With 43% of precincts reporting, Gillespie (52%) is beating Warner (46%) in a race no one thought would be competitive. So what’s going on?
Here are some reasons to think Warner might not be in so
much trouble:
Only 7% of the vote is in in Fairfax, VA’s largest county, by far. It accounted for 14.4% of the vote in Virginia in 2006, the last Senate midterm in the state. Webb beat Allen there by 75k votes.
Arlington, another big D county, only has 21% in.
With 88% of the vote counted in Chesterfield County, which encompasses the suburbs south of Richmond, Gillespie (52.8%) is underperforming Allen ’06 (58.4%) and Allen ’12 (51.8%).
Turnout is up there slightly, but probably not enough to make a big difference.
Barone tweeting very positive stuff on Virginia
I was at my solidly Democrat precinct polling station in Fairfax County Virginia when they closed. Turnout was half of 2012. This might work in the Republican’s favor.