Voters in Arlington this year reinforced the county’s identity as a Democratic stronghold, re-electing County Board Chair Chris Zimmerman in a landslide and helping to propel Jim Webb to an upset victory over Republican George Allen in the Virginia Senate race.
Zimmerman got more than 43,000 of about 73,000 votes, winning handily over Republican challenger Mike McMenamin and Green Party candidate Josh Ruebner.
His victory kept all five seats of the board Democratic. Arlington, which reported some precincts late on Nov. 7, was one of the counties at the center of this fall’s election-night drama over which party would control the Senate.
In the end, Webb took more than 53,000 votes, while Allen took only 19,000. These votes, along with votes from Fairfax County, propelled Webb to victory, giving control of Congress to the Democrats for the first time since 1994.
Webb, who had his headquarters in Clarendon, rewarded the county by holding his victory rally in Courthouse Square. Arlington voters also approved a bond package in November valued at more than $200 million. No bond package has been rejected in the county since the 1970s.
Some in the county — especially Republican county board challenger McMenamin — called for the bond package to be rejected given that projects like the Cherrydale Fire Station had not been completed. Construction on this site, which was first bonded in the 1990s, has yet to begin. However, voters overwhelming supported the packages, passing all five bond issues by large margins.
Late in the year, the county encountered funding shortfalls. First, Arlington had to readjust how it spent money on some social service programs after the federal government suspended a state program that funded some county initiatives. Next, officials said there was a budget shortfall in the tens of millions, and they would have to make cuts to existing services if the tax rate remained the same.
Larry Mayer, president of the Arlington Civic Federation, said drops in residential real estate prices led to the budget gap.
