Takis Karantonis will get another term on the Arlington County Board.
The Democratic incumbent decisively defeated his divided competition in the County Board race, which was conducted via ranked choice voting.
Karantonis has 61% of the vote to 17% for independent Audrey Clement, 13% for Republican Bob Cambridge, 5% for independent Carlos “DC” De Castro Pretelt, and 3% for independent Jeramy Olmack, with all local precincts reporting as of 8:50 p.m.
A candidate with over 50% of the first-choice votes in a ranked choice race is the winner regardless of the breakdown of second- and third-choice selections.
Aside from some debate on housing policy, the County Board race was characterized more as a referendum on current county leadership in general than on any single issue.
Over 40,000 early in-person and mail-in ballots were cast in Arlington for the general election. In all, Arlington County elections officials estimated that this year’s turnout will be about 50% of eligible voters.
Other local races on the ballot include Arlington School Board and three House of Delegates seats.
Democratic endorsee Monique “Moe” Bryant is heading to the School Board, having captured 63% of the vote to 20% for James Vell Rives IV and 16% for Major Mike Webb.
Rives, on the ballot for a third time since 2022, appears likely to overperform his 2024 total while underperforming his 2022 total, in a race in which he sought to differentiate himself on issues of school gender, including transgender locker room access.
In the House of Delegates races, incumbent Democrats Patrick Hope (D-1), Del. Adele McClure (D-2) and Del. Alfonso Lopez (D-3) are cruising to reelection. Hope and McClure are defeating Republican challengers while Lopez ran unopposed.
In the statewide races — where gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger (D) and lieutenant governor candidate Ghazala Hashmi (D) have been elected, the Associated Press projects — Arlington is helping Democrats run up the score.
Spanberger has 81% of the vote to Republican Winsome Earle-Sears’ 19% in the county, while Hashmi has 78% to Republican candidate John Reid’s 22%. In the tighter race for Attorney General, Democrat Jay Jones has 73% of the Arlington vote to 26% for Republican incumbent Jason Miyares.
By comparison, Democrat Terry McAuliffe captured about 76.5% of the Arlington vote to Republican Glenn Youngkin in the 2021 gubernatorial election. Youngkin ended up winning statewide. That year Karantonis received 60% of the vote, en route to his first full term on the County Board after being first elected in a special election in 2020,.
At the Democratic victory party in Courthouse Tuesday night, Karantonis celebrated not only his own win but that of Spanberger and other Democrats at the state level, with the party expected to have a large majority in the House of Delegates.
“I’m so proud to be at the forefront, the proud forefront of a nation that takes back their democracy,” he told a cheering crowd. “And you know something? This has a lot to do with Arlington.”
