Back in November, just before Thanksgiving, Democrat Dan Helmer had huge (200+) turnout at the Clifton kickoff to his campaign for House of Delegates in HD40.
As I wrote at the time, incumbent Del. Tim Hugo (right-wing Republican) is absolutely abysmal; as the Washington Post wrote last March:
“Across Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria and other Northern Virginia localities, the landscape is dotted with projects large and small that will stall as a direct result of new Metro funding…For that residents can blame Del. Tim Hugo, a Fairfax lawmaker who is one of the last remaining Republicans representing Northern Virginia. Mr. Hugo, an anti-tax hard-liner and his party’s caucus chairman in the House of Delegates, opposed Democratic efforts to generate more new revenue, from slightly higher taxes on hotel and motel bills and on real estate sales in Northern Virginia. Downstate House Republicans, who had no dog in the fight — the new taxes wouldn’t have affected their constituents — deferred to him.”
So yeah, Hugo’s clearly gotta go in November 2019 – for this and many other reasons (including a bunch of stuff just from this past legislative session) we’ll be discussing over the next few months.
Anyway, yesterday morning Hugo kicked off what will hopefully be his last political campaign of his godawful career. See below for a couple photos from that event, which I hear had maybe 40 people at it. Compare and contrast that to the 200+ at Dan Helmer’s event this past November, and that’s one sign of Hugo’s precarious prospects. Also note that HD40 went for Ralph Northam in 2017 by an 11-point (55%-44%) margin, and then to Tim Kaine in 2018 by an 18-point (58.1%-40.0%) margin. Clearly, that trend is not Tim Hugo’s friend. Let’s make sure of that this November, when we elect Democrat Dan Helmer to this seat!
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