Victor Salgado is a former federal prosecutor who left the US Department of Justice after President Donald Trump’s second election. The Northern Virginia attorney spent his career prosecuting public corruption, bribery and election crimes; now, he’s hoping his legal experience will serve him well as Virginia’s next lieutenant governor.
Salgado is one of six candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in the June 17 primary. The winner will face Republican John Reid in November for the office currently held by Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears.
VPM News state politics reporter Jahd Khalil recently spoke to Salgado about his campaign, as part of a series of conversations with the six Democratic candidates for the state’s No. 2 job. (State Sen. Aaron Rouse's campaign did not make him available for an interview; links to interviews with the other candidates can be found at the bottom of this story.)
Salgado says he wants to be a “workhorse lieutenant governor” who uses the role to pass legislative priorities like campaign finance reform and stop the “overreach” of Donald Trump’s administration.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Jahd Khalil: Why should Democrats pick you to be their nominee for lieutenant governor?
Victor Salgado: I'm a former federal prosecutor. I've dedicated my entire career to fighting corruption, prosecuting campaign finance violations at the federal level, and obviously, when Donald Trump was re-elected last November, I couldn't stay at DOJ, so I knew that I had to find a new job.
The question then became: Do I go to a law firm? Do I go to a company to make money, which would have meant that I would have stayed out of this fight? And staying out of the fight that we're in right now, just wasn't the right thing for me to do.
You talked about working on campaign finance issues. Are there types of corruption that you think are present in Virginia, and how would you approach those?
Given the times that we're living in, somebody who understands Washington, who knows Trumpism, is a requirement for the lieutenant governor's office. That is why I jumped into this race. That's the value proposition of my campaign. Had Kamala Harris won last November, I wouldn't be sitting here with you. This is what I've been preparing for my entire career.
Respectfully, I would never do eye surgery like Dr. [Babur] Lateef or teach American literature like Ghazala Hashmi — much less try to tackle 300-pound men like Aaron Rouse. Those are their professions. This is what I do. This is my specialization, and that's why I'm running, because these times call for a type of candidate with my attributes.
Can you talk a bit about how the official powers of lieutenant governor would allow you to do the things that you're talking about?
Typically, folks have described the lieutenant governor's office as a ceremonial position or a waiting room or stepping stone for something else, and folks have certainly approached it that way. We have candidates in this race who are approaching it that way; they have higher ambitions. I'm not doing that.
The lieutenant governor, as you know, is also president of the Senate. They have a tie-breaking role. The president of the Senate has the ability to say: If you want your pet project bills to pass, they better not land on my desk unless you're willing to promote these initiatives. That's how the lieutenant governor can drive legislative priorities, and that's what I'm going to do.
On day one, I'm going to tell the delegates and the senators in Virginia: Your pet projects better not land on my desk for a tie-breaking vote unless we pass campaign finance reform, because I will not vote. I will withhold that vote, and your legislation will never get to the governor's desk.
It's almost like they have to count on your vote.
It's a little heavy-handed, but that's what these times call for. For campaign finance reform, for example, it's going to take a lot of political will and political might to get it done. I am committed to doing that, and I'll take a similar approach to an initiative that I want passed right away, which is taking the ability away from Donald Trump to commandeer and deputize our law enforcement resources for the purpose of enforcing federal immigration laws in the streets of Virginia.
The lieutenant governor’s office has power. People usually have underutilized that power and influence. Now is not the time to be shy about it. And I am not running for office to be a show horse lieutenant governor. I'm running for office to be a workhorse lieutenant governor.
What else do you think is important for people to know about your campaign when voters are going to the polls?
What I've been hearing on the trail is that folks either are not tuned into this race [or] they're having a hard time figuring out who they want to support, because the narrative has formed that we stand for the same things — that there are no differentiators among us. That's just not true.
We might agree on what needs to be done: push back on Trump [and] protect Virginia. Why do we need to do it? Because we're Democrats. We believe in bringing everybody into the promise of America.
What sets me apart is the how, right. I bring a unique set of skills. I understand the Constitution in a way that the other candidates don't, and that's exactly what we're going to need in the next three-and-a-half years as we protect Virginia sovereignty from an ever-increasing federal overreach that we're seeing from Donald Trump.
This interplay between federal and state power, I've been thinking about these issues for over a decade — that's something that I bring to the table uniquely.
Read VPM News’ interviews with other June primary candidates:
Lieutenant Governor: Levar Stoney |Ghazala Hashmi | Babur Lateef | Alex Bastani
Attorney General: Jay Jones | Shannon Taylor
Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney: Tom Barbour and Colette McEachin
Richmond City Sheriff: William Burnett and Antionette Irving
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Jack Jouett District: Sally Duncan and Dave Shreve
