Shaban Athuman/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP
The scene at an election night party for Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) in Fredericksburg, Virginia
Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) was projected to win Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District, a closely contested race that polling before election week showed as a tie. That race was one of three in Virginia that would be a strong indicator of how Democrats would fare against a potential red wave. At press time, Spanberger was up by close to four points with nearly all votes counted. She took a congratulatory phone call from President Joe Biden after the race was called.
The other two seats involved Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria in the Second Congressional District, a seat that leaned Republican, and Rep. Jennifer Wexton in the Tenth District, a safer blue seat. These races ended up being a split decision.
As most races across the country focused on inflation and abortion, in Virginia’s Second District, Luria combined that messaging by leaning into threats to democracy, touting her role on the January 6th Committee. She lost her race to state Sen. Jen Kiggans by four points, as of press time. (Luria also notoriously dismissed Spanberger’s congressional stock trading ban as “bullshit,” which Kiggans slammed her for on the campaign trail.)
Meanwhile, in the Tenth District, located in blue-friendly Northern Virginia, Rep. Jennifer Wexton has beaten Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain. Some election forecasts showed Wexton in trouble, but she was up at press time by a narrow but comfortable six points, with over 95 percent of the vote counted.
A total sweep for Republicans would have signaled a terrible night for Democrats. But with a narrow Spanberger win, and two out of three wins overall, the chances are reasonable that Democrats could hold control of the Senate—or see a Georgia runoff that extends election season for at least another month—and lose the House by only a narrow margin.
Although Spanberger’s opponent in the Seventh District, Yesli Vega, appeared at rallies alongside Gov. Glenn Youngkin, she fell short of recreating the same margins he did in the suburbs that pushed him over the finish line. Most of these suburbs voted by double-digit margins favoring Vega, but in five of the six counties surrounding the liberal heart of the district, Fredericksburg, Vega underperformed Youngkin’s numbers by five to six points. In Stafford County, north of Fredericksburg, Youngkin beat his opponent Terry McAuliffe by more than ten points.
In the final days of the race, emotions ran high. Staffers at Spanberger campaign headquarters said they were focused on turnout. Their strategy seems to have paid off.
Elsewhere, a number of toss-up seats went Democrats’ way in the early going, including populist Chris Deluzio winning decisively in Conor Lamb’s old seat in Pennsylvania, and pickups in two Republican seats in Ohio.
