dilemma
• 8:18 Conscience, Strategy, And “Lesser Evils”
• 11:05 Weighing Office Power And Stewardship
• 13:38 Take Back Party Leadership
• 15:25 Resource: Biblical Citizenship Course
• 17:26 Good News: Cracker Barrel Course-Corrects
• 19:40 Border Security Numbers Framed As Wins
• 26:35 Weekend Sign-Off And Tease

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilders Show, and it's a Friday, which means it's good news Friday. Got a lot of good news to get to you, but we ran out of time yesterday. And to all of you that send questions in, don't hesitate to ask about whatever the subject is. We love getting challenged and and we love having having great questions. But there was one that we wanted to get to, so we're just gonna do that at the beginning of our Good News Friday today, and it has to do with Virginia. We talked about the Virginia races several times this week. Of course, this election is just a few weeks away. Early voting already starting there. I did hear last night, guys, that in terms of just looking at the turnout in early voting based on party and that sort of thing, that there might be a two to three times turnout for Republicans. I don't know if that's true or not. That was that was just something somebody had told me. And and it's in response, of course, to the Charlie Kirk thing and the and people being motivated to to try to stop what's happening. But the race is kind of weird, and that's what this question was was about. Not so much Winsome Sears, the the gubernatorial candidate at the top of the ticket, but the lieutenant governor ticket, lieutenant governor candidate on the Republican side, apparently is is is a liberal candidate. I I think even openly homosexual. I mean, just definitely a weird set of you know, facts for the Republican Party in a state where you need a conservative turnout, and somehow this I don't even know their name, but they they managed to be the lieutenant governor candidate. And so that could be suppressing Republican turnout, but that's the complication in it. So I don't know if you guys have thought much about that one. 

David Barton [00:01:33] Yeah, and it was something I should have mentioned yesterday, 'cause when we're talking about Virginia, what was going on and the kind of shift that's happening now after the I I'm I I started to say blunder by the Democrat attorney general candidate, but I'm not sure it's a blunder. I think, you know, the Bible says out of the abundance of heart's mouth speaks. It may have been a political blunder, but it he actually said what he believed and what he thinks and what he meditates on. And, you know, that wasn't just I don't where did that come from? 'Cause he didn't apologize for it and no Democrat has apologized for it. So it's gotta be real intentional on the inside. Now he might not have pulled the trigger like he threatened to do, but at least that's in his heart. 

Tim Barton [00:02:10] And Dad, let me let me also add a little context here. It's worth pointing out that those messages from that Democrat individual running for AG that we're referring to, those were screen grabs. And so that was a text message to an individual. And I'm gonna add some context in my thought on this because I think it's not all that dissimilar to the the Charlie Kirk screen grabs that Candace Owens, Candace Owens, rather, was sharing and now have gone viral. Everybody's been talking about it. That turning point came out and talked about it, where Charlie Kirk said that he had a couple of Israel donors back out. They're taking two million dollars. And so he's not gonna be on this pro-Israel side. And and people saw that part of the text message or the screen grab, and they said, Oh, he's not pro-Israel anymore. Now Charlie Kirk's anti-Israel. And this is the big rant Candace Owens went on. Lots of kind of clickbait headlines and things. When we know several people that were on the text thread, we know there was way more to that conversation. That's not actually what Charlie was saying. Although if you only see that part, it makes sense. But one of the things that I was asked about this over the weekend, I think it was last weekend, maybe the beginning of this week, but I was asked about it by some conservative leaders, and I said, look, it's it's not unusual, and and actually, I think even Turning Point pointed this out. It's not unusual if you're in a private text group that you might say things in that private text group that you would never say on a stage in front of people, right? Sometimes you could be far more open or kind of crossing lines or dramatic, or you can express frustration at times. I think that's what Charlie was doing. Charlie was expressing frustration, disappointment, et cetera, in that text message to a group of trusted individuals that was not what he had expressed, or probably would express, although to some extent he had expressed frustration that he was very pro-Israel as a person. But the fact that if he wanted to criticize how Israel was doing things or some of their current leadership, people would accuse him of being anti-Semitic, which of course he wasn't. Anyway, I'm saying all of that to say that it's possible you can take a screen grab and things can be taken out of context. Where it's different in Virginia with his attorney general candidate is that the Democrat Party has doubled down on this. That that he didn't come out and say, hey, that's not what I meant. And given, you know, where we are today, that's totally inappropriate. That's not what I would stand for, et cetera. It would be different. If somebody came out and backed up or apologized for it. But the fact that they're doubling down, the fact that they're accusing people of being racist for bringing this up because he's a black individual, et cetera, that this is where you know there's something more to it. And so, Dad, when you say that's in his heart, I would just say that some people might offer the caveat that, well, you know, that's not what he was really saying, because a text message does show he was kind of trying to be funny and joking. Well, that's not a good way to be funny and joke. You don't joke about killing somebody and then going over the graves of their children and urinating on the graves of the children. Like that, that's not funny. That is very bad humor. It's very dark humor, but some people might say he was just being funny. So maybe that, and I'm saying this like to the point, maybe that wasn't in his heart. However, the fact that they're doubling down on this and they're not saying, hey, that was an ill-timed sense of humor, an ill-time joke. You know, clearly that's not what he believes, not where he stands. That's the way it should have been handled. And the fact they're not handling it that way, it does give indication, not just that maybe that's on his heart, but that this is a very intentional strategic position decision they're making, that they're gonna run with this as bad as it is. And so, and again, I'm saying the caveat where somebody might argue, well, that's not really in his heart. He was just joking. Well, if he's just joking, he should have come out and backed up and said, Hey, we never should say that. That's inappropriate, blah, blah, blah. And again, the fact that they're now going to accuse somebody being a racist for pointing this out instead of saying that was a very bad worded text message and that's a very bad position, that's really telling of what's going on. 

David Barton [00:06:09] Yeah, great point, Tim. And and so in looking to that Virginia race with the craziness that's happening and and the fact that that's what we kind of talked about yesterday was the governor position with Winsome Sears, and then also the attorney general with Jason Myores. We didn't say anything about the lieutenant governor position with John Reed. And in this election, it's a really tough for conservatives in Virginia and Christians in Virginia, or at least biblical professing people in Virginia to to vote for John Reed because it seems like the thing that he has made himself most known for is not his policies or his beliefs, but his open gayness. He he's gay, he's openly gay, and that seems to be kind of the the heart of what he wants to be known for more than anything else. And and so that that was a race we didn't talk about, but in voting in Virginia, you just you gotta vote, you know, if you're gonna vote biblically according to biblical values, with so many do, this is a real problem for the Republican Party in Virginia to put forth a candidate where they've got to rely on conservative, conservative Judeo-Christian voters to to make a difference. And I think we may be seeing some of that and it's really easy to split tickets, but traditionally in the last few elections, people did not split tickets very much in Virginia. They kind of vote all Republican or all Democrat. So we'll see what happens with this. But this is certainly one that they kind of the mixes of stuff and and the feedback that we've had on this, and even in it we've been getting daily updates on how many absencee ballots have been mailed out and how many are still outstanding, how many have not been returned, how many are in Republican districts and and Democrat districts, et cetera. Still a lot out there that's on that have not at least sent the ballots back in yet. We'll see if that means they're not going to vote at all or if they're they're just waiting till late to vote, which a lot of people do. But this is something we talked about yesterday that look, as soon as the election happens, you need to start recruiting candidates for the next four-year election, four years away. And this is the same thing you do with parties. If your party is not going to be responsive to to your values, you start recruiting people to run for party leadership right after the election. You start getting people involved at that at that local level, at that precinct level, because you work your way up in every state to to the state level. And so you start working on that, and we need, you know, conservative folks doing that the day after the election. You need to start getting involved in the Republican party and say, hey, we're not gonna do this again. We're we're gonna have a different outcome next election. 

Tim Barton [00:08:33] Hey, Dad, one more thing. And we didn't have time to read on air her full email. We we saw it when it came in. And one of the things, one of the questions was there's a Republican person running through lieutenant governor who kind of got pushed out in the primary. He's running as independent and he has more of the traditional conservative values. And so part of the question was should there be a third party consideration on this or a right-hand candidate? So there was a little more to that question, too. So how do we navigate that? If if you have who's running on the quote unquote right Republican side, they're not a conservative. They don't have conservative or traditional or biblical values. Then how how do you navigate that? Is that really kind of a conscience issue? Is there a strategy behind that? What do you think about that? 

David Barton [00:09:14] Yeah, and that's a great question, Tim. I I'll tell you where my conscience is on it. Even though in our state of Texas, I traditionally vote Republican. I do that not because the people have an R after their name, but because of what they stand for. I have in Texas made it a point that I will not vote a straight straight party ticket. I I just don't do that. To me, that's too disrespectful for all those people individually running all the way down the ballot. I want to vote individually for them. I want to know who they are, what they stand for. And so I just I don't do straight party stuff because just like what we have here in Virginia, I I'm not gonna get behind a lieutenant governor candidate that that that's his claim to fame. I I mean that is that's just not what I want in a lieutenant governor candidate. And so I in my case I like what Benjamin Rush said, signer of the declaration way back at the beginning when they were trying to figure out what party he was associated with. He said, Well, I've been called a Democrat, I've been called an aristocrat. He said, I'm a Christocrat. And and I think that's the right position. You have to look at the values they hold. And and I'm not talking Christocrat in the way of a Christian nationalist theocracy. It's biblical values. You go biblical values, and if that means you vote for someone outside of a normal pot party, you do it. You go for the best values of there that are winnable. 

Tim Barton [00:10:27] Well, and Dad, I think also this is where there's a balance also with being wise, having strategy. Well, one of the things that we we talk a lot about, even from the Bible that we kind of overlook sometimes today. People sometimes want to be more led by their emotions and than by their brain. And we're told to be wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. And so part of wisdom, that there's something to be said, and and again, I'm I'm throwing this out thought, but also a question. There's something to be said for I want to vote my conscience, but we can back up 2016 when President Trump was first running, and there was a lot of questions about his moral position, but we knew it's either gonna be him or Hillary Clinton. And so you can you can vote for a third-party candidate, but if there's not likelihood that third party candidates gonna win, then is it more strategic to say, look, it we don't have entirely a binary choice, but essentially you do. So shouldn't I vote for the lesser of two evils? And we've talked about before, every vote is a vote for a lesser of two evils, because unless Jesus is on that ballot, right? That everybody is a sinner who needs a savior. So nobody is perfect. There's none righteous, no, not one. So nobody that we're looking at is gonna be without flaws. But then is it strategic to say, okay, but only one of these two individuals, the right the top, the Republican, the Democrat candidates on the ticket are gonna win? Should I then hold my nose and vote for that person? And and this is where, again, dad coming back to you. There's a balance. Obviously, there's you have to balance out your conviction versus, you know, does your conviction move you into strategy? And I think that's individually, but how would how would you answer that for people? Again, I'm saying this because it's different in a primary than it is when it comes to the general, because the general's the final, right? Whoever you get, if I if I vote for a third party person who's got two percent support, is that wasting my vote? Is that following my conviction? Right? Is that not being strategic? How would you suggest or guide on that? 

David Barton [00:12:24] Yeah, another great question. And and first thing I've got to say is you gotta go with First Corinthians eight, that you don't violate your conscience. If you do, you sin against God. But we also know that conscience is trainable. You can train your conscience. As Paul said, look, you may have been taught that meat offered to an idol, you can't eat it at all, but we know that all things are are good if blessed by God. And so he talks to them about how to retrain their conscience, how how to get it moving in a more biblical direction. And so there are things 

Tim Barton [00:12:50] And when you say, when you say retrain your conscience, I it it's probably another way to think about that, is it's it's how to have a deeper level of strategic thinking, which helps guide your conscience... Let's think about this from a deeper level. And when you think deeper on this, then oh, well, because the reason that my conscience was convicted is because I didn't want to do this, but now I see deeper level. Oh, well, then okay, now my conscience is not right challenged because I'm thinking of this from a different perspective. So he was challenging their thinking, which was guiding their conscience, because ultimately at the end, he said, But if somebody has a weaker conscience, don't cause, right, don't offend their conscience. He acknowledged there is a weaker conscience, and this is not to say that one's viewpoint necessarily is greater, more spiritually depth than the other one is, but there is a deeper deeper level of thinking, which certainly can guide us, which can impact our conscience and our convictions. 

David Barton [00:13:44] Yeah, and and so that conscience you can't violate that. But at the same time, the as Tim as you were saying, the teachable and the trainable part is you also look at what happens to that position. For example, if that race were here in Texas, I will point out that the lieutenant governor in Texas has more power than the governor of Texas. It was set up that way in the Texas Constitution, and the the entire legislative agenda is pretty much set by the lieutenant governor, although the governor can announce special sessions as lieutenant governor that has the power. And so I would look at that and say, Man, if I've got a choice between a radical D and a gay Republican, you know, that's not a good choice for me. But I'm not gonna put someone in that's gonna do late term abortions and gonna do euthanasia is is gonna do all the other stuff, and I would have to choose lesser two evils holding my nose to do so. But this also goes back to where that don't ever get put in this position again. You start taking the party back and saying, All right, we need better party leaders. If this is what you think, because th this was not a a well thought out thing by the party, and they said it's no big deal, people are not gonna care. And and that just tells you what kind of party leaders you got because this thing is becoming more and more polarized across the nation as we've seen in the last two years, even with with what's happening with Trump and and campuses and universities and getting rid of these LGBTQIA+ nonsense that that's taking over sports, people are putting their foot down and saying, Yeah, it's time for some common sense again, and your sexuality is not what qualifies you to be good in office. And when you make that an issue when you run, that's that's almost disqualifying issue if you make that an issue when you run. So th this is a thing that's really complicated, Tim. You brought up great points, great questions. And in this, I don't I literally don't know how strong lieutenant governor position is in Virginia. I don't know if that's like being the president of the United States for the state of Virginia, or if it's more of a s because in a lot of a lot of states, Lieutenant Governor is pretty much what John Adams said about the vice presidency. It's not worth a warm bucket of spit. And so it's it's just not not that significant. I don't know about Virginia, and that would be a factor that would have to be counted in there to see if that's a really important place and you're gonna put a liberal progressive pro death Democrat in there, that's not a good deal. 

Tim Barton [00:15:57] And I think too, this is where you we balance out some thoughts with the the parable of the talents. You know, we don't want to be that one servant that had a talent and we buried it in the ground because we were scared and like, well, I can't vote for either one of these. No, I want to be a good steward. And and if I'm convicted, I can't vote for either one of the top two, then I'm probably going to write in somebody trying to be a good steward with my vote. And I think there's a a lot of that stewardship thought with this, which also, Rick, I feel like maybe some of these thoughts get covered in in a course that we've we've worked on together and offered. Maybe there's some more guidance somewhere else. 

Rick Green [00:16:33] Well well I was I was first just thinking I agree one hundred percent with David. I do the exact same thing. I go in and vote for each candidate. Like I I can't stand just I feel like I feel like I'm cheating if I just go do that, you know, straight party thing. I feel like I'm not thinking it through and and plus there do the the there does usually end up being at least one or two that I just can't bring myself to to vote for. But then of course the strategy question plays in if that's a you know, if that's the the even if it's a lousy Republican, let's say, but it's the swing vote on say the state Supreme Court or in the legislature, that sort of thing, then you have to factor all those things in for sure. And and yeah, definitely biblical citizenship and modern America folks. You can get it at wallbuilders.com and we walk through a lot of these tough questions. We have a lot of great input too from Jeremy Boring and Jack Hibbs and Rob McCoy and a lot of other folks that that joined David Tim and me in in that series as well. So check that out. Hey guys, we better take a quick break. We'll come back and actually do some good news in our final few minutes together. It's good news Friday. Stay with us folks, you're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:19:39] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show, Good News Friday, and a little bit different Good News Friday and take care of that Virginia issue out there. Encourage, of course, all of our listeners in Virginia. Make sure you vote in the next couple of weeks and and do your homework all the way up and down the ballot for sure. Let's see. I was thinking, should Tim start the good news if David got to start with the Virginia thing? No, no, we got to defer to the founder. David gets to go first with the good news. What's you got, Ron? 

David Barton [00:20:04] So I don't know that that's a good reason to go to me first, bro. That that that's that's pretty weak. That's 

Rick Green [00:20:10] Wait, Tim, this is our chance to say respect your elders, right? This wasn't this a great opportunity. 

Tim Barton [00:20:17] Honor your father and mother, right, hat you may live long the Lord your God is giving you. I just wanna live a long time. 

David Barton [00:20:20] Yeah. Why did you look at me and say father and mother? I don't I that that's a Democrat thing. I I got a clear gender. I it's not Democrat. I've got one that's you know, the time we got left, I chose one that is kind of personal in some ways, at least it's regionally personal, because I got a stack of really good news stories here. But I'm gonna take one that has more to do with kind of the Southwest and the South and the Midwest and others, and that's Cracker Barrel. And I think we've all seen something about the what's happened with the Cracker Barrel. They they got Cracker Barrel's been a family restaurant forever, and it's just a really neat place to go. And it's kind of like a throwback to grandparent day or whatever. And and lots of folks go there, and they for whatever reason decided to be like Target and decided to be like Ben Jerry's, which already was, but Ben Jerry's got even crazier, and started to go through and and and become the the kind of liberal progressive. And so what Cracker Barrel did is say, Oh, we're gonna modernize, we're we're gonna get rid of of the kind of antique stuff that decorates the walls, we're gonna have a new logo and we're gonna come with new menu. And it's it's just no, no. People go there because they like that old atmosphere. That's why they choose it, that's why they go. And so they did, they updated everything, they got rid of the old logo, and in one day, in 24 hours, they lost a hundred million dollars in 24 hours just after that. Well, seven days they say, Okay, we're going back. We got the message, we're back to the original. But here's what I think is kind of funny. And and good for them, you know, and and I'm gonna go back to eating there again if they're willing to make admit that they made a mistake and go back, and if they're willing to quit being woke, I I'll I'll go back to them and give them my business. 

Rick Green [00:22:05] Me too. I miss my Uncle Herschel's breakfast. I'm so glad you're doing this today and giving me that good news. 

David Barton [00:22:11] Go ahead. What what's funny about this is the consulting firm that told them they needed modernize and update and and go after a different clientele. Where do you think that where do you think that consulting firm was based? 

Rick Green [00:22:26] Some liberal cities. 

David Barton [00:22:29] California, boys. It was California. So it's a California now here's what's funny about this. Any clue how many cracker barrels are across the United States? 

Rick Green [00:22:41] Man, I think I would think twelve hundred, fifteen hundred. I don't know. 

David Barton [00:22:44] It's just under seven. 

Rick Green [00:22:46] Oh seven hundred, okay. 

David Barton [00:22:47] How many cracker barrels are there in California? 

Rick Green [00:22:50] Oh, two, one? 

David Barton [00:22:52] Five. 

Rick Green [00:22:54] Five? ou're kidding me. 

David Barton [00:22:55] You go to the state that you can come out of cracker barrels and hire them to do your your marketing and and and future come on, bro. That that that I don't know what they were thinking. And and you know, apparently the lady who was in charge was kind of one of those forward thinking progressives, but at least they've got it under control and they've gone back and replaced a whole lot of the leadership and they've they've backed off, said, our bad, we heard you. So I think that's good news. At least that they're willing to admit a mistake and and back off. But I think that also says something about America just is not where it was two to three years ago with putting up with this kind of stuff. We're ready to see something different, and it's kind of coming back to a little more traditional flavor and likes and dislikes, and et cetera. So I think it's great that cracker barrel does. 

Rick Green [00:23:40] That is great news, especially if it means I can eat a cracker barrel again. All right, Tim, we got time for one more, man. You got one? 

Tim Barton [00:23:46] Absolutely. This is from the southern border. Now, this was an article that came out earlier this week. And it says the title is most secure border in American history. Illegal Southern Border Crossings Drop to Lowest Annual Level and over 50 years. Now, as you go through this, just a couple of highlighted details. The Trump administration ended the fiscal year 2025 with Department of Homeland Security reporting the lowest total monthly illegal border encounters ever recorded since 1970. Now, if it's the lowest number since 1970, 1970 is before my time, I can't imagine how bad was immigration back then, immigration policy. Was it a big deal? Because also, in my brain, I'm thinking, well, there was a smaller population in general of America. So, guys, just I I know this is silly, almost like asking how many cracker barrels are in America, but what do you think the number was from 1970 of illegal border crossings that were recorded back in 1970? 

David Barton [00:24:53] Well, having been through nineteen seventy, I can tell you it was definitely not an issue. It was nothing that we talked about or thought about. The president, I don't recall the president ever talking about that as an issue. I don't recall anything about that. I mean it was not even on a radar screen that I was aware of. Maybe it was out there somewhere, but it certainly was not any issue that I remember and any politician even talking about at that point. 

Tim Barton [00:25:17] Rick, any guesses? 

Rick Green [00:25:20] I was trying to figure out when the Vacero program was was done, because that was what really reduced the illegal crossings. You basically got paid, you know, it was it actually became a revenue generator. You paid to come over and work. And so I'm betting that that was like forties or something like that, fifties, I can't remember. And so man, I would think by I in seventy it was probably still super low. I don't know what what did they say the number was this year that was the lowest since then? So I at least have a top number I can't go over. 

Tim Barton [00:25:46] 237,565 this year. 

Rick Green [00:25:50] This year. Okay. So it's 1970. 

David Barton [00:25:52] For the entire year? 

Tim Barton [00:25:54] For the entire 2025 fiscal year. So, Rick, what do you think it was in 1970? 

Rick Green [00:25:58] 100,000. 

Tim Barton [00:26:00] It was 201,780. 

Rick Green [00:26:03] Oh. So see, I feel like our play prices right. 

Tim Barton [00:26:06] It was some pri well, you you would have won. It was surprisingly close. And right, we're not doing the percentage based on population. So if you do percentage based on population, this is far more impressive. But again, it's just it's it's one of the things that the article highlights. This is one more of the examples of President Trump keeping promises, securing the southern border. The most secure border we've had since 1970. Super impressive. 

Rick Green [00:26:33] Very, very good news. All right, folks. Have a great weekend. We'll have more good news for you next week and some fantastic interviews for you next week as well. So be sure and listen to WallBuilders next week as well. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.