In the two Hampton Roads primaries yesterday, both incumbents facing challengers won their races – and not by small margins. In the Democratic primary for the 90th House of Delegates, Del. Algie Howell beat Rick James 59.75% to 40.24%. In the Republican primary for the 3rd Senate, Sen. Tommy Norment defeated Mark Frechette 72.52% to 27.47%.
I have to say that I was disappointed that The Virginian-Pilot did not pay more attention to the race in the 90th. It was the only primary race on the Southside and deserved more than the brief mentions that I saw, one being an article Sunday and the other being a three-question Q&A in the Compass, also Sunday.
There is a reason why incumbents win so often. One of them is the advantage of name recognition, which is why challengers have to spend so much money to increase theirs. Of course, candidates have a hard time raising money, so that reduces their ability to increase their name recognition and get their message out.
I don’t believe it is the newspaper’s role to completely level the playing field; I do believe it is their role to help in protecting our democracy and not leave it completely to the candidates. Only 5.8% of active voters participated in yesterday’s primary in the 90th, almost half of the 10.8% that participated in that in the 3rd. There is a difference, no doubt, in the electorate of the two districts, but it is pathetic that so few made the decision for so many.
While additional information on the race and the candidates from the Pilot may not have affected the outcome, I believe it would have affected turnout. And that helps our democracy.
There were other primaries across the Commonwealth yesterday and you can view the results on the State Board of Elections website. The Democratic primaries are here and the Republican primaries are here. (Honestly – couldn’t the SBE put them all in one place?)
As always, my congratulations to the winners and my thanks to the non-winners.
A big congratulations to my friend Adam Ebbin, who won the primary in the 30th Senate district.
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VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Primary turnout is a problem everywhere. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones pointed out last week that last year, when Kay Bailey Hutchison challenged Rick Perry for the Texas GOP governor’s nomination, turnout doubled to a whopping 8 percent. Primary turnout is close to double that in California, but they put referenda on the primary ballot. That would bother me in that it could seriously bias the referendum results depending on whether there are contested races or not.
Given that people are less and less inclined to identify as Democrats or Republicans, I don’t see primary turnout improving any time soon, even in open primary states like Virginia.
Yes, it’s a problem. But I don’t think we should just throw up our hands and not try to do better.
I am not in the 90th District, but was disappointed in the poor coverage by the Virginian Pilot. When nothing was in the Sunday paper, I thought they were waiting for Monday. It was the first time an election was held after redistricting and citizens could have more used more information to make an informed decision. This was a “miss” by the Pilot.
I think so, too.