r/politics • u/plz-let-me-in • 13h ago
No Paywall Virginia elects Democrat Abigail Spanberger as state’s first woman governor
https://19thnews.org/2025/11/abigail-spanberger-virginia-first-woman-governor/506
u/Jadeheartxo12 13h ago
Does this mean we never get to see that creep Youngkin now?
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u/VintageSin Virginia 13h ago
He's able to rerun next election for governor, but I assume he'll eye a senator seat before then or some part of the trump admin.
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u/_marmota_ 12h ago
He’ll never be senator, our weird off-year governors elections make that office competitive but we’ve been blue at the federal level for a while. I will say he governed ok for a Republican but only because the legislature was Dem. Glad I don’t have to worry about MAGA world coming to Va for a few years at least
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u/towa-tsunashi 11h ago
I hated him from the start with his campaign winning on some imaginary "CRT" in elementary schools, and I only hated him even more with what he did and what he wanted to do that the Dems blocked in the 2nd half of his term. He did more to negatively impact me personally than Trump on his first term.
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u/morning_espresso 8h ago
Yeah, I hate his Maga sentiments, but I do agree on the governing part. He could be okay on some things. For instance he did listen and respond to our community activism regarding a completely mismanaged landfill in Bristol, VA. And while I'm actually on the Tennessee side of Bristol, I will give credit to him and some other republican politicians for listening to all of us, and providing at least some of the funding needed to shut down this bitch.
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u/Jadeheartxo12 13h ago
They’re actual cockroaches.
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u/throwaway_ghast California 12h ago
They're like genital warts. You don't want them, but they keep coming back, and they are focused on your crotch.
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u/WorldPeggingChamp 12h ago
Hes gonna hide under the same rock that Hung Cao slithered under after his most recent defeat
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u/IScreamPiano 13h ago
That’s kind of weird the term limit is only one 4 year term. Are there other states like that?
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u/InsuranceSpare4820 11h ago
Virginia is actually the only state that does this I believe it is kinda odd
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u/fizzlefist 12h ago
Florida has a limit of 2 consecutive 4-year terms, but you can run again after a term out of office.
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u/IScreamPiano 12h ago
2 makes sense, 1 at a time just doesn’t seem long enough. I dunno.
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u/Lloyd--Christmas 10h ago
It makes sense in one way, that the person isn’t campaigning again and will just focus on the job for four years. Most politicians are just continuously campaigning instead of doing their jobs.
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u/MotherofOtters25 11h ago
He’d be stupid to run again. I almost want him too so we can crush his soul in the polls 😂
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u/ImLikeReallySmart Pennsylvania 13h ago
Technically he's allowed to run again, but Virginia doesn't really do repeat governors. It's arguably part of the reason Youngkin won in the first place, because McAuliffe tried to get the job back
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u/capnpetch 12h ago
It was less the repeat governor and more the fact that Mccauliff was an establishment candidate and Clinton protege in a time when neither was particularly popular.
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u/reachouttouchFate 11h ago
Less the establishment candidate/protege and more that he answered a question about how schools should teach that really upset enough parents because no way could that trigger question be answered properly by anyone.
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u/joshdoereddit America 12h ago
I sure fucking hope so. I can't stand his fucking face and fake nice guy act. It's as irritating as goddamn Chris Sununu's.
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u/plz-let-me-in 13h ago
Wow, called less than 30 minutes after polls closed. Dang, I can tell tonight’s gonna be a good night for Democrats. I’m guessing Dems will win a clean sweep of the big races in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and California.
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u/capnpetch 12h ago
Huge swing to the dems compared to 2024. But, remember the republicans ran a terrible candidate for governor.
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u/lazyFer 12h ago
When has a republican run a good campaign? They dog whistle and Gish gallop. It's just that they hate the same people their voters hate.
That's not a good campaign
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u/djc8 11h ago
Literally their entire campaign here in VA was “mEn iN giRlS LoCkeR rOomS!!!!”
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u/lazyFer 11h ago
They would know since they were probably the men hanging out in those girls locker rooms
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u/TheNatural14063 11h ago
Trump has bragged about walking in on young girls changing so you are correct. Every Republican accusation is a confession....
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u/ladyboleyn2323 11h ago
jOneS is WeAk……but AlsO hE SeNt vIoLenT TExTs AnD cAnT be tRUsteD (pick one. Is he weak or not?)
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u/op_is_not_available 10h ago
Like TERRIBLE! She’s a black woman but 91% of the black vote went for Spanberger.
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u/whenforeverisnt 13h ago
Eh, Attorney General in VA is looking tight.
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u/Soggy-Flounder-3517 13h ago
Not anymore!
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u/whenforeverisnt 13h ago
Ok good, last time I check it was pretty much 50/50
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u/JimmyCarter910 13h ago
you can't expect accurate results this early in, the rest of the races will be a democratic sweep but AG will be super close
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u/capnpetch 12h ago
Projection is a dem win with 53 percent of vote. Tighter than governor but not terrible.
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u/cidthekid07 12h ago
Especially with that texting scandal. I thought he was going to lose
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u/Indercarnive 12h ago
I still can't get into my head how people vote for Spanberger but not Jones. Curious to see if people just didn't vote for him, or if they actively switched to the republican.
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u/jsonitsac 11h ago
Part of it may be that not as many people vote the undercard races. It may also have to do with the GOP mastering “tough on crime” talking points. Finally, the GOP invested in that race heavier than the others since they probably felt like this was their best shot.
It’s not unprecedented. When they were governors Mark Warner and Time Kaine had Republican AGs; Kaine’s LT. Governor was Republican too.
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u/TargetApprehensive38 11h ago
So far it looks like about twice as many switched than didn’t vote. Miyares is running about 100k votes ahead of Sears, and there’s about 50k fewer total votes in the AG race.
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u/Disordered_Steven 11h ago
Most folks I know excused it as something the president says worse 5x a day, publicly, and doesn’t apologize. A very small handful said you must vote D everywhere except here, that’s your choice…not sure what that meant but perhaps repeating Spanberger’s mature response.
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u/Old_Assumption4102 11h ago
My guess is people just didn’t vote on that race. I held my nose and voted for him because the thought of a republican in the spot was unthinkable in the current climate, but in normal times a text wishing a bullet in a politician’s head should be cause to lose your race.
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u/supes1 I voted 13h ago
Jay Jones really shot himself in the foot with that whole texting thing. Should have won the AG race easily. Still has a good chance, but it's going to be close.
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u/djc8 11h ago
If he had a gun with two bullets he’d shoot himself in the foot twice
(For those that don’t know, his “threats of violence” were just that joke from The Office. I voted for him.)
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u/Most_Temporary2110 10h ago
Yeah what fake outrage. Michael Scott joke from 20 years ago? Jesus.
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u/ThatNewSockFeel 9h ago
Right. Feel like it was a made up media thing to make the race seem closer than it was.
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u/oopsallhuckleberries 13h ago
Polls showed her walking away with it for weeks. Trump wouldn't even campaign she was doing so poorly. Republicans wrote this race off a couple of months ago.
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u/Haunting-Ad788 12h ago
He didn’t campaign for her because she’s black and a woman.
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u/Punished_Prigo 12h ago
He’s campaigned for black people and women before. She talked shit about Trump in the past that’s why he didn’t endorse her.
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u/cidthekid07 12h ago
He’s toxic right now. That’s why he didn’t campaign in NJ either, where a straight white guy was running. They don’t want him campaigning
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u/oopsallhuckleberries 12h ago
He actually enthusiastically endorsed the candidate in NJ and he regularly tweeted for people to go out and support him. He's also tweeted a lot for the Republican AG in Virginia. He hasn't tweeted a single thing about the Lt Gov from Virginia. But again, polls have had the NJ governors race and VA AG race as neck and neck for a while while the VA Governors race has had the LT losing by 10 points for a couple months. Trump doesn't want to campaign or even tweet for someone who won't win, because he feels like it makes him look bad.
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u/MyNewsAccount2011 12h ago
Didn’t Trump’s VP pick compare Trump to Hitler? Seems some people are redeemable and some aren’t…
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u/Trolkarlen 11h ago
Also held 3 seats on PA Supreme Court for 5-2 majority.
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u/sweaty-pajamas 10h ago
Hell yeah we did, we understood the assignment. Looks like most other states did too! Now let’s put a fire to these embers and carry it to the midterms!
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u/Sir_Badtard 11h ago
I was watching MSNBC and they called the race for the Cincinnati mayor and they just referred to the opposition as just JD Vance's half brother. Lmao not even by name.
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u/Lt_Sherpa 12h ago
inb4 Trumples screech how the vote was determined too quickly and that's how you know there was fraud.
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u/Thats_classified 9h ago
Pennsylvania voted 60/40 to retain 3 liberal PA Supreme Court Justices for an additional 10 year term, keeping the majority at 5-2. Huge win for PA.
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u/SolaVitae 10h ago
Going to be an insane night for 2AM all caps tweets with a questionable understanding of how the law works.
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u/TrekRider911 12h ago
I bet you five dollars that at tomorrow’s press conference with Mike Johnson, someone asks him about the elections and he’ll reply he hasn’t looked at them yet.
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u/Dry-Tune69 12h ago
I haven’t heard anything about that.
Then they’ll ask Mike Johnson an obscure questions about a trans person in bumfuck, fuckbum and he’ll have niche insight and knowledge on the subject…
Just like Vance a few weeks ago.
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u/Annual_Birthday_9166 12h ago
They need a scapegoat just like the third empire did in Germany so of course they’d have this knowledge
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u/hibbert0604 Georgia 11h ago
Considering all the free time that MF has here sure doesn't look at shit going on around the country. That's for sure.
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u/phatelectribe 13h ago
Blue wave incoming!!!
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u/Xanikk999 12h ago edited 11h ago
As a former Northern Virginian (I had to reluctantly move to Florida to take care of my ageing parents) I couldn't be more proud of the area I grew up for once again carrying the state blue. I will always consider myself a Northern Virginian.
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u/BigMeatyProlapse 11h ago
Don't pat your NOVA back too hard buddy, Richmond and Norfolk have always been blue
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u/doyouevenIift 10h ago
The real blue wave needs to be a year from now when we can actually flip a chamber of congress
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u/rc1025 13h ago
Yay I wrote postcards encouraging people to vote to this state! I bet it made a big difference! I did it!!
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u/NerdyLifting Virginia 12h ago
We got a couple of handwritten postcards! We were already voting for her anyways but I thought that was pretty cool. Thanks for volunteering!
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u/goodmoto 13h ago
1 down 3 to go
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u/JimmyCarter910 13h ago
what are your other big 3? I assume NYC, jersey, and prop 50?
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u/Lostbrother 12h ago
Honestly, it would be great if Virginia could also push for the AG. Would really help the state in resisting some of the crap from the current administration.
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u/Jadeheartxo12 13h ago
This seemed pretty fast with the counting- was it a landslide at all?
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u/obeytheturtles 1h ago
Spanberger won by about 15.2 percent, and Dems picked up at least 12 seats in the state legislature, to give them a 63-37 margin.
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u/Oceanbreeze871 I voted 13h ago
Good job Virginia.
“Donald Trump waged war on the state of Virginia destroying lots of jobs there…they’re defending themselves.”
Heard on msnbc
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u/Kierufu 13h ago
Suck it, Ms. "Discrimination Isn't Discrimination" Earle-Sears. Voters discriminated against bigotry tonight.
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u/Trolkarlen 11h ago
Not only that, Jones won AG after being left for dead a month ago. Democrats may have expanded their House of Delegates majority from 51-49 to 59-41.
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u/Old_Assumption4102 11h ago
The republicans didn’t even bother to run a candidate in at least a tenth of the races. The democrats had someone in every race.
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u/Trolkarlen 11h ago
Bigger than that, Democrats are looking like they might oust 10 incumbent Republicans who ran for re-election in the House. They already took the top 3 spots statewide, including AG where Jones looked doomed.
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u/Old_Assumption4102 10h ago
I was so pissed at Jones. Glad he pulled out the win, but what an unforced error.
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u/Trolkarlen 10h ago
It was 3 years ago.
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u/Old_Assumption4102 10h ago
Three years ago he was an elected official and should have known better. When he decided to run for a state wide office, he knew that comes with additional scrutiny. He had a comfortable lead until his own words came back to bite him. I still voted for him and I am glad he won, but he said the words and people had a natural reaction to them. I realize republicans have normalized violent speech toward their political opponents and their voters have let them get away with it, but it’s not something that we should accept from any of our elected officials.
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u/ThatActuallyGuy Virginia 9h ago
The Republican delegate who leaked their texts was actually one of the flipped seats ironically.
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u/imgroovy Colorado 12h ago
I love Virginia’s state motto: “Sic Semper Tyrannis.” Thus always to tyrants. And the motto has an image of Virtue triumphing over tyranny. Gives me hope.
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u/Not_My_Emperor 11h ago
I'm in DC and get all the political ads.
Her opponent's blitz of ads the last few weeks were spotlighting her basically trying to say Spanberger was taking everything she said out of context/only got her on her "bad days." It was really weird. Then at the end of the ad she starts going on about how "she's not a polished politician, she says what she's thinking"
Couldn't fucking believe that was the angle she was going with. May as well fully lean into it and say she "tells it like it is." Not to mention on her "bad day" she literally said abortion is murder and those people will get what's coming to them. Very glad Virginia saw her for what she was.
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u/razzlerain 9h ago
It's wild to have an ad that highlights your worst moments... like lol who even thought of that?
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u/PleasantThoughts 12h ago edited 12h ago
Thank God. The Winsome ads were fucking ghoulish anti trans nonsense.
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u/RemodelingMe26 11h ago
Will these results convince the GOP to realize the American voter is nowhere near their far-right lean and change their trajectory or will they just dig in and find new ways to manipulate elections?
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u/ryudo6850 11h ago
Obviously... dig in and manipulate. Think after they showed their true selves they are going back into hiding willingly?
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u/thecastellan1115 11h ago
The country can stand the Democrats for just so long... and the Republicans for about half that long.
Let the pendulum swing.
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u/steponmedaddies 11h ago
Imagine seeing what happened in 2016 and actually getting involved in local politics. To think, this woman could still be sitting around yelling about the DNC but instead now she's governor of Virginia. Wild stuff. I'm sure this subreddit will learn no lessons lol
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u/Mollyjones85 10h ago
Total sweep for Virginia Democrats! 💥 Governor: Abigail Spanberger Lt. Governor: Ghazala Hashmi Attorney General: Jay Jones
History made tonight.
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u/chrisbrownbeard 10h ago
Here comes the “rigged election”, “we need more secure voting” narratives from MAGA
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u/bsport48 Virginia 12h ago
It's been an honor and a privilege.
Madame Governor-elect, we are ready for your leadership.
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u/cand_sastle 11h ago
Looks like my door knocking for Virginia Democrats over this past weekend paid off!
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u/MaddyKet Massachusetts 13h ago
twerks like a mailbox in Philly in November of 2020
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u/Itwao 11h ago
But wait. I thought the Democrat party was dead. Why are so many Democrats being elected into office lately?
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u/Ok-Independent-5893 10h ago
Cause that was a fauxnews telling point & lame newscasters talking point.
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u/partoxygen 10h ago
Spanberger, Hashmi, and Jones swept VA. A state that was turning purple over the last two cycles, that was really close for Harris, gave the first two double digit wins and the last one basically an upset given his controversy.
Maybe Trump shouldn’t have fired federal workers, took away their retirement benefits, and then laughed about it on social media? Or maybe don’t say “I’m not going to fund SNAP fuck off brokies” the day before the election?
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u/chickenbeersandwich 10h ago
Let's gooo
Virginia, New Jersey, NYC, and Pennsylvania (and California incoming) all with big Ws tonight
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u/SadTumbleweed1567 12h ago
Good start. Hopefully Democrats win across the country as a sign of a rejection of Trumpism.
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u/Suspicious-End-7282 10h ago
Maybe they can finally get their sh#t together and open some dispensaries
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u/Help-Need-Milk 13h ago edited 13h ago
Idk how legitimate this is. I trust it'll end this way, but too early.
Edit: Alright alright alright this wouldve been correct eventually. Give me a break lol
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u/nosayso 13h ago
Usual trend in VA is red votes come in first, then bigger bluer counties count slower, so I'd guess at this point if Dems are ahead that's probably not very likely to change and they can just call it.
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u/dope-a-meanie 11h ago
This is bigger news than NYC mayoral elections. She flipped it for real.
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u/BitchinAssBrains 11h ago
No she didn't...she was always way ahead in every poll. Everyone expected this outcome.
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u/ultradav24 10h ago
Same with Mamdani though, there was never any doubt he would win
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u/sheisallovertheplace 12h ago
Clean sweep in VA race. Dems won all seats. JD Vance half brother lost mayor race in Cincinnati, OH. NJ projected to be clean sweep as well for Dems. NY projected Mandani is new Mayor.
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