Debate over housing and urbanization once again took center stage as candidates for the Democratic County Board nomination squared off at a forum last week.
Current County Board Chair Takis Karantonis met his sole challenger, James DeVita, at an Arlington County Democratic Committee meeting that attracted about 150 people on Wednesday.
While election officials in Arlington and Falls Church are not expecting an early rush to vote in the Democratic primary, they’re ready for those who do come.
Arlington elections director Gretchen Reinemeyer told ARLnow she expects a relatively modest first-day turnout when early voting begins on Friday.
The race for four seats on the Falls Church City Council is underway.
Incumbents Laura Downs and David Snyder have already qualified for the Nov. 4 ballot. Several other aspirants, including incumbent Marybeth Connelly, have started the process of qualifying, city elections director David Bjerke told ARLnow.
Arlington Democrats have nominated JD Spain, Sr. as the party’s candidate for County Board.
A preliminary tally of votes in the ranked-choice contest, conducted Friday evening, showed Spain with an insurmountable lead prior to the counting of provisional ballots.
Initial results in Arlington’s Democratic County Board primary show a close race at the top.
JD Spain, Sr. leads the first round of vote tallying, with 33%, followed by Natalie Roy with 29% and Tenley Peterson with 23%.
The Democratic primary for one open Arlington County Board seat got off to a slow start today.
As of 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, only about 3.7% of Arlington registered voters had cast ballots in the Democratic race today. About 5.2% of the county voted early or by mail, according to the county’s election dashboard.
The Arlington Democratic primary is tomorrow (Tuesday).
Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. as five candidates — James DeVita, Julie Farnam, Natalie Roy, Tenley Peterson and JD Spain — compete for the one open seat on the Arlington County Board. Historically, the victor of the Democratic primary tends to be a reliable predictor of the November general election outcome.
Arlington spent $74,000 in two months combating a lawsuit over Missing Middle housing, public records show, drawing the ire of a County Board candidate.
The county, which hired law firm Gentry Locke at the start of this year, paid $49,251 for services in January and $24,536 in February, according to invoices. Meanwhile, a GoFundMe campaign for the lawsuit — which alleges that Arlington failed to adequately study the impacts of Missing Middle before approving the zoning change — has raised about $69,000 since last June.
While the presidential primaries are now a done deal, races for Arlington Democratic nods are just getting started.
A full slate of candidates are vying for seats on the Arlington School Board and Arlington County Board. Five Democratic contenders are jockeying for the place of outgoing County Board Chair Libby Garvey and another four are gunning for two School Board seats.
President Joe Biden and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley won the majority of votes in Arlington in yesterday’s Virginia presidential primary.
However, the low voter turnout in both primaries might serve as a warning sign for both Biden and the now clear Republican frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, of a lack of voter enthusiasm.
On the eve of Super Tuesday, local party leaders, political consults and pundits on both sides of the aisle have already agreed on who the Republican and Democratic nominees for president will be.
One question lingering in the minds of many is whether the D.C. suburbs, including Arlington, can offer any indication of whether candidates are gaining or losing sufficient suburban voters to impact the general election.
With ranked-choice voting now the go-to method for local primaries in Arlington, the County Board is also considering using it for the November general election.
This Saturday, the Board plans to hold a public hearing to decide whether to use the voting method, also known as RCV, in the County Board election this fall to fill Chair Libby Garvey’s soon-to-be-vacant seat — the only one expected to be empty.
