Virginia Election thread....GO Democrats.....(link to incoming results)

[diamond14]

Virginia already has a Democratic Governor (Mark R. Warner) ....these elections are laying groundwork for the Democratic Party in Virginia....

Today's election is primarily for better control at the State level.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63117-2003Nov4.html

-snips-(tallies at bottom)

Aided by more than $1 million in contributions from Governor Warner's political action committee and an additional $700,000 that he helped raise for them, Democratic candidates hoped to pick up seats in the state House of Delegates for the first time since 1975.

Democrats went into the election holding 34 of the 100 seats and hoped to gain one or two, thwarting the GOP from expanding its majority from 64 to a veto-proof 67. Conservative independents held the remaining two seats.

In the state Senate, Republicans held 23 of the 40 seats before the election, the first for all districts since a 2001 reapportionment. That redistricting eliminated one Democrat, Leslie L. Byrne, whose home was drawn out of the 34th district. Competing for her seat were Republican Del. Jeannemarie A. Devolites, the chief beneficiary of Davis's recent fundraising prowess, and Democrat Ronald F. "Ron" Christian.

updates here....refresh page for latest tallies...
2003 Virginia State Senate
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/elections/2003/results/index/vasenate/

2003 Virginia House of Delegates
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/elections/2003/results/index/vahouse/

[msanger]

1. where are you from?

I'm in Northern VA, Alexandria to be precise. Spent four hours sitting at the polls, marking down the Dems who voted. First time I've done anything like that on election day.

[diamond14]

3. Alexandria also....voted at the Beatley Library....but I didn't

know anyone there that was marking down the Dems who voted....

[Virginian]

10. Hey Alexandria,

I take it you are poll watcher. How can you tell the party? Are you just checking those on a party membership list? How does that percentage work out to the total number of votes cast for a particular Democratic candidate?

[gasperc]

2. we hope to pick up one or two

fuck, with goals like that it'll take 20 years to win back the legislature!!!!!

but I'll take the one or two

[diamond14]

4. one Victory for the Democrats...reTHUGlicans cannot hold a

veto-proof majority in the Virginia House...with only 10 more seats to call, reTHUGlicans cannot get the 67 that they need....

the times are a changing here in Virginia....

in Alexandria, we have a totally Democrat City Council, a Democrat Mayor, a Democrat U.S. House of Representatives, and a Democrat Virginia State Governor....

now, if we could just get rid of the TWO reTHUGlican U.S. Senators "cheap labor conservatives", then Virginia could hold her head high again !!!

[spooky3]

5. thanks everyone.

I'm in Arlington County--long time Dem. stronghold that will remain that way. However our Dem. councilpersons and Warner have let us down by not shutting down the baseball stadium fiasco. So the 16+% you see going for the anti-stadium Independent are votes that probably would otherwise have gone to the Dems. I hope they get the message.

[BBradley]

6. As a student

I'm especially glad that several book burners were ousted this year.

[diamond14]

7. please tell me...who are the 'book burners' that got ousted....

and what section of Virginia are they from?

there are parts of this State that really scare me....

but it's good to hear that 'civilization' is coming to Virginia....

[JohnKleeb]

8. same as me

We both go to Herndon High, we live near. Northern Virginia. Well I am happy to see the party coming back here.

[Virginian]

9. Book burner was defeated in Fairfax.

This is stretching my feeble memory but I'll throw out an explanation and someone else can fix the parts I don't remember correctly.

Mychelle Brickner (sp) was on the school board when some committee against certain books kept taking the school board time to get books banned from the Fairfax schools. The people against the books didn't even have kids in school. One of the books was Catcher in the Rye. Mychelle sided with the committee to ban the books.

Not quite as good a story as book burning, but still oppressive.