It is a dark time for the Republicans. Although Hillary Clinton had been defeated, Democratic candidates have driven Republican incumbents from their gerrymandered districts and are on their way to Richmond.
ELECTION 2017: A NEW HOPE
Okay, so I try not to get personal in this space, but I really can’t help it this time. Bear with me, or just skip down a few paragraphs (I’ll never know!).
Interning for the Virginia Democratic Caucus while I was in college is how I got into state politics, and in 2001, I watched over 20 Democratic legislators lose their seats in a single night. It was jarring and heartbreaking; several of those lawmakers had mentored me, regaled me with stories of legislative feats and parliamentary artistry (God I’m a nerd), or otherwise been very cool to me.
But this dramatic loss sparked my fascination with redistricting and gerrymandering, and it instilled in me a drive to see these ill-gotten GOP gains reversed … somehow, someday.
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Democrats made gains in the Virginia House all through the Aughts, but then they backslid—along with their counterparts in legislatures all across the country—just in time for the (Ed Gillespie-engineered, incidentally) Great GOP Gerrymandering of 2011.
Enter 2017: a year made remarkable, initially, by the sheer level of Democratic engagement in state politics and by the almost absurd numbers of Democrats stepping up to run for the Virginia House of Delegates. Democratic candidates ran in 54 of 66 seats held by Republicans in the state—a number (and proportion) of challengers that had never been seen in my lifetime.
But it wasn’t just the number of Democratic candidates that made history this year; it was their diversity, in every sense of the word. When I attended a candidate training in March, I saw remarkably few white dude lawyers, a demographic dominant in many governing bodies. Instead, I saw women and candidates from several different communities of color. When I talked to these hopefuls, I met social workers, teachers, cybersecurity experts, small business owners, journalists, community organizers, veterans … lawyers, too. I’ve got nothing against lawyers.
Anyway, fast forward to Tuesday night. Democrats flipped at least 15 seats in the state house—two short of the 17 needed to win an outright majority, and one shy of a 50-50 split, with at least two or three recounts on the horizon that could push Democrats out of the minority for the first time since 1999.
Never tell me the odds! Last week, I made my predictions about Virginia House pickups, and I was wrong in the best way. My super-optimistic prediction was eight, and Democrats blew past that fairly early in the night.
- The last time Democrats picked up more than four House seats in a single night was 1975 (according to Democratic House Leader David Toscano).
- The most recent four-seat pickup came back in 2007, which was a Very Good Night for Virginia Democrats in that they flipped the state Senate, too.
- Moreover, that year was a harbinger for the Very Good Night for Democrats at the federal level a year later (so yeah, Nov. 7, 2017, should probably have Republicans scared out of their wits).
Anyway, in terms of which districts Democrats flipped, I was actually pretty spot-on.
- I called House Districts 2 and 42 as gimmes (they were), and I was pretty bullish on Districts 12, 13, 31 32, and 67. Democrats picked up all of those, and the closest one was HD-31, where Elizabeth Guzman won with 53.6 percent of the vote.
- Next on my list were House Districts 21, 40, 51, and 72. Democrats won all of these except 40, which is likely headed to a recount.
- Democrats flipped “bonus sleeper race” HD-85, too. Pretty cool.
- But then Democrats went and flipped HDs 10, 50, 68, and 73 and blew my predictions out of the water.
And I’m totally fine with that.
Great, kid. Don’t get cocky. Democrats put a bunch of other cool wins up on the statehouse board on Tuesday, too, including Manka Dhingra in Washington state. Her victory in the much-anticipate special election in the state’s 45th Senate District finally gives Democrats a majority in the chamber—and, along with the governorship and state House, trifecta control of state government.
Now Democrats can do crazy things like pass legislation to:
- address climate change, promote job growth,
- provide paid family leave, and
- expand access to contraception
… you know, the wacky stuff that makes people’s lives better and helps make sure people have a place to live said lives that’s not a flooded hellscape because of rising temperatures.
Aren’t you a little short for a governor? Voters in Maine passed Question 2 by a wide margin on Tuesday, becoming the first state to expand Medicaid at the ballot box.
- But Gov. and terrible human Paul LePage is already promising to do everything in his power—which is quite a lot, unfortunately, along with his GOP cronies in the legislature—to halt implementation of the measure.
Fun fact! Expanding Medicaid would give some 70,000 Mainers access to health care!
- The fight to implement the new law will not only be a major part of next year’s legislative session, but expect it to color many of next year’s campaigns for governor and statehouse, too.
When 7,104 signatures you reach, look as good you will not. The Nevada recall farce being perpetrated by Republicans has hit a bit of a stumbling block.
- After apparently submitting enough signatures to trigger a recall election for one Democratic senator last month, they’ve fallen FAR short of the number required to recall a second senator, Republican-turned-Independent (and not-even-running-for-re-election) Patricia Farley.
- Republicans needed to gather 7,104 signatures from voters in her district to recall Sen. Farley. They turned in 2,056 signatures on Thursday morning. Oops.
- Earlier this week, Democrats filed for a preliminary injunction seeking to halt that first recall.
- Petitions to recall a third senator, Democrat Nicole Cannizzaro, are due Tuesday.
(As a quick refresher, these recalls are being engineered by a few GOP state senators because they lost the majority to Democrats last fall and have almost no chance of winning it back through normal elections in 2018.)
Okay, back to celebrating these epic election victories. And sleeping. At some point.
Until next week! The Force will be with you … always.