Local GOP delegate, senator easily win re-election
Margins of GOP victories smaller in ‘bluer’ Rappahannock
Republican Delegate Michael Webert has easily won a fifth term representing Rappahannock County in Richmond, despite an imposing challenge by Democrat Laura Galante.
GOP incumbent Sen. Mark Obenshain, meanwhile, handily defeated Democratic challenger April D. Moore by an almost two-to-one margin.
Webert had told the Rappahannock News during a visit to Little Washington on Election Day that he was confident about returning to Virginia’s House, reminding us that a recent poll put him in front of his opponent by 20 percentage points. It turned out to be right.
The delegate, who lives in Rectortown, received 16,640 votes (60 percent) to Galante’s 10,720 (39 percent). That said, it was a smaller margin of victory for Webert in much-bluer Rappahannock County, where his Democratic challenger came away with 46 percent of the vote (1,463) to Webert’s 54 percent (1,722).
“I wish Michael Webert well as a representative of the 18th district in the upcoming legislative session,” Galante said Tuesday night. “It is my fervent hope that he will work to address important workforce and infrastructure issues for the district’s working families...
“I will keep listening to all Virginians regardless of politics or background about how we build opportunity in rural areas,” added the Democrat. “The Commonwealth has pressing challenges, and I plan to remain engaged in the important work of positioning our economy, our farms, and our families for the future.”
Even more so than in his previous four races, Webert campaigned strong until the end, visiting numerous voting precincts on Election Day throughout Fauquier, Rappahannock and beyond.
“Turnout is steady so we’re really happy,” he said during a stop at the Washington Volunteer Fire House. “We should do OK — if it turns out the way it’s supposed to!”
As for Galante, she had tried unsuccessfully to make her campaign more about issues and not politics. But the incumbent steered his efforts in a partisan direction, which clearly agitated his Democratic opponent, who tried to downplay politics at every turn. Even up until Election Day barbs continued flying back and forth between the two opposing camps.
“Michael Webert's latest ploy to distract voters from his terrible legislative record is calling me a liar… without ever saying what ‘lies’ I’ve supposedly told,” Galante complained over the weekend. “Then he lazily attempts to connect me with ‘the squad’ and ‘radicals.’ … This is a perfect example of why so many Americans are tired of politics today and feel forgotten by the political process.
“Instead of offering voters ideas or plans to make the lives of ordinary Virginians better Michael Webert has embraced the cynical and mean-spirited politics so many Americans hate,” she said, adding that she hoped 18th district residents would “vote this nonsense out of office.”
In the end, that was not the case, and Webert will now be returning to Richmond for his fifth term in office.
In the 26th district Senate race including Rappahannock County, the incumbent Obenshain came out well ahead of his Democratic challenger, taking 36,986 votes (65 percent) to Moore’s 19,937 (35 percent) in what is a heavily red district stretching from north of Rappahannock to Harrisonburg.
That said, the margin of victory for Obenshain was much narrower in Rappahannock, where Moore took 44 percent of the county’s vote to the senator’s 56 percent. Unofficial numbers in Rappahannock gave 1,768 votes to Obenshain and 1,408 votes to Moore.
In Richmond, meanwhile, Democrats celebrated into the night for having made recent history — to the extent they now control both state governments.
“Tonight, the ground has shifted in Virginia government,” reacted Gov. Ralph Northam. “The voters have spoken, and they have elected landmark Democratic majorities in both the Senate and the House of Delegates. I am proud of my fellow Democrats and inspired by our shared victory...
“I look forward to working with our new Democratic majority to make these priorities a reality. Together, we will build a stronger, more inclusive, and more just Commonwealth.”
Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Kirk Cox, a Republican, said voters in the state “carried on a 400-year-old tradition in representative government. As we have done since 1619, people across Virginia cast ballots to decide who would represent them in the oldest continuously-elected lawmaking body in the New World.
“I congratulate those who were elected and re-elected to the House of Delegates tonight. When the House convenes in January, we will welcome new members on both sides of the aisle, and, for the first time in two decades, a new party will sit in the majority.
“When Republicans took the majority 20 years ago, we preserved proportional representation on committees and sought to treat our colleagues with the respect that should be afforded to all equal members in an institution as revered and esteemed as the House. I hope and pray those traditions continue regardless of who wields power in the years to come.”