“Virginia’s board of elections has ruled that Del. Nicholas Freitas (R) did not qualify for the ballot this fall, upholding a finding from elections department staffers,” the Washington Post reports.
“The ruling amounts to an unforced error for state Republicans, who are scrambling to protect narrow majorities in the legislature with all 140 seats on the ballot this November.”
“Less than two hours after beginning a special session called in response to a mass shooting, Virginia lawmakers abruptly adjourned Tuesday without taking any action and postponed any movement on gun control until after the November election,” the AP reports.
“Gov. Ralph Northam (D) called the Republican-led Legislature to the Capitol to address gun violence in the wake of the May 31 attack that killed a dozen people in Virginia Beach. The meeting got off to a chaotic start, with the Republican Senate majority leader averting a mutiny in the GOP caucus by publicly disavowing a gun-control bill he proposed only a day earlier.”
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) will recall lawmakers to the state Capitol in coming weeks to take up a package of gun-control legislation, the AP reports.
“The Democratic governor has long been an advocate for stricter gun control. But staunchly pro-gun Republicans who controlled the Virginia General Assembly have rejected previous efforts at limiting gun access.”
“President Trump is muscling into a blue state where Democrats are reeling: Virginia,” Politico reports.
“With a tenuous grip on states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, the president is looking for opportunities to expand his electoral playing field. He’s set his sights on Virginia, a state where Democrats have dominated the past decade, but where the party’s three top officeholders are embroiled in scandals.”
“Leading the offensive is Vice President Mike Pence, who on Wednesday evening headlined a fundraiser in McLean for Republican state legislators up for election in November. Pence is expected to hold additional events for Virginia lawmakers in the coming months, and White House officials intend to use the 2019 elections to test whether they can make inroads in the state, which Trump lost by 5 percentage points.”
Politico: “The scandals that engulfed the state government’s top three leaders have given Republicans renewed hope they can blunt the state’s leftward drift. It was no accident that this week Republicans decided to target Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the state’s most popular politician who was not thought to be at risk in 2020. They think several newly-elected Democratic House members bungled their response to the first sexual assault allegation against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax by, in some cases, waiting days to react— creating an opening for the GOP.”
“And Democrats worry that the state’s top lawmakers won’t be able to raise money or campaign this year when all 140 seats in the nearly evenly divided legislature are up for grabs.”
This piece is only available to Political Wire members.
Your support makes this site possible. Join today for the complete Political Wire experience and get exclusive analysis, new features and no advertising.
Sign in to your account or join today!
Join for just $5 a month or $50 a year.
Mark Berman of the Washington Post recaps:
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Saying that anything in the annals of American political history is ‘unique’ or ‘unprecedented’ is dangerous, for the simple fact that the past is filled with so many oddities from which we can draw parallels. That said, we’re struggling to come up with something equivalent to what we’ve seen in Virginia over the past week.”
Washington Post: “Nearly 78,000 people have completed ballots since absentee voting began Sept. 15 — more than double the number who voted early by this point last year, according to an analysis of voting data by the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project. That number is still shy of the 123,221 absentee ballots cast during the 2014 midterm elections, state data shows. But with a little less than three weeks before the Nov. 6 elections, local election officials say this year’s absentee totals are on pace to eclipse 2014 and may even approach the turnout for the presidential election of 2016, when a near-record 496,452 Virginians cast their ballots early.”
“Six years after the U.S. Supreme Court left the decision to states on whether to expand their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act, Virginia is about to extend health care coverage to hundreds of thousands of Virginians without it,” the Richmond Times Dispatch reports.
“Gov. Ralph Northam has left no doubt he will sign a pair of budget bills that will begin a two-phased process of receiving federal approval to expand Medicaid in Virginia on Jan. 1, relying on billions of dollars in long-available federal funds and a pair of taxes on hospital revenues to pay for it.”
Washington Post: “Years of obstruction in the commonwealth gave way because key Republicans from rural areas couldn’t bear to deny coverage for their constituents any longer, moderates wanted to cut a deal and, most of all, Democrats made massive gains in November’s off-year elections.”
This piece is only available to Political Wire members.
Your support makes this site possible. Join today for exclusive analysis, new features and no advertising.
Sign in to your account or join today!
[button color=”dark-blue” font_color=”#ffffff” link=”https://politicalwire.memberful.com/checkout?plan=9725″ size=”small”] Monthly – $5 per month [/button] or [button color=”dark-blue” font_color=”#ffffff” link=”https://politicalwire.memberful.com/checkout?plan=9724″ size=”small”] Annual – $50 per year [/button]
In a random drawing to decide a tie race in the Virginia’s 94th district, incumbent David Yancey (R) won.
The decision gives Republicans a 51 to 49 edge in the House of Delegates.
This piece is only available to Political Wire members.
Join today for exclusive analysis, new features and no advertising.
Sign in to your account or join today!
[button color=”dark-blue” font_color=”#ffffff” link=”https://politicalwire.memberful.com/checkout?plan=9725″ size=”small”] Monthly – $5 per month [/button] or [button color=”dark-blue” font_color=”#ffffff” link=”https://politicalwire.memberful.com/checkout?plan=9724″ size=”small”] Annual – $50 per year [/button]
Washington Post: “A Republican seat flipped Democratic in a wild recount Tuesday – with the Democrat winning by a single vote – creating a rare 50-50 tie between the parties in the House of Delegates and refashioning the political landscape in Richmond.”
Virginia Gov.-elect Ralph Northam (D) “has the weight of a Democratic landslide to throw around in the State Capitol, but he’s holding back,” the Washington Post reports.
“He could pluck a few Republicans out of the General Assembly — where the GOP is holding onto the majority by a thread — and give them jobs in his Cabinet to tilt the balance of power toward Democrats. He could try to ram through a broad expansion of Medicaid and other Democratic priorities.”
“But Northam says he is not looking to vanquish the other side.”
“A Democratic tidal wave on Election Day in Virginia three weeks ago has left chaos in its wake, with control of the House of Delegates still undecided and no end in sight to the dispute,” the AP reports.
“Lawsuits, threats and recriminations are flying as the state wrestles with the tricky question of what to do about the 147 voters in and around a crucial district who were given the wrong ballots.”
“With Virginia’s first openly transgender elected official preparing to take her seat in the House of Delegates, the Republican leader of that chamber says it is time to end a tradition of addressing lawmakers by formal male and female pronouns,” the Washington Post reports.
“Instead of the ‘gentleman’ or ‘gentlewoman’ from a given jurisdiction, lawmakers will all be referred to as “delegate” if Republicans maintain control of the chamber.”
“Conservative lawmakers hailed the change as a way to avoid what they said could be a potentially awkward situation. But one of the longest-serving House Democrats called the decision ‘shameful’ and said lawmakers ‘ought to be big enough to get over these hang-ups we have.'”
Roanoke Times: “Radford University and Virginia Tech turned over documents containing personal information, including names, addresses and cellphone numbers of about 40,000 current students, to progressive political group NextGen Virginia, which is working to boost voter turnout among college students in the Nov. 7 election.”
“NextGen Virginia requested the public information through Freedom of Information Act requests sent to every state-supported college and university in Virginia to obtain cellphone numbers of current students.”
A new MassINC poll in Virginia finds just 40% of Virginia voters agree that the white nationalist rally-goers were mostly to blame for the violence in Charlottesville, nearly identical to the 41% who pointed to both sides. Another 6% mostly blame the counter-protesters, bringing the total who assign at least equal blame to the counter-protesters up to 47%.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
"There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them."
-- Chuck Todd, host of "Meet the Press"
"Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all."
-- Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
"Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
-- Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
"The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom -- nicely packaged, constantly updated... What political junkie could ask for more?"
-- Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.