Hi, this is █████████, your candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. I'm inviting you to join a live telephone town hall happening in just a moment. During the call, I'll be answering questions and talking about issues that matter most to working families across ████████. So please hold on the line and you'll be added to this important discussion. I hope you'll take part in the commentary. This call is paid for and authorized by █████████ for ████████, ████████████. Please hold while we connect you to your Access Live event. This Access Live event is currently in progress. Please note that this call may be monitored, recorded, or rebroadcast. This is █████████████, and I'm a former reporter with the Washington Post, and I'm here to help moderate a town hall with █████████, who is the GOP nominee for Lieutenant Governor here in ████████. He faces Democrat Gaza. Sorry, ██████████████. And ████, do you want to say a few words before we allow callers to pipe up with their questions, which they can pose by pressing Star three? I'm excited to be able to do this. And, █████, thank you for agreeing to moderate. This is the first time you and I have talked right here when we signed on, so I'm. I'm assuming that we'll just take any questions. I've got no problem answering any questions from anybody who's on the call, which is one of the themes of my campaign. I have tried to travel all across the state and stand in front of reporters and stand in front of voters, not necessarily people who are guaranteed to vote Republican and listen to people and answer questions. And I think that's kind of part of the Virginia tradition that used to exist with people who were running for statewide office. You had to get in your car and you had to go around the state and talk to people in places where, you know, perhaps politicians don't normally show up. And, you know who told me to do that? Over a year ago, I went and former Virginia Governor ███████████ was nice enough to allow me to come visit with him in his office. And he had been Lieutenant governor before he ran for governor. And I said, you know, what do you think? Should I do this, or is this a bad idea? Or, you know, do you have any advice for me? He's a Democrat, I'm a Republican, so I didn't know how he'd feel about it, but he said, you're gonna lose unless you go around and meet people all over the state. And I said, gosh, was that kind of a pessimistic outlook on it. He said, no, it's just the reality that there'll be people who are skeptical of you. You know, you haven't been in the House of Delegates. You haven't been in the state Senate. Sure, you've been on television and radio, but this is a different world that you're entering into. And people are going to wonder whether you're willing to put in the work. They're going to wonder whether you're willing to listen to them. Is this a publicity stunt? And the only way that you will gain their confidence is to put in that work. And then, of course, there's the historic nature of this, which I don't make a big deal out of. But, you know, it seems like every time I walk out of the room, people talk behind my back. So I figured I would just be up front and let people know that. That I'm the first openly gay candidate, Republican or Democrat, to ever run statewide in ████████. I hope that won't make someone vote for me. You certainly shouldn't vote for me because of that. I also hope you won't disqualify me because of that. Because I think I'm a solid person and I've got strong beliefs and opinions that I think are validated. But I also feel like I need to be open with everyone so that no one thinks I'm keeping a secret or trying to pull a fast one. And it's not something to be proud of or feel any way about. I just want people to know who I am. So I just give you a little bit background on me and then a couple of the issues that have motivated me to run. And then let's take questions. I was born and raised here in ████████.