After a disaster of an election even with your guy winning but by a smaller margin then expected...a good time off and then to take a look again is in order to see where we are and where we should go. More people who are more in the know in VA can chime in below.
1. A number to remember: 1.7 million. This is the difference between the total number of votes cast in the Senate race in 2014 and the last one in 2012. Do I need to tell you what was the difference between the two. This should reinforce the fact that when we all vote, we win. We should be ready for a Tim Kaine reelection soon because he is up in 2018 a non presidential midterm and the last two midterms showed almost a drop off of over 1.5 million votes between a Presidential Election year and a non Midterm year.
2. The Big Blue NOVA Wall. With the exception of Warner's Governor's Race in 2001, every Dem to win statewide carried Fairfax by a large margin, unfortunately you have to wait till the very end because they always count LAST. I take 2001 out because Warner won all over the place because he was popular and the GOP was not. In 2004, John Kerry got 45% in VA without any effort at all and many Statewide Democrats thought he could have competed in VA and won if they put forth effort. One of those was Mark Warner, and this great showing was attributed to the fact that Kerry barely won Fairfax being the first Democrat to do so statewide. After that with the exception of McDonnell in 2009, it has been reliably blue by a at least 15% or more and being the biggest county in the commonwealth it has provided the margin of victory in almost all statewide elections for Democrats since then. Add in the fact that nearby counties such as Prince William and Loudoun have gone blue in past elections also bode well for the Blue Wall of Northern Virginia. It should be noted though that in Loudoun both Warner and Gillespie tied, which led to this being a lot closer then it should. The GOP does reliably well outside of NOVA but it has not been enough to climb over Fairfax. Plus NOVA's population is only going to get bigger and younger. Which leads me to point 3
3. The GOP path to 270 just got smaller. If you take the 2004 Kerry results as the floor for the Democratic Electoral Vote count we get 246 without breaking a sweat. Now add in the fact that no GOP candidate has carried VA without Fairfax since then, add on VA's 13 and you can safely say we can get to 259 without any problem at all. In honor of This is Spinal Tap, we just need an 11 to win. That's 11 Electoral Votes out of 292 available. The road to 270 just got a little bit easier for us.
So as you can see we do have some silver linings in a rather dark cloud and we can start the road to recovery here. With the GOP win in the VA 10, that will open up a State Delegate seat in NOVA in the Loudoun/Fairfax region that Comstock barely held onto in 2013. Depending on when Comstock resigns her seat will set the Special Election in motion. We can win this seat but it will take work. Work that I am ready to do. I am going to get involved more because I want to keep VA blue, I hope more VA Kossacks are ready as well.