State Sen. Donald McEachin (Photo courtesy J.C. Wilmore)
(Updated) In Richmond area congressional races, state Sen. Donald McEachin, a Democrat, won election in the redrawn 4th District against Henrico Sheriff Mike Wade with 56 percent of the vote to Wade’s 44 percent, while Republican incumbent Dave Brat held off a challenge from Eileen Bedell in the 7th, winning 58 percent to 42 percent.
“So far, everything that was expected in the congressional races has happened,” says Geoffrey Skelley, associate editor for Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “But in terms of Virginia’s presidential vote, there have been some incredibly dramatic shifts.”
Commenting before Virginia was added to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s column, he added, “Counties that we thought would be better for Clinton, like Chesterfield, are much better, but she’s not running as well in Hampton Roads as Obama and much of the rest of the state is a red sea.”
As the evening went on, a Clinton win nationally looked increasingly doubtful, an outcome that Skelley acknowledged most analysts weren’t expecting. “Pretty remarkable,” he said.
Overall, it was not a good election for polling reliability. “It looks like Richmond polls overestimated Morrissey support, and national polls underestimated Trump support,” said Richard Meager, a political science professor at Randolph Macon College. Mayoral candidate Joe Morrissey led in a majority of districts in polls leading up to the election, but wound up in third place, behind Levar Stoney and Jack Berry.
“I have a good explanation for the first one, but not the second, at least not right now," Meager said last night. "I will need to look at numbers more carefully in the next few days, but It looks like the 'shy Trump voter' myth is not so much a myth.”
This morning, he added, "I think the story of the campaign is that we all put too much stock in a few early polls. The polls weren't bad in most cases — the CNU one particularly was put together well — but they were basically measuring name recognition. The narrative of 'Morrissey as front-runner' was set in stone after that first poll, and because we don't have regular polling in small urban races like this one, we didn't get enough [information] to change it. Stoney's whole strategy was about getting his name out there, especially in the last few weeks of the campaign, and it paid off."
