It’s Primary Day in Virginia. For Rick Sincere and I, as local elections officials, we’ve already been up since 4 or so. For the rest of you, the polls opened at 6 AM.
The races we are following today:
1st District (R)
Incumbent Rob Wittman is facing a primary challenge from Anthony Riedel.
7th District (R)
Incumbent Eric Cantor is facing a primary challenge from Dave Brat.
8th District (D)
A cast of thousands vies for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the 8th District open seat.
Here’s a link to SBE’s results website for later tonight. And here’s a link to VPAP, who will be live casting the results as well.
The conventional wisdom says Wittman, Cantor and Don Beyer will prevail today.
From today’s Virginia Mornings News Review by J.R. Hoeft (subscribe):
Primary Day
Republicans in the 1st and 7th Congressional Districts and Democrats in the 8th head to the polls today to vote for the general election match-ups for this November. It is highly unlikely that we will see an upset, but, the most watched race will clearly be in the 7th.
Should Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s opponent, Randolph Macon Professor Dave Brat, make the leader break a sweat, it is hoped (at least by those who have brought the challenge) that Cantor stays “accountable” to conservative ideology. This could make brokering policy compromises on Capitol Hill all the more difficult. It also will tell Cantor to avoid getting into the weeds on local party leadership battles.
But Cantor hasn’t taken this campaign for granted and continues to lead in pre-election polls. And, The Hill took notice:
“Those incumbents who head home early, court party activists, raise huge sums and beat up on their opponents tend to win. The ones caught napping often don’t.”
Additionally, there will be some loyal opposition in the 4th and 7th after all.
In the 4th, first time candidate Elliot Fausz, a Chesterfied County manager of a weekly newspaper is set to take on Rep. J. Randy Forbes. According to the Virginian-Pilot, Fausz, 29, believes Forbes “is too focused on defense issues and has not been responsive to other issues in the region. He argues that Forbes is not easily accessible to residents.”
And, Prof. Jack Trammell, who, ironically, also teaches at Randolph-Macon, is jumping into the race on behalf of the Democrats in the 7th.
So, here’s your likely line up (as far as I know – feel free to email me corrections):
- US Senate – Sen. Mark Warner (D) v. Ed Gillespie (R)
- 1st – Rep. Rob Wittman (R)
unopposedv. Norman Mosher (D) - 2nd – Rep. Scott Rigell (R) v. Suzanne Patrick (D)
- 3rd – Rep. Bobby Scott (D) – unopposed
- 4th – Rep. Randy Forbes (R) v. Elliot Fausz (D)
- 5th – Rep. Robert Hurt (R) v. Lawrence Gaughan (D)
- 6th – Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R) – unopposed
- 7th – Rep. Eric Cantor (R) v. Jack Trammell (D)
- 8th – Don Beyer (D) v. Micah Edmond (R) (Democrats currently hold this open seat)
- 9th – Rep. Morgan Griffith – unopposed
- 10th – Del. Barbara Comstock (R) v. John Foust (D) (Republicans currently hold this open seat)
- 11th – Rep. Gerry Connolly (D) v. Suzanne Scholte (R)
All candidates for the general election are required to file no later than 7 pm today.
