As election results roll in tonight, ARLnow will be tracking the outcome of races affecting Arlington and Virginia as a whole.
Three of the highest offices in Virginia are on the ballot this year, as are three seats representing Arlington in the House of Delegates.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia voters are deciding a history-making race for governor Tuesday that will serve as a barometer of attitudes toward President Donald Trump and Democrats’ attempts to regain their footing on the national stage.
Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, a staunch conservative who serves as Virginia’s lieutenant governor, and Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a center-left Democrat and former CIA case officer who helped her party win a House majority during Trump’s first presidency, are vying to become the first-ever woman to lead the commonwealth. Earle-Sears also would make history as the first Black woman elected governor in any state.
Election Day is off to a smooth start in Arlington, with about 8% voter turnout as of 9 a.m. following strong in-person early voting.
About 32,000 Arlington voters cast early in-person ballots this year, compared to 27,800 during the last gubernatorial election. However, mail-in ballots are down compared to 2021, a pandemic year: around 9,800 were cast this year compared to 14,800 in 2021.
As Election Day approaches tomorrow (Tuesday), Arlington County Board candidates have been shoring up plans to meet voters at the polls before watching the results come in.
While the Arlington County Democratic Committee has been tying up a few loose ends over the past week, it expects to have all 54 precincts covered throughout the day on Tuesday.
Gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger hosted one of her final rallies of the election season in Falls Church yesterday (Sunday).
Helping the Democrat make her closing argument to Northern Virginia voters at the State Theatre ahead of Tuesday’s election were two men who previously held the governor’s seat: Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, the state’s incumbent U.S. senators.
Election offices in Arlington and Falls Church are on the lookout for any glitches with the U.S. Postal Service handling official election-related mail.
A relatively small number of ballots from the office of Falls Church registrar David Bjerke were mailed but had not yet reached residents who requested them, Bjerke reported at an Oct. 23 meeting of the Falls Church Electoral Board.
The 2026 General Assembly session could bring another political tug-of-war between some County Board members and a state legislator representing the local community.
The past two years saw debate over the appropriate sequence of events in tackling any major change to Arlington’s governance structure.
A recent forum quizzed Falls Church City Council candidates on what local governments can do to blunt ever-increasing costs of child care and preschool services in Northern Virginia.
It was, one incumbent noted, the first time the issue had been raised during a candidate forum in her memory.
County Board members have taken the first steps in considering changes to the community’s 93-year-old governance structure.
The action marks “the beginning of a long discussion, a very long path,” Board Chair Takis Karantonis said at a meeting yesterday (Tuesday).
PETERSBURG, Va. (AP) — Rae Pickett stepped onto Richell Hines’ front stoop wearing a pink T-shirt that foretold the case she hoped to make to Virginia voters as she knocked on doors on a sunny Saturday in early October.
“Abortion is on the ballot,” it read.
A Falls Church civic group’s effort to ensure that local elections maintain a local focus was subject to some debate at a recent candidate forum.
All but one candidate for both City Council and School Board have signed onto a commitment to campaign in a positive manner and refrain from taking large donations from people and groups outside the community. Incumbent School Board member Lori Silverman, however, pushed back on some aspects of the “pledge” at a recent candidate forum.
There’s only one candidate running unopposed in Arlington this fall. But that doesn’t mean Del. Alfonso Lopez is taking election season off.
Lopez (D-3) is raising funds and rallying the troops in hopes Democrats will be “picking up tons of seats” in the House of Delegates.
