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Virginia House of Delegates
Charniele Herring
House of Delegates — District 4
Democrat
Campaign Website →
RESOLUTE Citizen Score
5
/ 100
F
Raw: 2 of 38 dynamic max
· 19 of 49 answered
State tier49 of 50 rubric questions apply at this office level — federal-only questions are marked N/A and excluded from the dynamic max. How tier grading works →
Last verified: · from claim evidence
✝ God First
2/ 70
🏛️ State First
0/ 30
National Rank
#4,885 of 9,024 · bottom 45.9% among candidates with at least one scored answer
See the full rankings →Contact This Official
Reach out directly. Your voice matters. Proverbs 29:2 — When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice.
Next Election
November 2, 2027
General · Seat up at next election
— until
Registration deadline: 2026-10-13
Early voting: 2026-09-18 – 2026-10-31
State elections office: (804) 864-8901
Voter status: Check registration
State elections site: Virginia Department of Elections
Official Profile
Religion: Listed simply as 'Christian' (Ballotpedia/VoteSmart); specific denomination not publicly stated.
Background: VA House of Delegates, District 4 (Alexandria + part of Fairfax); House Majority Leader; in the General Assembly since 2009 (formerly HD-46). First African-American woman elected to represent Northern Virginia in the GA. B.A. Economics, George Mason; J.D., Catholic University. Attorney.
VA Delegate HD-4 (Alexandria), House Majority Leader, sitting since 2009. [2026-06 RESOLUTE refinement, state tier] Chief-patron-level leadership on the two highest-salience culture-war items: CHIEF PATRON of HJ1, the reproductive-freedom constitutional amendment, and floor leader who carried the same-sex-marriage and felon-voting amendments through the House. Planned Parenthood + NARAL endorsed (100% NARAL scorecard). Justice: chief co-patron of death-penalty abolition; author of the automatic record-expungement law; co-sponsor of marijuana legalization. Guns: Giffords-endorsed, led the House on the 2024 assault-weapons ban, defended the Capitol gun ban. NO conservative deviation. Score 0/100. Genuine evidence gaps left null: family/child sovereignty (no school-choice/parental/curriculum vote isolated), Christian liberty, federal overreach, immigration (no Herring-specific recorded vote located), and most economic/election ballot-mechanic cells.
Category Breakdown
Candidate affirms life begins at conception and personhood from conception
Not yet verified
1 claim
Primary sponsor of Virginia's HJ1 abortion-rights constitutional amendment (introduced in the 2025 and 2026 Regular Sessions). Herring's amendment enshrines 'the fundamental right to reproductive freedom' in the state constitution, permits abortion through the second trimester without restriction and through the third with broad health-based exceptions, and explicitly rejects any personhood-from-conception standard. The House passed the final version 64-34 in January 2026.
- BallotpediaCenter
- WikipediaEncyclopedia
- Virginia Legislative Information SystemOfficial
Candidate has voted for or sponsored state legislation moving toward abortion abolition (e.g., heartbeat ban, total ban) — not merely restrictions
Not yet verified
Candidate opposes state funding for embryonic stem-cell research and supports state IVF embryo-protection laws
Candidate opposes state physician-assisted suicide laws and opposes state Medicaid death-panel rationing
Not yet verified
FEC / state campaign-finance search found no abortion-industry PAC contributions for state-legislative or statewide-office campaigns (as of the cited search date)
Not yet verified
Candidate affirms marriage as exclusively the lifelong union of one man and one woman as instituted by God
Not yet verified
1 claim
Voted yes on HJ9 (2026 session) placing a constitutional amendment to enshrine same-sex and interracial marriage on Virginia's November 2026 ballot, repealing the 2006 constitutional provision defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
- BallotpediaCenter
- WikipediaEncyclopedia
Candidate opposes state recognition of same-sex marriage / civil unions / domestic partnerships, and supports state non-recognition resolutions where federally permitted
Not yet verified
Candidate has voted for state legislation affirming biological sex (bathroom/locker access, sports participation, minor gender-procedure bans)
Candidate supports state no-fault divorce reform and pro-marriage policy (covenant marriage option, waiting periods, etc.)
Not yet verified
Candidate has voted for state school-choice (vouchers, ESAs, charter expansion) and supports state homeschool freedom statutes
Candidate has voted for state law requiring parental notification + consent on minors' medical, mental-health, and gender interventions (incl. school counseling referrals)
Candidate has voted for state law restricting CRT/SOGI/comprehensive-sex-ed/gender-ideology curricula in K-12
Candidate has voted for state age-verification laws on pornographic content and state criminal penalties for sexualizing minors
Not yet verified
Candidate affirms the right to publicly profess Christ in all spheres (workplace, military, public office, schools)
Not yet verified
Candidate has voted for state conscience-exemption laws (state RFRA, medical-professional carve-outs, business-owner protections)
Candidate opposes state-level pronoun mandates + state 'hate speech' laws restricting Christian conviction
Candidate supports state public-square Christian display protections + state legislative prayer + state Sunday-closure laws
Not yet verified
Candidate opposes state-funded promotion of non-Christian religious displays/curricula/holidays in state institutions
Not yet verified
Candidate has voted for state law protecting cash as legal tender, opposing state-level CBDC pilot programs, and protecting crypto-as-property status
Not yet verified
Candidate supports sound-money policies including gold/silver as constitutional money and audit/abolition of the Federal Reserve
N/A · out of tier
Candidate has voted for state balanced-budget compliance + opposed state borrowing for non-capital expenditures
Not yet verified
Candidate has voted for state usury caps + state predatory-lending protections + state charitable-deduction parity
Not yet verified
Candidate has voted for state pension/treasury divestment from ESG-aligned funds (e.g., BlackRock) + state anti-monopoly enforcement against financial cartels
Not yet verified
Candidate (state SoS/legislature) has voted for state hand-count requirements / opposed electronic voting machines
Not yet verified
Candidate (state SoS/legislature) has voted for state photo voter ID + citizenship verification at registration
Candidate has voted to restrict state early-voting windows + tighten state absentee qualifications to verified medical/military
Candidate has voted against state mass mail-in voting expansion, against state drop-box deployment, and against legalizing ballot harvesting
Candidate (state SoS/legislature) has voted to ban state acceptance of private election grants ('Zuckerbucks') + state penalties for foreign interference
Not yet verified
Candidate (state) has voted for state-funded border-security measures (e.g., TX Operation Lone Star analog, AZ wall expansion)
Not yet verified
Candidate (state) has voted for state laws requiring local cooperation with ICE deportation enforcement
Candidate (state) has voted to preempt or punish sanctuary-city policies + ban state cities from declaring sanctuary status
Candidate (state) has voted for state E-Verify mandate (beyond federal floor) for state employers + state-benefit eligibility verification
Not yet verified
Candidate (state) has voted to restrict foreign ownership of state farmland (e.g., China-buyer prohibitions)
Not yet verified
Candidate (state) has voted against state red-flag laws, mag-capacity limits, AWBs, and registries (or voted to repeal where enacted)
Not yet verified
1 claim
As House Majority Leader, helped drive the February 2026 gun-control package through the House over unanimous Republican opposition, a bill package including provisions expanding background checks, restricting assault-style weapons, imposing magazine-capacity limits, and strengthening red-flag laws.
- Virginia MercuryLean Left
Candidate (state) has voted to enact / strengthen state Castle Doctrine + stand-your-ground statute
Not yet verified
Candidate has publicly backed law enforcement and opposed defunding/dismantling police
Candidate opposes cashless-bail, soft-on-crime, and rogue-prosecutor (e.g. Soros-DA) policy
Not yet verified
Candidate supports victim restitution and proportional punishment of evildoers
Not yet verified
Candidate refuses to treat violent crime as a "public health" excuse to avoid punishment
Candidate affirms the magistrate's God-ordained duty to bear the sword (Rom. 13:4)
Not yet verified
Official has voted for or sponsored 10th-Amendment nullification or anti-commandeering measures
Not yet verified
Official has declined unconstitutional federal mandates or federal strings on the state
Not yet verified
Official has resisted federal overreach on guns, life, education, or religious liberty
Not yet verified
Official affirms state sovereignty against unconstitutional federal action
Not yet verified
Official has opposed federal capture of state elections, data, or land
Not yet verified
Sources & Evidence
2 Left2 Center4 Right12 Official4 Reference7 Other
Vote Smart — Voting RecordReference
reportcard.familyfoundation.org/Right Advocacy
www.vcdl.org/Right Advocacy
reportcard.familyfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2...Right Advocacy
freedomindex.us/va/Right Advocacy
Ballotpedia ProfileCenter
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charniele_HerringEncyclopedia
Vote Smart — Voting RecordReference
Ballotpedia ProfileCenter
Planned Parenthood ActionLeft Advocacy
giffords.org/candidates/charniele-herring/Unclassified
vademocrats.org/your-party/Unclassified
democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/Unclassified
Bias ratings sourced from AllSides and Ad Fontes Media. Classifications for government, reference, and advocacy domains are maintained by U.S.M.C. Ministries; see source_bias.json.
References & footnotes
Every answer above with a [n] marker corresponds to one of the footnotes below. Wayback-archive links preserve the page as it read at our access date so a reader can verify the citation even if the original URL changes or disappears.
- [1]kind: party_platform. Scored from the 2024 Democratic Party Platform (leftover sanctity_of_life q2) — DNC IVF + medication abortion. Live q0/q1/q4 already False (PP/NARAL) — not rewritten. PPAV 2025 still-listed Maj. Leader Charniele Herring (HD-04) HTTP 200 unused for leftover q2 stretch. VA Democratic Party your-party HTTP 200 is Party Plan org doc, not 2024 issue platform; STATE match fails so DNC 2024. No contradictory leftover-q individual this cell unless noted. Individual overrides elsewhere. Unclassified
kind: party_platform. Scored from the 2024 Democratic Party Platform (leftover sanctity_of_life q2) — DNC IVF + medication abortion. Live q0/q1/q4 already False (PP/NARAL) — not rewritten. PPAV 2025 still-listed Maj. Leader Charniele Herring (HD-04) HTTP 200 unused for leftover q2 stretch. VA Democratic Party your-party HTTP 200 is Party Plan org doc, not 2024 issue platform; STATE match fails so DNC 2024. No contradictory leftover-q individual this cell unless noted. Individual overrides elsewhere.
- [2]kind: party_platform. Scored from the 2024 Democratic Party Platform (leftover sanctity_of_life q2) — DNC IVF + medication abortion. Live q0/q1/q4 already False (PP/NARAL) — not rewritten. PPAV 2025 still-listed Maj. Leader Charniele Herring (HD-04) HTTP 200 unused for leftover q2 stretch. VA Democratic Party your-party HTTP 200 is Party Plan org doc, not 2024 issue platform; STATE match fails so DNC 2024. No contradictory leftover-q individual this cell unless noted. Individual overrides elsewhere. Unclassified
kind: party_platform. Scored from the 2024 Democratic Party Platform (leftover sanctity_of_life q2) — DNC IVF + medication abortion. Live q0/q1/q4 already False (PP/NARAL) — not rewritten. PPAV 2025 still-listed Maj. Leader Charniele Herring (HD-04) HTTP 200 unused for leftover q2 stretch. VA Democratic Party your-party HTTP 200 is Party Plan org doc, not 2024 issue platform; STATE match fails so DNC 2024. No contradictory leftover-q individual this cell unless noted. Individual overrides elsewhere.
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