Virginia Senate President pro tempore Louise Lucas (D), a woman helping lead the charge to redraw the commonwealth’s congressional maps to favor Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, has used her donors’ cash to: bankroll her family business, fund her daughter’s political career, cut checks to churches who support her party, pay for casino events, support organizations where she is a member, and to cover tabs at restaurants dealing in steak and seafood.
Lucas brags that her redistricting effort, if successful, could result in the Old Dominion state having a congressional delegation of 10 Democrats and one Republican, costing the GOP four seats and possibly control of the entire House of Representatives. The Virginia lawmaker is no stranger to campaign finance controversy, as her approval for a casino project after receiving a $100,000 donation from the company proposing it drew scrutiny from the press in 2024.
Mixing religion with politics
Over her more than three decades serving in Virginia’s legislature, Lucas, who is black, has consistently used her campaign funds to financially support historically black churches in and around her Senate district. The same churches that Lucas uses her campaign funds to bankroll happen to function as valuable allies to both Lucas and her Democratic colleagues.
One of the churches to receive the most cash from Lucas’s campaign treasury is New Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Portsmouth, where Lucas herself serves as a deaconess.
Lucas’s campaign has transferred $13,390 to the historically black Baptist church since 2021, according to public records. Milton Blount, who served as the church’s head pastor until his death in January, endorsed Lucas’s daughter, Lisa Lucas-Burke, for Portsmouth mayor in 2024, encouraged his followers to support the Democratic Party, and was involved in liberal politics. Cardell Patillo, who took over as the church’s top pastor following Blount’s passing, hosted Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger at a campaign event in August.
Second Calvary Baptist Church’s leadership also took advantage of its spiritual authority to help Democrats after receiving large contributions from Lucas, the Washington Examiner previously reported.
“You can rest assured that I will be telling our congregation to vote for you,” Second Calvary Baptist Church head pastor Geoffrey Guns told Democratic Virginia attorney general nominee Jay Jones in an October video.
The church held a campaign event with Spanberger, where she was invited to speak from its pulpit. The church’s pastor delivered impassioned sermons telling his congregation that there was “only one choice” for governor after endorsing Spanberger, and church leadership encouraged churchgoers to support Democrats on social media.
The church’s full-throated support of the Democratic Party followed $26,500 in donations from Lucas between 2023 and 2024.
New Community Temple and Third Baptist Church in Portsmouth, which each received thousands from Lucas’s campaign account, have encouraged their members to vote for Democrats through their pastors.
Americans strongly oppose churches endorsing political candidates, with 77% of adults polled by the Pew Research Center in 2022 saying houses of worship should not endorse candidates for political office.
Limos, casinos, seafood, and steak
When she’s not using her campaign account to cut checks to churches, Lucas is tapping it to pick up tabs for swanky recreation. A Washington Examiner review of campaign finance records found that, over the course of her tenure in the Virginia Senate, Lucas has spent over $60,000 on fundraising events at casinos and golf courses, food at restaurants offering luxury fare, live music, limousines, and stays at top-tier hotels using her campaign funds.
In 2023, for instance, Lucas racked up a $566 bill at Admirals Steak & Seafood, a self-proclaimed fine dining restaurant located at the Rivers Casino in Portsmouth. Individual tabs at the restaurant, judging by its menu, can easily exceed $100. Appetizers, such as the $28 duck confit salad, cost what full meals would at normal restaurants, and the cheapest steak on the menu, a six-ounce filet, runs $50. Other items, such as the 32-ounce prime tomahawk steak or the 24-ounce porterhouse, cost over $100 each.
Lucas also reported using her campaign account to cover $1,140 in bills at the Omni Homestead Resort, a luxury resort in the middle of the Allegheny Mountains featuring golf courses, skiing, a two-acre water park, hot springs, a full-service spa, and horseback riding.
One of Lucas’s largest campaign expenditures was the $20,885 she dropped for “event support” at Rivers Casino in November 2023. The expenditure lacks further description on Lucas’s campaign finance filing, making it unclear exactly what the massive payment covered. She’s held similarly expensive campaign events at the Bide-A-Wee Golf Course in Portsmouth. Public records provide greater details on her golf spending than her casino expenditures.
The $20,139 Lucas spent at the golf course between 2007 and 2019 covered food, beverages, golf cart rentals, and fees to use the course, records show.
Some, though not all, of Lucas’s spending on luxury recreation were described as “fundraising” costs.
Keeping it in the family
Of all the entities and individuals to receive payments from Lucas’s political war chest over the years, her daughter’s ill-fated Portsmouth mayoral campaign was one of the biggest beneficiaries.
Lucas gave her daughter’s campaign $305,000 between December 2023 and October 2024, serious money for a local election. Her daughter Lisa Lucas-Burke also received $6,500 from her mother to support her campaigns for city council between 2016 and 2020.
Beyond bankrolling her daughter’s political ambitions, Lucas has also provided her with a day job.
Lucas-Burke has, per her LinkedIn profile, been employed at Lucas Lodge since 2015 as the firm’s executive director. Prior to that, she was its quality assurance director between 1998 and 2014. The firm, which handles “Medicaid waiver services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” identifies Lucas as its CEO.
Since 2017, Lucas Lodge has received roughly $6,000 in payments from Lucas’s campaign. The bulk of the payment covered “office rental” as well as reimbursements for travel and an “evening on Crystal Lake.”
Lucas’s campaign account also made $3,500 in payments to Girls Inc. of Greater Peninsula between 2006 and 2012. These expenditures overlap with her daughter’s tenure as board chair of a Girls Inc. chapter in the same region.
The Virginia state senator used her campaign funds to financially support nonprofit organizations with which she is affiliated as well. Lucas’s official biography describes her as a member of the Links Foundation, a nonprofit that she used donor funds to pay roughly $16,500 between 2014 and 2019.
Lucas’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
