Category: Electoral process
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Securing the Vote
New Jersey Democrats do a better job with election integrity than Virginia Democrats, who take their cues from California. by Jacob Grandstaff The Nov. 4 elections were disappointing for Republicans in that they weren’t surprising for Democrats. New Jersey is a reliably blue state that sometimes swings purple, and Virginia is a reliably purple state…
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Will Virginia Become a One-Party State?
by Paul Goldman Virginia GOP Governor Glenn Youngkin is vowing to finish “strong.” With all due respect, it might have been better if he had started “strong.” His party just suffered its worse defeat in Virginia’s two-party era. If that’s finishing strong, I’d like to know what he thinks finishing weak looks like. Fact: No…
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Redistricting: Risky for Spanberger but Win-Win for Scott
By Paul Goldman We finally smoked out the truth about redistricting. As I have written, Democrat Abigail Spanberger, the presumptive Governor-elect, could win or lose depending upon how the politics play out. But House Speaker Don Scott wins no matter what. I didn’t think he had the cajones to do it. My bad. Not going…
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Democrats Rush Back to Gerrymander Virginia, If We Let Them
By Chris Braunlich, You have to be pretty confident – no, make that “arrogant” – to tell 2,770,704 Virginia voters that you’re willing to stick it to them. But that’s exactly what Virginia House and Senate Democratic leaders appear ready to do at 4:00 pm on Monday, all in the cause of enhancing political power and rejecting…
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Authentic Abigail on Dumping the Anti-Gerrymander Rule
When they show you who they are, believe them. That clip, first noticed on X back in August, struck me as a bit of “authentic Abigail,” especially the tone when discussing Republicans. There goes the moderate mask. Perhaps even then there was a quiet plan to try to do what she said couldn’t be done, overturn the…
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Did Speaker Don Scott Just Elect a GOP AG?
by Paul Goldman Have Democratic Speaker Don Scott and Democratic General Assembly leaders thrown Democratic Attorney General nominee Jay Jones under the bus? Talk about the proverbial October surprise: Scott has announced an unprecedented move to do a super-partisan redrawing of the state’s congressional districts. Is this legal under the new Virginia Constitution redistricting provisions…
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Panicked Virginia Democrats Embark on Naked Power Grab
by Kerry Dougherty Dems in Virginia are in a panic over the Republican momentum, which increases with each new Jay Jones scandal. So they’re yanking Winsome Earle-Sears off the campaign trail and forcing her to stop raising funds during a “special” General Assembly session scheduled to begin on Monday. It’s special all right. It’s a…
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Marc Elias’ Political Machine Rides to the Rescue
The powerful Democrat law firm that bankrolled the Steele dossier is now defending a Virginia candidate accused of running in a district where she doesn’t reside. by Jacob Grandstaff Once again, the Elias Law Group has arrived to defend an embattled Democrat, this time in Stafford County, Virginia. The firm, founded by Marc Elias—the same…
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A Million Reasons to Worry Either Way the Election Goes
By Steve Haner Democrat Jay Jones and Republican Jason Miyares have now both accepted more than $1 million each in campaign contributions from major players in Virginia’s energy wars. The job they both seek, Attorney General of Virginia, includes a duty to stand firm on behalf of Virginia’s energy consumers against the elephants in the…
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Do Apportionment Rules Short-Change Virginia?
Hayden Ludwig at Restoration News analyzes the impact of rules for apportioning congressional districts in the United States. Assigning seats on the basis of the number of citizens in a district, rather than total population, would yield Virginia an additional congressional seat, he argues. California, Texas and Florida would be big losers under a citizens-only…
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Dark Money Activists Behind Key Virginia Redistricting Lawsuit
A lawsuit could increase Democrat influence in the state’s largest city, and that’s by design. by Hayden Ludwig A far-left Beltway group is behind a lawsuit to boost Democrat control of a major Virginia city by redrawing its voting maps, Restoration News has learned. The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a D.C. litigation group once bankrolled with millions…
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Bidding Up the Price of Buying Virginia’s Legislature
by Steve Haner As of the last round of campaign finance reports, Dominion Energy Virginia is smoking its political nemesis Clean Virginia in donation totals, with more than $11 million given compared to $3.2 million. At $14.3 million in combined donations, the two are well on their way to matching or exceeding the $23 million…
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Report From the Front Lines
by Dick Hall-Sizemore I served as an officer of election yesterday in my home precinct. It was a quiet day. There were periods lasting ten minutes or more when there were absolutely no voters in the polling place. Then several people would come in and then there would be another quiet period. Between 4:30 and…
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The Election for Virginia’s Local Offices
by James C. Sherlock Political bloggers, including this one, tend to focus on Virginia’s largest jurisdictions. But the Commonwealth, and certainly our democracy, is distinguished also by its small towns. The efforts of the citizens of those small jurisdictions to govern themselves on local matters are inspiring. They provide a lesson to the rest of…
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Mayoral Non-Endorsement & a Self-Serving ($50K) Kumbaya Study
by Jon Baliles Today is Election Day and a free issue for all RVA 5×5 subscribers! If you haven’t voted, be sure to get out and do so! Speaking of voting, today’s issue is about Mayor Stoney’s press conference last week in which he released a city-funded study to prove everything is fine at City…