UPDATE 7:51 pm: Per Sam Shirazi – “all votes counted tonight in Loudoun. Democrats overperform Harris margin by ~3% in both races. There will be a few more final mail ballots and provisionals. Should boost Dem numbers a little more, but nothing significant. Dem slide in Loudoun stopped at least tonight”
UPDATE 7:46 pm: With 55/57 precincts reporting in SD32, Kannan Srinivasan (D) is winning by a 61.2%-38.6% margin, with 29,647 votes counted so far. And in HD26, JJ Singh (D) is winning by a 61.3%-38.2% margin, with 9,967 votes counted. In SD10, Luther Cifers (R) is winning by a 58.2%-41.7% margin, with 15,022 votes counted so far.
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UPDATE 7:30 pm: Congrats to VA State Senator-elect Kannan Srinivasan!
UPDATE 7:24 pm: According to Loudoun County, with 51/57 precincts reporting, Democrat Kannan Srinivasan leads Republican Tumay Harding 13,459 (58.2%)-9,642 (41.7%) in SD32, and Democrat JJ Singh leads Republican Ram Venkatachalam 4,576 (58.0%) to 3,284 (41.6%). Looking good for both Kannan Srinivasan and JJ Singh to be joining the General Assembly shortly! 🙂
UPDATE 7:17 pm: With 6/11 localities reporting in SD10, Republican Luther Cifers leads Democrat Jack Trammell 56.7%-43.3%.
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See below for results from the special elections today in Virginia’s SD10, SD32 and HD26. The reason for these special elections is that the former State Senators from SD10 and SD32 – John McGuire (R) and Suhas Subramanyam (D) were both elected to Congress (in VA05 and VA10, respectively), and then Del. Kannan Srinivasan (D-HD26) was nominated to replace Subramanyam in the State Senate. So today, special elections were held for all three open seats, with the nominees as follows:
- SD10 (Hanover, Powhatan, Louisa Goochland, etc.): Democrat Jack Trammell vs. Republican Luther Cifers
- SD32 (Loudoun): Democrat Kannan Srinivasan vs. Republican Tumay Deniz Harding
- HD26 (Loudoun): Democrat JJ Singh vs. Republican Ram Venkatachalam
Why these special elections matter is that both the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates are very closely divided, with Democrats holding just a 21-19 majority in the Senate and a 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates. So, in theory at least, these special elections could shift party control (if Democrats lost SD32 and/or HD26). However, that’s unlikely, given that both SD32 (went 59%-37% for Kamala Harris) and HD26 (went 59%-37% for Kamala Harris) are pretty solidly “blue” districts, while SD10 is pretty solidly “red” (went 63%-36% for Trump, so a Democratic win there would be a major upset).
The main reasons why there could be upsets in any of these races are related to the fact that special elections can be weird, particularly when there’s bad weather, such as an early-January snowstorm, making turnout highly unpredictable. Of course, a lot of voters these days cast their ballots early, and those tend to skew Democratic, so if turnout today was down due to the snowstorm, it actually could hurt Republicans disproportionately. That’s why it probably doesn’t make a ton of sense to draw major implications from these special elections for what might happen this coming November in the Virginia governor’s race, or over the next few years with Trump in the White House. Of course, that won’t stop the media from doing just that, because that’s how they roll…
Anyway, polls close at 7 pm as usual. I’ll live blog the results as they come in from the Virginia Department of Elections. Hopefully, we’ll know the winners pretty quickly.
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