Virginia Republicans Had a 66-34 House Majority. They Almost Lost It in One Night

The biggest story from Virginia’s elections on Tuesday was the thorough collapse of Republicans statewide. Ralph Northam won the governorship with an 8.5-point victory over Ed Gillespie: a reasonable margin given recent precedent in the commonwealth’s politics, but also a spread that was more than five points wider than the latest poll averages.

With those extra votes for the Democrat at the top of the ticket came extra intrigue for the GOP: Nearly becoming the minority in the House of Delegates it controlled 66-34 at the beginning of the night.

As of Tuesday night, a Democrat had flipped a Republican-controlled seat in the following 14 districts, with all precincts reporting to Virginia’s Department of Elections (percentage splits in parentheses): 2 (63-37), 10 (52-48), 12 (54-46), 13 (55-45), 21 (53-47), 31 (54-45), 32 (59-41), 40 (50-50, 68-vote margin), 42 (61-39), 50 (55-45), 67 (58-42), 68 (50-50, 326-vote margin), 72 (53-47), and 73 (51-49).

The GOP candidate held on in districts 27 and 28 by less than 0.5 percentage points each. Republican David Yancey won the 94th by 12. As in 12 votes.

There were still votes to be counted in districts 84 and 85; the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman called the first one for the Republican and the second one for the Democrat, respectively.