UPDATE 10:38 pm – Almost forgot to mention that Democrat Carter Turner lost the special election in deep, deep-red HD-08 by a 63%-37% margin. Bummer, but not at all surprising…just an impossible district for Dems at this point.
UPDATE 10:06 pm – Results are final in Arlington, with Democrat Matt de Ferranti defeating Republican/”Independent” John Vihstadt 53,330 (53.3%)-46,164 (46.1%). Great job Matt! Oh, and congratulations to all the Democrats who won for Mayor (Justin Wilson, who was unopposed) and City Council (Elizabeth B. Bennett-Parker, Amy B. Jackson, John Taylor Chapman, “Del” Pepper, Canek Aguirre and Mo Seifeldein)! And congratulations to Democrat Barbara Kanninen on her easy reelection to the Arlington County School Board.
UPDATE 9:59 pm – The NY Times has VA-05 as Riggleman 53.6%-Cockburn 46.4%. Not sure why the State Board of Elections isn’t showing Cville yet, but the NY Times has Cockburn winning it 15,103-2,694 with 90% of precincts reporting. The NY Times also has Elaine Luria leading Scott Taylor in VA-02 by 44 votes (122,859-122,815). And in VA-07, the NY Times has Spanberger up 158,870-157,104 with 97% of precincts reporting. Ben Tribbett now tweeting, “Looks like SBE has now fixed its issues and Luria has won.”
UPDATE 9:53 pm – @notlarrysabato tweeted, “Taylor just retook lead on SBE- these numbers are messed up- don’t count on anything in #VA02 or #VA07 until these all get corrected.”
UPDATE 9:45 pm – @notlarrysabato tweeted, “Calling VA02 a win for Elaine Luria defeating Scott Taylor. Had this rated as Leans Dem pickup going into the night” and “If the SBE now has all the errors corrected- and that is a big IF- Abigail Spanberger has defeated Dave Brat in VA07. Once I have verified the numbers are right, I will confirm this one.”
UPDATE 9:14 pm – I really don’t understand why the State Board of Elections isn’t incorporating Chesterfield County results; very frustrating. VPAP currently has VA-07 as Spanberger 151,118-Brat 150,635 with 215/228 precincts reporting.
UPDATE 8:56 pm – From my friend and political/tech guru Brendan Lilly, “[Spanberger’s] won Brandermill (upper middle class swing) and narrowed the margins (relative to Northam) in the Republican-leaning areas of North Chesterfield… Midlothian, Robious… and way ahead of Northam in some Democratic areas like the 515 Davis precinct (350+ Votes).” On the Chesterfield election results page, Spanberger now leads Brat by about 8,500 votes, which is greater than Brat’s 6,500-vote margin on the State Board of Elections website, without any Chesterfield results. Also note that there are absentees and provisionals remaining from “blue” Henrico County, and nothing else remaining in VA-07. So…I actually think Spanberger’s going to eke this one out, but going to be super cautious and not call it yet. As for VA-02, that one’s going to be super close…Luria ahead 116,024-112,695 with 161/180 precincts reporting.
UPDATE 8:43 pm – The Chesterfield County election results site has Spanberger (D) up 44,898-37,935 over Dave Brat with 47/57 precincts counted. That would appear to put Spanberger slightly ahead of Brat, but this one’s going to be close…nail biting time! Also, with 154/180 precincts now reporting in VA-02, it’s Luria (D) leading Taylor (R) by a slight margin, 108,640-107,802. Another nail biter!
UPDATE 8:22 pm – In Arlington, with only absentees and provisionals remaining, it’s Matt de Ferranti (D) leading John Vihstadt (R/I) 41,672-37,493. Barring something bizarre, Arlington will soon replace its single non-Democratic member. Ben Cline’s win over Jennifer Lewis in deep-red VA-06, by the way, was ok (around 12 points or so) but nothing extraordinary. Nice campaign by Lewis! As for Anthony Flaccavento, he’s an impressive person who raised a lot of money and ran a strong campaign, but that district (VA-09) is one of the Trumpiest in the country, so sadly unsurprising that he’s trailing by 30+ points. Bummer, though, as Griffith is horrendous and Flaccavento would have been an infinitely superior representative. As for VA-10, it’s awesome to see Wexton crushing Comstock by around 15 points – super happy about that! 🙂
UPDATE 8:15 pm – By the way, as more “blue” parts of Virginia come in, Tim Kaine keeps widening his lead over neo-Confederate Corey; now 54%-44% with 1597 precincts of 2567 (62.21%) reporting. In VA-07, it’s now Brat 49.9%-Spanberger 48.8% (still nothing from Chesterfield County, which will decide it). And in VA-02, it’s Taylor 51.6%-Luria 48.4% with 61% of precincts reporting (still a bunch from Virginia Beach and Norfolk, so we’ll see…). Ben Tribbett just tweeted, “Dems are way underperforming in VA from 2017. But results don’t match that year well. More questions than answers so far.”
UPDATE 8:11 pm – With 46/55 precincts reporting in Arlington, it’s now de Ferranti (D) leading Vihstadt (R/I) 36,193-33,113. Vihstadt looks like he’s going to lose! 🙂 Also, the State Board of Elections apparently screwed up big time, or somebody did, as they now have Democrat Babur Lateef ahead 47.8%-42.2% over Republican Alyson Satterwhite. Phew!!!!
UPDATE 8:08 pm – In VA-02, it’s now Taylor ahead of Luria 51.5%-48.5%. In VA-05, Riggleman is winning handily over Cockburn 56.6%-43.3%. And in VA-07, Spanberger leads Brat 50.3%-48.5% with 57% of precincts reporting (nothing yet from Chesterfield, which is huge, so it’s all going to come down to that!).
UPDATE 8:03 pm – With 91/92 precincts reporting in Prince William County, it looks bad…Republican Alyson Satterwhite is ahead of Democrat Babur Lateef 9,122 (45.0%)-8,890 (43.9%). Ugh. On the other hand, it’s looking pretty good for Democrat Matt de Ferranti in Arlington, as he leads Republican/Independent/Whatever John Vihstadt 28,092 (52.4%)-25,247 (47.1%) with 36/55 precincts reporting. Go Matt! (note: Ben “Not Larry Sabato” Tribbett has called this one for Matt)
UPDATE 7:53 pm – With 25/55 precincts reporting in Arlington, it’s now de Ferranti (D) 51.9%-Vihstadt (R) 47.6%. With 1097 precincts of 2567 (42.73%) reporting, it’s now Kaine 52.0%-Stewart 46.1%. It’s neck-and-neck in VA-02 with 45 precincts of 180 (25.00%) reporting — Taylor (R) 50.1%-Luria (D) 49.3%. With 50% of precincts reporting in VA-05, it’s Riggleman (R) 56.0%-Cockburn (D) 43.8%. In VA-07, with 106/228 precincts reporting, it’s Spanberger (D) 50.3%-Brat (R) 48.4%.
UPDATE 7:41 pm – With 10/55 precincts reporting in Arlington, it’s now Vihstadt (R/I) 50.1%-de Ferranti (D) 49.4%. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA08) is cruising to an easy reelection over Republican Thomas Oh. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA11) is also winning easily, over Republican Jeff Dove.
UPDATE 7:36 pm – With 700/2567 precincts reporting, it’s now Kaine (D) 52.5%-Stewart (R) 45.7%. With 96/244 precincts reporting in VA-01, it’s Wittman (R) 57%-Williams (D) 43%. In VA-04, Rep. Donald McEachin (D) is cruising to an easy victory over Republican Ryan McAdams (R). In VA-05, with 81/330 precincts reporting, it’s Riggleman (R) 57.1%-Cockburn 42.7%. In VA-07, with 62/228 precincts reporting, it’s Spanberger (D) 50.5%-Brat (R) 48.3%. And in VA-10, with 122/213 precincts reporting, it’s Wexton (D) 58.2%-Comstock (R) 41.8%.
UPDATE 7:31 pm – With 57/361 precincts reporting in VA-09, it’s Rep. Morgan Griffith (R) 67.8%-Anthony Flaccavento (D) 32.2%. In VA-10, with 119/213 precincts reporting, it’s Jennifer Wexton (D) 57.9%-Barbara Comstock (R) 42.1%. Looking great for Wexton! In VA-07, with 39/228 precincts reporting, it’s Spanberger 49.9%-Brat 48.8%.
UPDATE 7:28 pm – With 2 of 55 precincts reporting in Arlington, it’s Democrat Matt de Ferranti 64.1%-Republican/Independent John Vihstadt 35.3%. Innnnteresting.
UPDATE 7:23 pm – It’s very early, and keep in mind that the rural, small, very “red” areas tend to come in first. So these results are kinda meaningless, but just for completeness purposes…with about 4% reporting, it’s neo-Confederate Corey 51.61%-Kaine 46.60%. In VA-01, with 6.6% reporting, it’s Rob Wittman (R) 61.1%-Vangie Williams (D) 38.9%. In VA-02, with 3% reporting, it’s Elaine Luria (D) 51.7%-Scott Taylor (R) 48.1%. In VA-05, with 9% reporting, it’s Denver Riggleman (R) 58.5%-Leslie Cockburn (D) 41.4%. In VA-07, with 5.7% reporting, it’s Dave Brat (R) 49.5%-Abigail Spanberger (D) 49.1%.
UPDATE 7:06 pm – ABC News has already called it for Sen. Tim Kaine. So much for Corey Stewart’s ridiculous assertion that this race was tightening, would be neck and neck, etc. More lies from neo-Confederate Corey. Anyway, congratulations to Sen. Kaine; looking forward to six more years of great work for Virginia and for our country!
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As always, I’ll be live blogging Virginia’s election results as they come in tonight (polls close at 7 pm – make sure you stay in line and cast your ballot!), with results from the State Board of Elections, the Fairfax County Board of Elections, Chesterfield County election results, etc. I’ll also be keeping an eye on Twitter feeds from Virginia political gurus like Not Larry Sabato (Ben Tribbett) and others (e.g., Dave Wasserman, J. Miles Coleman, Chaz Nuttycombe). [Note: check out the Election Day Open Thread, particularly the comments section, for tons of information from today…]
The main races I’ll be focusing on are Jennifer Wexton (D) vs. Barbara Comstock (R) in VA-10; Abigail Spanberger (D) vs. Dave Brat (R) in VA-07; Leslie Cockburn (D) vs. Denver Riggleman (R) in VA-05; Elaine Luria (D) vs. Scott Taylor (R) in VA-02; Tim Kaine (D) vs. neo-Confederate Corey Stewart (R) for U.S. Senate (mostly to see how badly Kaine can crush that nutjob, also what the margins look like and what that might mean for downballot “coattails”); Matt de Ferranti (D) vs. John Vihstadt (R/I) for Arlington County Board; Babur Lateef (D) vs. Alyson Satterwhite (R) for Prince William County School Board Chair; Virginia Beach City Council. I’m also interested in how Democrats do in deep-red districts such as VA-01 (Democrat Vangie Williams vs. Republican Rob Wittman), VA-06 (Democrat Jennifer Lewis vs. Republican Ben Cline) and VA-09 (Democrat Anthony Flaccavento vs. Republican Morgan Griffith).
Heading into election day, the consensus seems to be that Democrats will win VA-10, possibly VA-07, VA-05 and VA-02 as well. A good night for Democrats, IMHO, would be winning VA-10 plus one more of the winnable districts. A VERY good night would get us to a pickup of three House seats. A “blue wave” election would see Virginia Dems picking up four House seats, plus of course a wipeout (20+ points?) in the U.S. Senate race.
The final polling averages I’ve seen heading into tonight have Kaine and Wexton up significantly; Spanberger, Luria and Cockburn neck and neck. We’ll see soon enough what the results end up being. Also, keep in mind that how well – or not so well – Democrats do in Virginia will likely set the tone for the rest of the evening nationwide. If Democrats can win districts like VA-07, VA-05 and VA-02, there’s no reason I know if that we can’t win in suburban “purple” districts across the country…
Finally, here are a few numbers to keep in mind as results start coming in tonight:
- Statewide turnout in the last midterm elections, in 2014, was 41.6% (2,194,346 votes). In 2016, turnout was 72.1% (3,984,631 votes). In 2017, turnout was 47.6% (2,612,309 votes). I assume turnout tonight will be FAR higher than it was in 2014, when Democrats basically slept through the election – with disastrous results. The question is whether we get to 2017 gubernatorial-level turnout…or even higher? We’ll also see if the general pattern holds, that higher turnout is better for Democrats.
- Here’s turnout in a few key jurisdictions last year: Fairfax County 376k; Prince William County 142k; Virginia Beach 129k; Chesterfield County 119k; Loudoun County 117k; Henrico County 115k; Arlington County 86k; Richmond City 72k; Norfolk 54k; Alexandria 52k; Newport News 47k; Hanover County 43k; Albemarle County 42k; Stafford County 41k; Spotsylvania County 37k; Roanoke County 34k.
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