Quick Time Analysis

Story by Chris Graham
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– Interesting mixed bag in Waynesboro with Yes votes on the fire station, stormwater improvements and library improvements and pretty resounding No votes on the proposed youth baseball-softball complex and sidewalk improvements.
I wonder how this will impact the May 2008 elections. I think both sides were anticipating up and down Yes or No votes – as was I.
The split there might indicate an electorate in Waynesboro that is more split than either side recognized before tonight.
And this was with turnout comparable to the May 2006 elections that put Nancy Dowdy back in office and put Lorie Smith in over Reo Hatfield.

– Rockingham County did elect Chaz Evans-Haywood its new clerk of court, but not by the margin that the pundits (and for that matter, this writer) had anticipated. Evans-Haywood, a Republican, got 25 percent of the vote to just under a shade of 22 percent for Democrat Dianne Fulk – and three independents (Brenda Huffman, Mike Harvey and Barry Koogler) pushed past the 10-percent mark.
The conventional wisdom was that the major-party candidates would eat up about 70 percent of the vote, with Harvey coming in a distant third in the 10-percent range, and the rest of the candidates divvying up the remaining 20 percent.
So much for conventional wisdom.

– One surprise in Augusta County (for me, anyway) with Larry Howdyshell holding on to his North River supervisor seat with a 39-vote win over former supervisor Charles Curry. Jeremy Shifflett won a narrow 16-vote victory over Lee Godfrey in the Beverley Manor race that didn’t surprise me, but probably does surprise local Dems who had to think that the seat was theirs to lose when Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport executive director Greg Campbell had to bow out of the race at literally the last minute this spring because of a possible conflict with his day job.
Another surprise in the county – I didn’t expect Nancy Sorrells to have as tough a time as she did in beating back Michael Shull in Riverheads.

– No surprises in the local General Assembly races. All were as comfortable for the GOP incumbents as predicted.