Democrat erases memories of ’17 draw
NEWPORT NEWS — This time, there won’t be a drawing of lots: Shelly Simonds won her third bid for the House of Delegates on Tuesday, defeating four-term Del. David Yancey, R-Newport News, who was returned to the legislature in 2017 when he won a lot-drawing after a tied election.
With all but the absentee ballots counted from a district dramatically reconfigured this year to lean strongly Democratic, Simonds won 58% of the vote, Yancey 40% and Libertarian Michael Bartley 2%.
“I think the message is that democracy works when people come out and vote,” Simonds said after her victory. “The people made it clear they’re concerned about healthcare, prescription drug prices, gun violence … and they want action.”
Turnout was down about 18%
from the 2017 tie vote.
The race pitted one of the more progressive Democrats on the state scene against a Republican who broke with his party on support for the Equal Rights Amendment and who was among the minority of House Republicans who backed expansion of Medicaid last year. It was oneofthehandfulofdistricts in which the Libertarian Party fielded a candidate as well.
This year’s race featured unusually harsh rhetoric.
Simonds accused Yancey of being as untruthful as President Donald Trump. He blamed her, as a seven-year veteran of the Newport News School Board, for the relatively poor record of city schools in state tests and accreditation.
Simonds ran hard on a promise of action on gun control.
She blasted Yancey and the GOP majority in the General Assembly for not acting on a series of measures ranging from universal background checks for gun purchases to reinstating Virginia’s old one-gun-a-month cap on gun purchases during the special session Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam called after the mass shooting in Virginia Beach this spring.
Yancey said he had introduced legislation to crack down on gun trafficking and to increase penalties for dealing in stolen guns or using them in crimes, saying this was the gun issue local police and prosecutors tell him is their top concern.
Simonds also promised to introduce legislation, modeled on a recent Maryland law, for state regulation of prescription drug prices.
She said this was the top issue she heard during her campaign. On health care, she also attacked Yancey for voting against Medicaid expansion for four years before supporting last year’s version, arguing during a debate last month that “you don’t have to wait for me to do the right thing … I will vote for expanded access to health care every time.”
Yancey said he voted against earlier versions because then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe had proposed giving his administration the power to take money from other agencies to pay for the state’s 10% share of expansion costs. The version that passed last year requires hospitals to cover that 10%.
During the campaign, Yancey stressed his leadership role in winning financing for widening Interstate 64 and the expansion of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel.
Yancey, who has represented the district since his first election in 2011, said he has always focused on small business and local issues, ranging from state support for Jefferson Lab, to battling for insurance coverage for treatment at Hampton University’s Proton Therapy Institute, to support for the Denbigh Aviation Academy. If he’d been re-elected, Yancey also said he’d have continued to seek legislation to crack down on the high interest rate lenders who target poor and moderate income Virginians.
This year, a panel of federal judges drew new district borders, creating a district of 18 precincts in central and northern Newport News that is even more strongly Democratic than before. The reconfigured district went 63% for Sen Tim Kaine in 2018 and 60% for Gov. Ralph Northam in 2017.
Yancey has represented the district since winning his first election to the House in 2011. Simonds has been a member of the Newport News School Board since 2012.