Today is the Virginia Democratic primary election to choose our nominees for Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and several House of Delegates candidates (63rd, 86th, and 90th districts for the Democrats). Polls are open from 6 am to 7 pm. To find your polling place, click here. [UPDATE: Note that there are a few interesting Republican primaries as well for House of Delegates, mostly fueled by right-wing anger about the incumbents’ votes for the transportation bill’s tax increases…)
What are you seeing and hearing out there? What’s turnout like in your neck of the woods? Who did you vote for and why? I’m going to vote this afternoon – for Aneesh Chopra and Mark Herring. Tonight, I plan to live blog the results starting at 7 pm or so. I’m also planning to listen to the John Fredericks Show – featuring Del. Scott Surovell, Ben Tribbett, and reporter Dave Sherfinski – starting at 6 pm. Should be a fun evening!
UPDATE 1:25 pm: From numbers I’ve seen in Arlington, I’d say that turnout will be up a bit from 2005. Of course, that’s not saying much, but still…better than flat or down! Also, I’m hearing that turnout in Leesburg is significantly up from 2005, and that Loudoun turnout is strong (see here for instance).
UPDATE 1:50 pm: I just heard from a Democratic campaign manager that he thinks turnout will better than 2005, not as good as 2006. Maybe somewhere around 130,000?
UPDATE 3:07 pm: According to the Loudoun Times, “Loudoun County General Registrar Judy Brown, just before 3 p.m., said voter turnout for today’s primary elections has generally been low thus far – remaining in the single digits in many precincts.” Not sure how that meshes with some of the info I heard earlier this afternoon from Loudoun. At this point, I might just wait for the results and stop even trying to guess…
UPDATE 4:19 pm: NLS predicts record low turnout in the Democratic primary today. That’s not what I’m hearing from my sources, but I guess we’ll see soon enough. Of course, they could both be right, in that turnout as a percentage of registered voters almost certainly will be the lowest ever, but absolute turnout might not be…
UPDATE 6:03 pm: @frankoanderson tweets, “Latest from Fairfax County: sampling of precincts that reported btwn 3:30-4:30pm shows turnout of 2-3%.” Turnout in Fairfax County was 3.1% in 2005.
UPDATE 6:30 pm: @patrickmwilson tweets, “The Portsmouth registrar says 4,667 people had voted as of 3 p.m.” In 2005, 4,279 voted in Portsmouth.
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