Polls have just closed in Virginia, where Democrats are selecting nominees for this fall's races for lieutenant governor and attorney general. Voters in both parties are also picking candidates for state House races, the most notable of which is Air Force veteran Evandra Thompson's challenge to Delegate Rosalyn Dance in the Democratic primary in the 63rd District. Five Republican delegates also face challenges. We'll be following the returns from these races tonight.
Results: Statewide | State House
4:23 PM PT: Via Johnny Longtorso in comments, we have some results from Chesterfield County. Aneesh Chopra leads in the LG race, Justin Fairfax in the AG contest, and Dance in HD-63.
4:28 PM PT: Chesterfield, though, only accounts for 3 of the 30 precincts in HD-63.
4:48 PM PT: A big dump of precincts totaling almost 31% of the vote just appeared, giving Ralph Northam a 51-49 lead for LG and Mark Herring a 53-47 lead for AG. In HD-63, Dance has a wide 61-39 lead, but with just 4 precincts out of 30 reporting.
4:57 PM PT: Some votes definitely just disappeared in HD-63 on the VA SBE site. And other sites have different totals. What a mess.
5:06 PM PT: So VPAP seems to have more votes, with 16 of 30 precincts reporting in HD-63. They give Dance a 55-45 lead over Thompson.
5:09 PM PT: And suddenly we're up to 70% reporting statewide. Northam leads 52-48, Herring by the same margin.
5:21 PM PT: The Progress-Index says that with all precincts reporting, the City of Petersburg (the heart of HD-63) has given 1,496 votes to Thompson versus 1,428 to Dance. Still very hard to get a proper read on anything, though, as the VA SBE is a mess and VPAP appears to have crashed.
5:24 PM PT: Whoa:
Dinwiddie voters may decide 63rd House race. Dance leads Thompson by about 100 at our present count, pending Dinwiddie results.
5:28 PM PT: What a maddening liveblog. Vote totals are now zero at the VA SBE, and VPAP is down.
5:39 PM PT: AP also has results, though they appear to be well behind where VPAP was when it crashed. Who's on first? Also, before VPAP took an unwanted ganja break, two Republican delegates were trailing even more conservative challengers, though who knows if that will hold up.
5:39 PM PT: VPAP at least is providing updates through their Twitter account. It's 51-49 Herring and 54-46 Northam with 83% reporting.
5:50 PM PT: Chopra certainly looks done. VPAP says that with over 90% reporting, Northam's lead is holding steady at 54-46. Herring, though, is up just 51.5 to 48.5.
5:52 PM PT: Huh, check it out. The AP sez: "Longtime Va. GOP Del. Beverly Sherwood loses primary to conservative challenger Mark Berg."
5:54 PM PT: On the other hand, reports VPAP: "Speaker Bill Howell wins nomination with nearly 92% of vote." He was another one of those Republican delegates who received a primary challenge.
5:57 PM PT: If you can trust the SBE, they now have all but one precinct reporting in HD-63, and give Dance a 53-47 lead. That last precinct is in Dance-friendly Dinwiddie.
6:05 PM PT: VPAP confirms the SBE, with a 53-47 lead for Dance. A second GOP delegate has gone down, though, Joe May.
6:06 PM PT: Aneesh Chopra has conceded the Democratic LG nomination to Ralph Northam.
6:09 PM PT: There's no little red checkmark on the AP's site, but AP reporter Dena Potter has called HD-63 for Dance.
6:12 PM PT: Evandra Thompson's campaign informs me that she has conceded the race to Rosalyn Dance.
6:17 PM PT: Thompson says she plans to run again in 2015.
6:27 PM PT (Steve Singiser): For those scoring at home, that leaves one race remaining: the Democratic primary for Attorney General. State senator Mark Herring has a slight edge over Justin Fairfax, but it seems like it will be a pretty durable one. Herring has a 4900-vote edge, and of the 74 unreported precincts (according to VPAP), the majority of them lie in counties and municipalities where Herring held an edge.
6:29 PM PT (Steve Singiser): And, in the time it took me to type that previous update, the AP has called the Democratic primary for Attorney General. Your winner, by a 52-48 margin, is state senator Mark Herring.
6:39 PM PT (Steve Singiser): On the special election front, Republicans held a state legislative seat tonight in Florida (FL-HD-2). Republican Mike Hill defeated Democrat Jeremy Lau by a 58-42 margin. Given the redness of the territory (Escambia and Santa Rosa counties), I suppose you could say the Democrat beat the point spread on this one.
6:47 PM PT (Steve Singiser): One bit of bad news for the blue team: in Connecticut, the GOP picked up HD-53 in a special election to replace Democratic state Rep. Bryan Hurlburt, who resigned to take a job with the USDA. Republican Sam Belsito scored the victory over Democrat Tony Horn. That leaves Democrats with a 98-to-53 edge in the state House, which is actually the weakest position the Democrats have been in since 2004 in the Nutmeg State.
6:57 PM PT (Steve Singiser): And, finally, our last electoral result of the night. With about 80 percent of precincts in, it looks like we are headed to a runoff in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the city is in the midst of its first nonpartisan Mayoral election. Former Mayor Kathy Taylor (previously elected as a Democrat) leads the way with 43 percent of the vote. She will meet current mayor Dewey Bartlett (a Republican), who earned 33 percent of the vote. Fellow GOPer Bill Christiansen ran third with 23 percent of the vote.
And, with that final bit of election news, we're going to call it a night here at Daily Kos Elections. Thanks for hanging out with us!