(Trigger Warning: If you’re a Republican, you will not find this post to be sympathetic, and might want to skip it.)
I posted yesterday about volunteering outside the polls for Election Day here in Virginia, where our race to the Governor’s Mansion has been closely watched around the country. Now, most of the results are in. And we’ve got good news and bad news.
The good news: Alexandria voters stepped up! Here in my city, we voted the straight Democratic ticket for Mayor and City Council. And all of the progressive candidates and none of the scary ones got on the School Board. We elected the Democratic candidate for state delegate, by a wide margin. All of the other local races went our way, and Alexandria voters also chose the Democrats for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General by a landslide. The rest of Northern Virginia and a few other blue points around the state map showed similar results.
The bad news: The rest of the state did not. In the gubernatorial race, 75% of Alexandrians voting for Democrat Terry MacAuliffe (and other high numbers in the other blue jurisdictions mentioned above), was not enough to offset the high numbers of votes for his Republican opponent, mostly in the rural parts of the state. In the end, it was close, but Glenn Youngkin won, as did his running mates.
Votes are still being counted in races for seats in the General Assembly, but we will most likely lose our majority in the lower house. It’s possible that we could tie it, but a 48-50 split seems more likely. (State Senators were not up for reelection this year.)
I’m afraid we may have to brace ourselves for some Texas-style “reforms” in the areas of women’s health, education, immigration, and more. And after we had made so much progress over the past decade. It’s depressing.
The Petrini Page 