Thursday News: “Off-year elections reveal a 2016 map with sharper borders;” McAuliffe faces “fork in the road”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, November 5. Also, I threw together a quick graphic showing the voter turnout dropoff by party in a few key Virginia House of Delegates districts. Notice something? Yep, the Democratic dropoff is greater than for Republicans from presidential to state/odd-year elections. If that didn’t happen, even given current House of Delegates districts’ gerrymandered lines, Democrats almost certainly would have a bunch more seats in the General Assembly.

• Marco Rubio’s Immigration Reversal Is Complete: He Promises To Deport Dreamers (This guy will say anything to be president.)
• In Pacific Trade Deal, Vietnam Agrees to Terms on Labor Rights (“The government of Vietnam has agreed to American terms including the freedom to unionize and to strike, according to the newly released text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”)
• Elder Bush Says His Son Was Served Badly by Aides (True, but the “buck” stops with the president…)
• Karem Abdul-Jabbar: Ben Carson is Terrible for Black Americans
• Off-year elections reveal a 2016 map with sharper borders (Smart article by Dave Weigel, unlike the brain-dead, false-narrative-creating drivel by the Post’s James Hohmann – truly the corporate media at its worst – and others.)
• Jeb Bush’s comeback tour sounds like a therapy session
• Election Day: Red states get redder, blue states get bluer
• The GOP’s Primary Rules Might Doom Carson, Cruz And Trump
• Poll: Webb pulls more from Trump than Clinton as independent (Hey, maybe we should “draft Jim Webb” to run for president as an independent in 2016? LOL)
• The brewing Ted Cruz vs. Marco Rubio showdown: Why conservatives are girding for this two-man race
• VIDEO: How Tuesday’s election is likely to frustrate Gov. Terry McAuliffe (“Times-Dispatch’s Jeff Schapiro and Jim Nolan talk about the Nov. 3 election in which no seat gains were made by either party and how it frustrates Governor McAuliffe.”)
• Stuck with GOP legislature, McAuliffe faces a ‘fork in the road’
• Partisan districts find no favor (“Turnout, on a day when all 140 seats in the legislature were up for election, was abysmal. More distressing: Only 38 seats in the House of Delegates – and 23 seats in the Senate – had more than one candidate running.”)
• Election day-after: What Virginia vote results mean for governor, 2016 (Lame “analysis,” nothing really there.)
• The afternoon after: Wins all around for incumbents, gerrymandering
• Virginia among states seeking to defend plan to clean up power plants (AG Mark Herring “announced that he has joined a coalition of 17 other states in a defense of the centerpiece in the Obama administration’s effort to reduce greenhouse gases.”)
• Did gun control cost McAuliffe and Democrats the Virginia election? (Gotta love the passive phrasing, “is seen by analysts.” I read the article, didn’t see a single “analyst” saying that, although I did see the Republican Times-Disgrace editorial board cited as a source, along a right-wing Republican State Senator. Those are “analysts” now? This article is a just a failed attempt at pushing a narrative.)
• In a first, every Virginia General Assembly incumbent re-elected (When the incumbents get to pick their voters and not the other way around…)
• Why were the insiders wrong about the Peninsula’s hot House races?
• Our view: 11 thoughts on the election
• Dye lacked breakthroughs in 21st Senate District race
• Chesterfield pivotal in Sturtevant’s win (“Powhatan County delivered the crowning blow in Republican Glen H. Sturtevant’s victory in the 10th Senate District, but the battle was won in Chesterfield County, home of his principal opponent, Democrat Daniel A. Gecker.”)
• Virginia Beach Mayor Sessoms charged with conflict of interest (“The five charges against Sessoms are punishable by a maximum fine of $500 each, prosecutor Michael Doucette said.”)
• After election, residents in Va.’s largest county can expect cuts and possible tax
• Defeat of anti-gay Loudoun politician comes with Democratic board victories (“Board will go from having no Democrats to having three — and its first black members — in 2016.” Awesome, just wish we could have won two more and gotten the majority back!)
• Election 2015: Fairfax School Board retains pro-LGBT majority (True, but also three anti-LGBT members, up from two. Ugh.)
• Four-term mayor of Alexandria on defeat: ‘I know that Act 2 is over’
• D.C. area forecast: Spotty showers today give way to a warm blast tomorrow