Update: Wednesday, 6:33 p.m. Freshman Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger finally went over the top in her re-election race in the Seventh District after mail-in votes in Spotsylvania County and Henrico County pushed her past Republican challenger Nick Freitas.
Spanberger won the race with 50.5 percent of the vote, outpacing Freitas’ 49.4 percent, with a margin of 5,132 votes.
“Tonight, the Seventh District affirmed its commitment to leadership in Congress that puts Central Virginia first, works for everyone, and focuses on expanding opportunity for the next generation of Virginians,” Spanberger said. “Serving the Seventh District in Congress has been my honor, and I look forward to continuing our work to strengthen and protect our communities.”
First report: Wednesday, 9:33 a.m. Democrats appear poised to hold serve in Virginia’s 11 House races, with wins already on the board in six contests, and freshman Rep. Abigail Spanberger on the verge of a narrow win in the Seventh District.
Spanberger, at this writing, trails Republican Nick Freitas by 712 votes, from among the 400,000+ already counted.
The one precinct outstanding is Spotsylvania County’s absentee votes, and though Spanberger lost Spotsylvania in 2018 in her upset win over Dave Brat, it was by just a 10.3-point margin – 54.5 percent to 44.2 percent.
Ahead of the absentees being counted, Spanberger trails in Spotsylvania by a 70.3 percent to 29.4 percent margin.
Even assuming that she falls short of a majority in the county, it would seem to stand to reason that the absentees will pull her into the low to mid 40s percentage-wise, and given the narrow vote margin right now, should be enough to put her over the top.
Virginia’s other freshman Democrat, Elaine Luria, in the Second District, posted a 4.4-point win over Republican Scott Taylor, whom she had upset in 2018.
Luria received 50.9 percent of the vote in the Second, to Taylor’s 46.5 percent, winning by 15,305 votes.
Luria had defeated Taylor 51.1 percent to 48.9 percent in 2018.
First District Republican Congressman Robert Wittman appears to be on his way to a solid re-election win in his race with Democrat Qasim Rashid.
Wittman leads by more than 73,000 votes, with 58.8 percent of the vote, to 41.1 percent for Rashid, with two absentee precincts outstanding – in New Kent County and Spotsylvania County.
There aren’t enough votes in those two localities for Rashid to be able to make up more than a semantic amount of the difference.
The rest of the slate was chalk – with Democrats Bobby Scott, Donald McEachin, Donald Beyer, Jennifer Wexton and Gerry Connolly winning in the Urban Crescent, and Republicans Bob Good, Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith winning in the west and southwest.
Story by Chris Graham
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