Democrats in Hampton Roads have a lot to be proud of. With a lot of hard work, two incumbent Republican senators were toppled as were two incumbent Republican delegates.
First, my condolences to those who were not successful in Hampton Roads tonight: Bob MacIver, Mick Meyer, Troy Farlow and Steve Heretick. Thanks to all of you for running tough races in difficult districts.
Congratulations to Paula Miller, who won a convincing re-election victory in the 87th. She beat back a credible opponent in Hank Giffin.
Three of the winners are first-time candidates: Senator-elect Ralph Northam (6th) Delegate-elect Joe Bouchard (83rd), and Delegate-elect Bobby Mathieson (21st). Congratulations, guys.
Senator-elect John Miller (1st) got into the race late but ran a great campaign. Congratulations on a tremendous win.
Hampton Roads delivered two of the four Senate seats needed for Democrats to retake the majority and two of the 11 House seats needed. As the results in some of the other races are not yet completely tallied, I don’t know exactly how the numbers are going to play out. But Hampton Roads did its part.
Give yourselves a big round of applause!
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Let’s face it, stereotyping is a bad way to predict how people are going to vote. For example, Nick Rerras, poor, unemployed, marginally educated, too many kids, physically unattractive-sounds like a stereotypical Democratic. While Ralph Northam….
The truth is that there are plenty of people who obtain an education and see what needs to be done in the world and want to help do it. They are the Democrats.
Anonymous,
come on, uneducated minorities, welfare recipients and union members are clearly the people that the Dems base there platform on. You are so naive if you think otherwise. Wait until the Presidential election heats up, the Dems will be campaigning to those same groups with the Healthcare, Social Security, Minimum Wage, etc. issues. Please, if anyone is bias it is you. Your Democrats can save the world mentality is pretty obvious.
Here are some numbers on party affiliation and education: http://dabacon.org/pontiff/?p=539 Enjoy.
Sheriffs are also elected, and the deputies are, therefore, political appointees. Government employees also tend to vote Democratic, for the same reason that the poor, uneducated, and elderly do — the socialist state promises them money.
Mouse is now citing blogs that find old data, make up a table out of it, and then interpret their “study” without accounting for the wide number of possibilities that can lead to false correlations, such as the financial differentiation that I mentioned in my penultimate post. Mouse will next start footnoting her comments with references from wikipedia.
rlewis: Thank you. I mean it. Thank you sincerely and from the bottom of my heart for not getting it. Thank you for not being able to connect intellectually, emotionally, and most of all, politically with the voting public in the races we won well enough to see what the majority saw when they cast their ballots yesterday. Your confusion is sweet and satisfying to me. Because yes, I’m a moderate Democrat–some even say a conservative Democrat–but that doesn’t mean I’m not competitive when the chips are down. I love my country, I love my community, but I also love winning, and the best part of winning is that someone else has to lose. This time it was you. Thank you.
(by the way, if Brian Kirwin comes across this comment–dude, you had a really rough year, and I’m sorry. Please don’t misconstrue the above comment to be in any way directed at you. Dust yourself off, take some time for yourself, and we’ll see you in 2008. You’ll be back)
For rlewis and AEM – take a look at this post.
I’m not sure what the point of the article is. Are voters uninformed? Certainly. Are rural voters less informed than urban voters? I doubt it.
Yes, anonymous, we know that income, intelligence, and academic achievement generally correlate. But tell me, why is it that Democrats get more money from big donations, and the Republicans get more money from little donations?
So Mouse is calling Sheriff’s Deputies socialists. Got it. Please, try telling John Newhart that.
Anon E. Mouse,
Would you please explain the fact that the three areas of Newport News that blew Tricia (the nutcase) Stall away were also the three areas with the highest educated people and the richest people in Newport News. They were Hilton(big time), Rverside, and Hidenwood. The precincts that went Stalls way were mostly white lower middle class neighborhoods such as Deep Creek and Boulevard. Of course the minority neighborhoods also kicked Tricia to the curb. sounds to me like your theory is all misconfigurated. Also based on your theory what happened to George Bush would you also rate him intelligent. Boy you have ekection BLUES.
GEM, please note that I already mentioned that the highest educated (Ph.D. levels) also tend to vote Democratic. Very often, such people are dependent on the government because they are college professors or government contractors.
If, as you say, the white middle class went to Stalls and the minorities (i.e., poor) went against her, it sounds like the education vs. party affiliation pattern predicted the results quite well.
I do not know what you mean about GWB. What happened to him? He did get better grades in college than Kerry did, but I was talking about the education of the voters, not the candidates. He may not be the brightest bulb on the Christmas Tree, but he did manage to beat the two idiots that the Democrats ran against him.
Anon
Just one of them Gore actually did win the majority of the vote even in florida. But thats in the past. John Miller’s voters were all over the spectrum from rich to poor and if you read I put in the lower middle class white neighborhoods who in Newport News usually mean those that vote not intelectually but mainly on the abortion and religious issues. Simple minded and flat earth such as Tricia Stall. It has accomplished nothing for them except heartache.