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Brief Summary of the Election Results

November 4, 2009

I wanted to get you a brief summary of the election results from last night as quickly as possible this morning. A more detailed report will follow later in the day. Needless to say, it was a huge night for the Republican Party of Virginia. They swept all three statewide offices by large margins. Bob McDonnell led the ticket by capturing the Office of Governor with an 18% point win, Bill Bolling was re-elected Lieutenant Governor by a 12% point margin and Ken Cuccinelli was elected Attorney General by a 15% point margin. As can be seen on the map found at the following link, McDonnell prevailed in all regions of Virginia, only losing a handful of counties in Southside and Western Virginia and a number of the cities in Virginia that usually go Democratic:

http://www.vpap.org/. McDonnell won all jurisdictions in Northern Virginia with the exception of Alexandria and Arlington County.

The large margin of victory for McDonnell in Northern Virginia, including his victory in Fairfax County, spelled trouble for the Democrats in the House of Delegate races. While some races were so close they could be subject to change as a result of the initial canvas or a recount, election night results show that the Republicans defeated eight Democratic House members while losing two seats that were previously Republican for a net pick-up of six seats.

The Republicans picked up four seats in Northern Virginia, a dramatic turnaround from 2008. They defeated Democratic incumbents David Poisson (defeated by Thomas “Tag” Greason”), Paul Nichols(defeated by Richard Anderson by 200 votes), Chuck Caputo (defeated by Jim LeMunyon), Margit Vanderhye (defeated by Barbara Comstock by 316 votes). Incumbent David Marsden (D) appears to have survived a tight race by holding off a challenge from Kerry Bolognese with a 208 vote win (1% margin of victory). The only bright spot for the Democrats in Northern Virginia was a win by Luke Torian who defeated Ralph Lopez (R) to capture the Prince William County seat previously held by Jeff Frederick. Dave Albo and Tom Rust were both re-elected by safe margins in races that the Democrats had hoped to be successful.

The Republicans appear to have picked up two seats in Hampton Roads by defeating both incumbent Democrats in Virginia Beach. Chris Stolle (R) handily defeated Joe Bouchard in a rematch from their 2006 race. City Councilman Ron Villanueva(R) appears to have beaten incumbent Bobby Mathieson (D) by only 16 votes (a margin of 1/10th of one percent) and this race will likely be the subject of a recount. The only pick-up for the Democrats in Hampton Roads came with the defeat of incumbent Delegate Phil Hamilton by Robin Abbott. As you will recall, Hamilton has been the subject of an ethics scandal over a job he obtained at Old Dominion University after patroning a budget amendment that created the program in which he obtained the job.

The other two Democratic losses in the House were in western Virginia with Dan Bowling (D) losing handily to James Morefield by more than 2000 votes. The final loss for the Democrats was by Shannon Valentine of Lynchburg who appears to have lost a very close race to Scott Garrett by 210 votes (an 8/10th of one percent margin). This race could also be the subject of a recount. Valentine led in the race for most of the evening with Garrett pulling ahead with the last precinct reporting and apparently was pulled over the top by a strong turnout of students from Liberty University who had the day off from school to vote.

With retirements and the defeat of incumbents there will be 20 new members of the House when it convenes on January 13, 2010.

I hope you find this summary of results helpful. A more in-depth analysis should follow later in the day. In the interim, if you have any questions on this, please let me know.


Philip F. Abraham
Director and General Counsel
The Vectre Corporation
823 East Main St., Suite 1700 (NOTE NEW ADDRESS)
Richmond, VA 23219