(This post has been updated to account for additional vote returns reported Wednesday.)
The biggest story from Virginia’s elections on Tuesday was the thorough collapse of Republicans statewide. Ralph Northam won the governorship with an 8.5-point victory over Ed Gillespie: a reasonable margin given recent precedent in the commonwealth’s politics, but also a spread that was more than five points wider than the latest poll averages.
With those extra votes for the Democrat at the top of the ticket came extra intrigue for the GOP: Nearly becoming the minority in the House of Delegates it controlled 66-34 at the beginning of the night.
As of Wednesday, a Democrat had flipped a Republican-controlled seat in the following 14 districts, with all precincts reporting to Virginia’s Department of Elections (percentage splits in parentheses): 2 (63-37), 10 (52-48), 12 (54-46), 13 (55-45), 21 (53-47), 31 (54-45), 32 (59-41), 42 (61-39), 50 (55-45), 51 (53-47), 67 (58-42), 72 (53-47), 73 (51-49), and 85 (51-49).
A Democrat led in one other district with all votes in, but by less than a one-percentage point margin: the 68th, where it is 326.
Per Virginia election law, a candidate who lost by less than one percent of the vote may request a recount. The 68th meets that standard. But with the raw vote totals reported by the elections department fully counted in the aforementioned districts, Democrats have flipped 15 seats—just short of a 50-50 split in the commonwealth’s lower house.
Four districts Republicans held were decided by less than a point: the 27th, 28th, 40th, and 94th districts. The 40th flipped from a 68-vote Democratic edge to a 115-vote Republican edge. And in the 94th, Republican David Yancey won by 12. As in 12 votes.
Put this in perspective for a moment: The Democrats began the night just one net loss away from giving Republicans a supermajority. They finished it one seat away from achieving parity.
The Democratic bench in state legislatures across the country was gutted during the Obama administration. Last night the Democrats began their clawback at the state level.
