As the U.S. government moves closer to shutting down after the House of Representatives failed to pass a short-term spending bill on Friday, the implications of a shutdown could impact Virginia’s upcoming elections.

NBC News noted that the situation is similar to what happened in 2013 when Republicans forced a U.S. government shutdown in October and it ended up costing Republicans in Virginia that year.

Chris LaCivita — who served as the chief political strategist to GOP gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli that year and who is now managing Trump’s third presidential campaign — said after Cuccinelli’s narrow defeat to Democrat Terry McAuliffe that the shutdown “more than anything … is what cost us the race.”

Ellen Qualls, McAuliffe’s senior adviser, said that the shutdown was “the October surprise” for Democrats and that they “spiked during the shutdown.” Qualls added that the shutdown “helped crystallize the impression we were already creating about Ken Cuccinelli, that he can’t get along with anybody and won’t find solutions.”

Early voting has already started as Governor Glenn Youngkin has been aggressively campaigning for Republicans in both the House and Senate in his quest to gain control of both chambers.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said that the shutdown in 2013 “definitely helped” and that voters in Virginia, a state where a lot of people would be impacted by a U.S. government shutdown, associate government shutdowns with the Republican Party.

Democrats running in the Virginia elections were licking their chops over the prospect of a U.S. government shutdown, with one state senator saying that the shutdown would allow them the “opportunity to draw parallels” between their Republican opponent and Republicans in the U.S. House.

Republicans failed to pass House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) stopgap funding bill on Friday in a 198-232 vote after 21 Republicans voted against it. Funding for the U.S. government runs out at midnight on Sunday.

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The 21 Republicans who voted against the bill were Reps. Andy Biggs (AZ), Dan Bishop (NC), Lauren Boebert (CO), Ken Buck (CO), Tim Burchett (TN), Eric Burlison, (MO), Michael Cloud (TX), Eli Crane (AZ), Matt Gaetz (FL), Paul Gosar (AZ), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), Wesley Hunt (TX), Nancy Mace (SC), Mary Miller (IL), Cory Mills (FL), Alex Mooney (WV), Barry Moore (AL), Troy Nehls (TX), Andy Ogles (TN), Matt Rosendale (MT), and Keith Self (TX).

The U.S. Department of Justice announced criminal charges on Friday against a contractor with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who is accused of stealing the tax returns of former President Donald Trump and distributing the material to the media.

Federal law enforcement officials announced the charges against 38-year-old Charles Edward Littlejohn, who was a contractor with the IRS from 2018 to 2020. The company that Littlejohn was working for was not identified and it was not clear “why a contractor had access to sensitive taxpayer information that is supposed to be protected by numerous legal and procedural safeguards,” The New York Times added.

“While Defendant was working on an IRS contract, he stole tax returns and return information associated with Public Official A and thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, including returns and return information dating back more than 15 years,” court documents say. “He thereafter disclosed the tax information associated with Public Official A to News Organization 1 and the other tax information to News Organization 2. Both news organizations published numerous articles describing the tax information they obtained from the Defendant.”

While the identity of Public Official A is not mentioned in the court documents, numerous publications reported that Trump is the figure in question.

The two news organizations, which were also not mentioned in the charging documents, were The New York Times and ProPublica, according to various media reports. The news organizations have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Littlejohn was charged with one count of Disclosure of Tax Return and Return Information and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

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The charging documents said that if Littlejohn is convicted, “all property he has used in violating the provisions of the internal revenue laws is subject to forfeiture.”