The polls have closed and the votes (mostly) counted. My congratulations to the winners:
- 01 – Rep. Rob Wittman
- 02 – Rep.-elect Scott Rigell
- 03 – Rep. Bobby Scott
- 04 – Rep. Randy Forbes
- 05 – Rep.-elect Robert Hurt
- 06 – Rep. Bob Goodlatte
- 07 – Rep. Eric Cantor
- 08 – Rep. Jim Moran
- 09 – Rep.-elect Morgan Griffith
- 10 – Rep. Frank Wolf
The race in the 11th is too close to call, although incumbent Gerry Connolly is winning as I type this.
So, in the four hotly contested races in the state in which I asked for your predictions, you guys didn’t do so well: you only picked Rigell to win. What happened?
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
we didn’t do too well, neither did the Virginian Pilot. For me, the only big surprise was Rick Boucher losing.
Boucher’s loss is a real shame. He was one of the few voices of sanity when it comes to copyright policy/abuse. And given the reach of copyright into our daily lives, this will have an impact.
Tom Perriello’s district thought Virgil Goode was a great idea for years. Can’t say that I ever had much faith in them.
How elitist.
Perhaps you’ll enlighten me on who I should vote for in the next election?
If by “elitist”, you mean entirely uninterested in continually sending an ignorant bigot to Congress, yeah, I’m elitist. And pretty comfortable with it.
No, I mean elitist for this remark…
“Can’t say that I ever had much faith in them.”
You paint with a very broad & elitist brush.
Virgil Goode may have made some stupid remarks, but he’s far from ignorant.
I am posing this question to anyone that really knows politics. Can someone please tell me where the Dems lost yesterday that had a positive Dem constituency. In virginia we lost in traditionally red area some massively red like bouchers and nyes and periellos district. 49 of the republicans won in republican areasjust taking back what they lost last time and the other 13 or so were in district that voed mccain. so will someone out in the wild blue yonder tell me a blue area traditionally that we lost.
Illinois is the first state to leap to mind. Only one other Republican has won a U.S. Senate seat in the last 32 years.
well only one thank you didnt dems win in delaware in the seat held by castle was that a red area. overall only what 13% of the seats changed and incumbents one in all the others. if there was a real wave instead of just a normal pattern then way more seats would have changed hands.
It’s not a red-area; Delaware only has one at-large seat in the House of Representatives. Which is what the state’s Republican Party was so frustrated that Castle wasn’t the nominee; he’s the only Republican in the state with a proven track-record of success in statewide elections precisely because he’s so well-liked and moderate and capable of working in a bipartisan manner that he couldn’t possibly win a tea-party driven nomination. They say in Delaware that the only way to beat Mike Castle in a statewide election is to run a candidate named Biden B. Biden.
Anyway.
I don’t think most Congressional districts are a good bellwether for anything because they’re drawn to be as uncompetitive as possible. The statewides incorporate the broadest possible picture of an electorate in a geographic region, and I think looking at the statewides alone paints a picture of an electorate that’s much more mature and moderate than those beating on the tea party’s drums would have us believe. We lost a couple of seats like the one in Illinois and Feingold’s seat (unemployment and the housing market is terrible in Wisconsin, particularly outside Milwaukee), but on the other side of the coin it still wasn’t the sort of political environment where the truly crazy tea baggers were viable at the statewide level. The candidate who campaigned on “I am not a witch” and didn’t know that the establishment clause was in the first amendment? Lost. The one who thought that bartering chickens ought to be part of our national economy again? Done. The gubernatorial candidate with a predilection for forwarding racist and pornographic emails? Finished. And it looks like the biggest “f–k you, Sarah Palin” of the year is going to come out of Alaska when the write-ins finally get counted.
actually silence dogood that doesnt qualify since that was a senate seat not the house as i was implying. as you see from the numbers i gave. so I am still waiting
If Tom Perriello had listened to the people at all the townhalls he had he might have won but when you vote the party line instead of the way the people of your district want you are in trouble from day one.Even a trip from Obama couldn’t save him.