Time for an incredibly late recap of the Virginia primaries! This didn’t get nearly as much national attention as the Georgia 6th District Special Election, but Virginia held their primaries for governor and lieutenant governor on Tuesday, June 13th.
The winners were:
Governor:<br/>Ed Gillespie (R)<br/>Ralph Northram (D)
Lt. Governor:<br/>Jill Vogel (R)<br/>Justin Fairfax (D)
At this moment I don’t know if there are any third party candidates and I don’t know who is running for Attorney General.
The "story" of the primary is that Gillespie only beat Corey Stewart–the unabashedly Trumpist, Confederate statue-loving Republican candidate–by less than 5,000 votes or just over 1%, despite raising 1/5th of the amount of money and trailing significantly in the polls.
Stewart took his loss gracefully, vowing to support Gilespie for governor and bring unity to Virginia Republicans. Just kidding! Of *course* Stewart whined like a little school boy about his loss and threw "Establishment Ed" under the bus as much as he could legally get away with.
Stewart was such an offensive brat of a candidate that I went out of my way to vote for Gillespie, even though I don’t particularly care for him either. So yes, you have people like me to thank for Stewart being out of the race. You’re welcome.
Then I heard Stewart was considering running against Tim Kaine for Senate in 2018. \*headdesk\* https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/republican-corey-stewart-is-eyeing-senate-run-against-tim-kaine-in-2018/2017/06/14/dc361992-5143-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html
I didn’t follow the Democratic side of the primary very closely, between Northram and Periello, so I don’t have anything to say about that. I have heard it said that Northram was the more Clinton-like candidate and Periello was the more Sanders-like candidate, which, if true, would make me happy to see that the more centrist candidate won. But I’m sure it’s not as simple as that.
It’s interesting (and a little scary) that *both* parties are split right down the middle these days. Democrats and Republicans both have an establishment (moderate) wing and a more radical, "insurgent" wing fighting each other for control of their respective party. If only we lived in a country where two new major parties could form.
At this moment I don’t know who I might vote for. With Stewart out, it doesn’t matter that much to me.
