A recount just knocked Virginia’s statehouse out of Republicans’ hands — by a single vote
A key House of Delegates race flipped to a Democratic candidate, setting up a 50-50 chamber.
The recount of the vote tally for a key race in last month’s Virginia House of Delegates elections concluded on Tuesday. And incredibly enough, when the dust settled, the Democratic challenger led the Republican incumbent by just one vote — an outcome that, when certified, would deprive Republicans of their majority in the chamber.
Yes, that’s right: A single vote in a single race appears to have tipped a chamber in Virginia’s state legislature from what looked like a 51-49 Republican majority to instead a 50-50 even split between the parties (if the current tallies in other races hold up). The outcome in this district is expected to be certified by judges tomorrow.
There’s no tie-breaking procedure for the House of Delegates, so if the final result is 50-50, it seems that the parties will have to negotiate some sort of power-sharing agreement to determine how the chamber will function (who will be speaker, who will chair the committees, and so on). But this isn’t completely unprecedented — it happened in Virginia’s House of Delegates after the 1997 elections, and the parties did reach a deal in the end.
Yet it wasn’t clear exactly how huge those gains were — or whether they’d be sufficient to break the Republican Party’s hold on the chamber, because some close races were headed for recounts.
Going in, the GOP held a 66-to-34 majority. And when the dust settled after the initial days of vote counting, it looked like they had just barely held on to it. Democrats had flipped at least 15 GOP-held seats, far more than political analysts expected beforehand. Still, in initial tallies, Republican candidates led in races for 51 seats in the chamber, compared to 49 for Democrats.
But some of these races were remarkably close — particularly the one in the 94th District, representing the city of Newport News in the southeast of the state.
There, incumbent Delegate David Yancey (R) led his challenger Shelly Simonds (D) by a mere 10 votes heading into a recount. That’s the sort of margin that often shifts during a recount, due to errors in the initial tally.
So the recount for the 94th District took place Tuesday — with observers and lawyers from both campaigns, as well as many journalists, in attendance so as to prevent any mischief. And at the end, the margin shifted just enough to give Simonds the victory — 11,608 votes to 11,607.
That would flip a 16th GOP-held seat to the Democrats and put the House of Delegates at 50 seats for each party, if the current margins in the other races hold up.
However, it should be noted that there are still two more races that technically have not yet been resolved. In one, for the 68th District, a Democratic challenger, Dawn Adams, leads by 336 votes. A recount there will take place on Wednesday, but that’s a big enough lead that she’s expected to hold on to that pickup (and I’ve already counted her seat as a Democratic pickup for the purposes of this article’s tallies).
Then there’s controversy over a race in the 28th District. Republican candidate Bob Thomas won his race there by just 82 votes — but at least 147 people in the district were given the wrong ballot and voted with it, preventing their votes from being cast in this House of Delegates race. Democrats have sued and requested a new election be held, and the case is scheduled for a hearing on January 5.
So if the courts decide a new election should be held in this district, Democrats would have a chance to pick up a 51-vote House of Delegates majority outright in a special election. But of course we don’t yet know if that will happen.
For now, though, it’s clear that the GOP will no longer have a statehouse majority. And Republicans currently have just a 21-to-19-vote state Senate majority. (The state Senate wasn’t up for election this November, and won’t be until 2019.) So however things shake out, Democratic Governor-elect Ralph Northam will have to deal with a very narrowly divided legislature to sign anything into law.
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Well, the race in Virginia was a lot closer than some would have thought, even with a record number of voters hitting the polls, for the Democrats.
A Democrat won 11,608 to 11,607?? Lol, the right wind dingbats' heads are going to explode!
This shows that every single vote counts. If you fail to vote you vote in the winner.
I've heard it said many times, ''my vote won't make a difference'', seems that it really does.
The Dems won a pretty sweeping victory in VA...They turned a large number of seats, which, IMO, is a good thing.
Kavika, if you remember me on NV, I always said every vote counts, I feel vindicated tonight.
I do remember you and your right, you've been vindicated.
Everyone who see's this article should facebook it and, tell those who have said "My vote doesn't count" to read this article.
Indeed!
I forgot to add the link to the story, just added it.
One vote......
Yep, one vote change a seat from Republican to Democrat in Virginia.
This story should inspire people to get out and vote; so should having a lunatic for a president.
Especially in 2018.
Every vote does count.
Off topic but a history lesson. Saburu Sakai, a WW2 Japanese fighter pilot that flew a Mitsubishi A6M ( Zero ), stated in his book that a single fighter plane could make the difference in an air battle. He was an ace, 47 confirmed kills, survived the war and eventually became a US citizen residing in California.
Note that Virginia's districts have been heavily gerrymandered to favor the GOP, so even though statewide the Dems got 200K+ more votes than GOP legislators it's almost impossible to flip control to the Dems.
Nice note here, the courts ruled in the DNC's favor, they, the courts in Virginia are going to reset the districts so they are fairer to both party's.
The Dems were naive in 2010, after the Census. The Republicans gerrymandered every state they won, to the point that some are now almost impossible to take back... and it took a couple years for the Dems to react. They should have been in court as soon as the first electoral maps were published.
True, now we are paying the price for their lack of fortitude.
Bob, are you ignorant enough to think the Republicans gerrymandering was unusual in any sense? The Democrats certainly gerrymandered the shit out of the few states they were able to win (see Illinois.
What happened in Virginia is in no way the same as Illinois.
I think this is one of the bigger ongoing problems our democracy has faced, the issue of how representation is apportioned. We really need to have some kind of independent non-partisan commission do it, similar perhaps to how judicial nominees are selected in some states (Iowa is a good example). Right now whichever party is in power after a census tries to skew the redistricting in their favor, but the GOP is by far the worst offender.
Judicial nominees are a similar issue which is why I mentioned Iowa which has a refereed panel create a list of qualified nominees from which the governor selects a nominee to submit for confirmation. That would obviate the grossly unqualified nominees whom Trump has submitted.
Fundamentally, the system of simple majority, winner takes all... inevitably leads to the problems we see. There wasn't much else available back in the Fathers' day, but there are a lot of other choices available now .
Right, but note that even with proportional voting you still have the problem of how to create Congressional districts. There needs to be a way to structure it so that the party in power can't rig it the way the GOP has done.
Yes, but the importance of drawing districts is drastically reduced in systems where "lost votes" are no longer completely lost.
I don't think that's the case since gerrymandering is designed to impact district-based representation, ie the party representation in Congress. It really doesn't affect anything else.
Also note that the Virginia race is now officially a toss-up.
Yep, I just saw that a few minutes ago on MSNBC, seems that the way they do it there, is a coin toss. :P
Hi, Sean...
I am ignorant enough to think all sorts of things. How about you?