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Virginians wait to see winners of tight congressional races

Columbia Basin Herald | UPDATED 4 years, 2 months AGO
| November 3, 2020 9:03 PM

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginians were waiting to see who won three competitive U.S. House races after Democrats won statewide races.

Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in Virginia in the race for president and the state picked U.S. Sen. Mark Warner to serve a third term.

The three competitive U.S. House races will be a test of whether Virginia’s “blue wave” has staying power.

Two Democrats are trying to hold on to the competitive U.S. House seats they flipped in 2018, and another is trying to win a reliably GOP seat in the western part of the state.

Polls closed at 7 p.m. after voting proceeded smoothly Tuesday across Virginia. New voting laws and other changes made in response to the coronavirus pandemic made it easier to vote early, and more than 2.75 million voters cast ballots before Election Day. That’s more than two-thirds of the total overall voter turnout from four years ago in Virginia.

The tallies of most of those early votes aren't expected to be released until late Tuesday, which is when the winners of the close House races could be declared.

All three Incumbent GOP House members — Reps. Rob Wittman, Ben Cline, and Morgan Griffith — held on to their seats, as did Democratic Reps. Don Beyer, Jennifer Wexton, Gerry Connolly and Bobby Scott. It was too early to call the race for Democratic incumbent Don McEachin.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger is working to fend off Republican Nick Freitas in the Richmond area’s 7th Congressional District, while Rep. Elaine Luria is in a rematch with Republican former Rep. Scott Taylor for a Hampton Roads-area seat in the 2nd Congressional District.

Spanberger and Luria are part of a group of moderate Democrats who came to Congress with deep military and intelligence experience. Their credentials were instrumental in pushing the House to impeach Trump over allegations that he pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden.

The 5th Congressional District, a mostly conservative area in the western part of the state, has been closely watched as a potential bellwether. Bob Good ousted incumbent Rep. Denver Riggleman in a GOP primary, in part because of Riggleman’s support for gay marriage. Good then faced Democrat Cameron Webb, a Black doctor with a law degree, who is hoping to flip the seat in the Trump-friendly district.

Trump made noise about carrying Virginia, doing a quick campaign rally at the Newport News airport in September that drew thousands of supporters. Overall, though, the state was not a focus of either campaign. While Virginia was considered a swing state as recently as 2012, it has trended sharply toward Democrats over the past decade. Republicans have not won statewide in Virginia since 2009.

Voters also will decide a referendum that puts next year’s redistricting in Virginia in the hands of a bipartisan commission. If successful, the commission of citizens and legislators will redraw the state’s congressional and General Assembly districts to conform with the 2020 Census.

David Hendrix, 54, voted at Community of Grace Church in Chesterfield County, where there was no line. The furniture store owner praised Trump and said he deserved a second term.

“He’s running the country like a business instead of just politics and they can’t buy him off,” Hendrix said.

Dorothy and Richard Cannon, who voted early in Norfolk, said they chose Biden for president, in part because of their concerns about the cost of health insurance. They said they believe Biden will work to make it more affordable.

“It’s like half my check for me and him to have insurance,” said Dorothy Cannon, 49, who works in sales. “It’s like I’m working to have insurance.”

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Find AP’s full election coverage at APNews.com/Election2020.

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