Virginia 2009 Megathread

[Mr.Phips]

Special election "excitement" tonight for two House of Delegates seats:

In the 70th, Dwight Jones was elected Mayor of Richmond. Democratic City Councilor Delores McQuinn is running unopposed.

In the 81st, Terrie Suit resigned to become a lobbyist. It's a tight battle between Republican farmer Barry Knight and Democratic payday lending activist/part-time Applebees waiter John LaCombe. Knight is 54, LaCombe is 24. Knight is currently up 85-14 with 6/18 precincts in -- I'm going to go out on a limb and call it for Knight.

That leaves the 46th district seat vacated by Brian Moran which will be filled next Tuesday.

Edit: Now 86-14 for Knight with 10/18 in. Turnout is currently a whopping 4%.

Was the Knight/LaCombe race actually expected to be close?

[Mr.Phips]

Special election "excitement" tonight for two House of Delegates seats:

In the 70th, Dwight Jones was elected Mayor of Richmond. Democratic City Councilor Delores McQuinn is running unopposed.

In the 81st, Terrie Suit resigned to become a lobbyist. It's a tight battle between Republican farmer Barry Knight and Democratic payday lending activist/part-time Applebees waiter John LaCombe. Knight is 54, LaCombe is 24. Knight is currently up 85-14 with 6/18 precincts in -- I'm going to go out on a limb and call it for Knight.

That leaves the 46th district seat vacated by Brian Moran which will be filled next Tuesday.

Edit: Now 86-14 for Knight with 10/18 in. Turnout is currently a whopping 4%.

Could the Moran seat actually be competitive?  I know its a heavily Dem seat, but Democrats lost a similarly heavily Dem state House seat in Delaware a couple weeks ago. 

[Mr.Phips]

Special election "excitement" tonight for two House of Delegates seats:

In the 70th, Dwight Jones was elected Mayor of Richmond. Democratic City Councilor Delores McQuinn is running unopposed.

In the 81st, Terrie Suit resigned to become a lobbyist. It's a tight battle between Republican farmer Barry Knight and Democratic payday lending activist/part-time Applebees waiter John LaCombe. Knight is 54, LaCombe is 24. Knight is currently up 85-14 with 6/18 precincts in -- I'm going to go out on a limb and call it for Knight.

That leaves the 46th district seat vacated by Brian Moran which will be filled next Tuesday.

Edit: Now 86-14 for Knight with 10/18 in. Turnout is currently a whopping 4%.

Could the Moran seat actually be competitive?  I know its a heavily Dem seat, but Democrats lost a similarly heavily Dem state House seat in Delaware a couple weeks ago. 

Obama got 75% in the 46th; I think it would require every Republican in the district to turn out for a win. I don't think Moran resigning is as controversial as the situation in Delaware, where the candidate ran unopposed then immediately resigned to take a job in New Mexico.

Yeah, I was just doing the math there.  He won it by 74%-25%. 

[Mr.Phips]

One more notable special election coming up: the chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors (vacated by newly-minted Congressman Gerry Connolly) will be elected on February 3. Candidates are Braddock district Supervisor Sharon Bulova, currently the vice-chair of the board, on the Democratic side, and Springfield district Supervisor Pat Herrity, son of 80s board chairman Jack Herrity, on the Republican side. So ironically, regardless of who wins, this will require another special election to fill the seat left open by the winner.

Who is the favorite there?  I would imagine the Democrats due to the substantial Democratic lean of Fairfax County. 

[Mr.Phips]

It appears that in the race for Brian Moran's old seat, the Democrat is only winning by 17 votes.  This is a district that Obama got 75% in. 

[Mr.Phips]

So, this week I've received 7 campaign mailers. 5 were from Peter Schmidt (Democrat running for the House of Delegates, if you haven't been reading the thread), and 1 each were from Ken Stolle (Republican running for Sheriff) and John Bell (Democrat running for Sheriff, not the NoVa House candidate). Not a word from any of the statewide candidates; they're probably not bothering since I voted in the Dem primary.

Is the current VA Beach Sheriff a Republican or Dem?