Post-Primary Analysis: What just happened?
Last night was a great night for progressives in Virginia, and a bad night for Governor Youngkin's agenda.
Oh, what a night!
Progressives in Virginia have long sought after a primary election night like last night, and their desired day has finally come. Joe Morrissey, the most conservative Democratic State Senator and only pro-life Democrat in the Senate went down in flames, as did the second-most conservative Democrat Chap Peterson after running on a “Common Sense” ticket in Fairfax, and center-left George Barker of Fairfax also lost to progressive challenger Stella Pekarsky.
Louise Lucas also pulled off an arguable upset against Lionel Spruill, another point of pain for Republicans as they were hoping Spruill would win. Jeremy McPike has a tiny 46-vote lead against Elizabeth Guzman at the moment so this race is expected to go to a recount. If Guzman can pull ahead, that will be another victory for progressives in Virginia. Finally, in a contest without an incumbent involved, Jennifer Carroll Foy handily defeated Hala Ayala.
Progressives did fall short in some contests: Sally Hudson narrowly lost to Creigh Deeds in SD-11, Kellen Squire lost handily to Amy Laufer in HD-55, Benjamin Litchfield failed to beat Joel Griffin in SD-27 (even despite Griffin donating to his general election opponent last year), Heidi Drauschak lost by a surprisingly wide margin against Dave Marsden in SD-35, and Terrence Lavell Walker was destroyed by Delores McQuinn in HD-81. The Charlottesville area is probably the most painful result for progressives given the region’s progressive tendency, besides this year.
With Morrissey, Peterson, Barker, and Spruill losing their primaries and Lynwood Lewis, John Edwards, Dick Saslaw, and Janet Howell retiring, the Democratic caucus in the State Senate is about to shift rapidly leftward. The “brick wall” that has stopped Governor Youngkin’s agenda could become a concrete wall if they win a majority in November.
Speaking of the general election, both parties got their strongest nominees for November. This was pretty expected for both parties but Virginia Republicans were more at risk for nominating weaker candidates in winnable races given how Republican primary voters screwed their party last year nationally. Even firebrand conservatives Senator Amanda Chase and Delegate Marie March lost in safe Republican districts; the March result was baked in going up against the popular Delegate Wren Williams but Chase narrowly lost in her three-way race against Glen Sturtevant.
One thing’s for certain on the Republican side: Governor Youngkin’s endorsement is very powerful. All of the candidates the Governor endorsed won their primaries, though it’s my understanding that the Governor’s team was cautious about who they endorsed, making sure that the candidates they endorsed were not only the strongest in the general election but also receiving enough support for the Governor’s endorsement to not sour once the results came in.
SD-29 is too close to call, in both the Republican and Democratic primary contests. Martin’s up 10 votes in the GOP nomination and McPike’s up 46.
So far, I’ve got 10 primaries wrong in this year’s state legislative primaries and could get up to 12 wrong depending on the results in both contests in SD-29. I said in my prediction preview piece “if 35 or more of these end up correct I’ll be patting myself on the back,” so I’m probably just going to miss that satisfying feeling of a “good” primary night for my predictions. I feel okay about them though, which I’ll settle for in a year where I noted that I’ve never been less confident in a set of primary predictions before.
This year was a tough year for predicting primaries for all of the aforementioned reasons I’ve listed in previous pieces on my primary predictions: redistricting, lack of incumbency, etc. So let’s go over the 10 primaries I know I got wrong this year so far.