What Went Down On Election Night 2017

That’ll do it for us tonight, dear readers. We got a lot of interesting new data to sift through, and we’ll have more analysis of the day’s results soon. But for now, Democrats pick up governor’s mansions in Virginia and New Jersey. The Virginia House of Delegates maybe could flip to the Democrats (a surprise). Medicaid expansion passes in Maine. In short, it was a good night for Democrats. As always, though, I asked members of our live-blog team for their headlines coming out of Tuesday. (And as always, many of them responded with about three or four headlines-worth of characters.) Clare: Dems Sweep Virginia; Bannonites crush sour grapes to make victory wine for insurgent, swamp-draining 2018 midterms. Nate: I guess I’ll make mine polling-focused to mix things up a bit. Still, this is an important sub-headline: Republicans should stop taking comfort in the fact that polls underestimated Trump in 2016. They could just as easily wind up overestimating Republicans instead in 2018, as they did in Virginia tonight. Dave: With all the evidence in front of us, Democrats are slight favorites to retake the U.S. House in 2018. Perry: All the fundamentals favored Northam: 1. Virginia is Democratic-leaning, 2. Republicans control the presidency and 3. that president is deeply unpopular. But a Gillespie win would have been a “holy shit” kind of thing — an establishment GOP pol had embraced Trump tactics and won in Virginia. So to me, the headline is something like, “In Virginia, Nervous Democrats Get a Much-Desired Victory Over Trumpism.” Harry: Democrats Romp As Republican Run For The Hills Ahead Of 2018 Midterms Meena: TV News On Election Nights Is Just Louder, More Annoying Twitter. Dan: My take-homes: While many things in politics aren’t predictable, the fact that unpopular presidents take down their parties when they’re not on the ballot is. And state politics is looking less like a distinctive arena and more like a isplaced version of national politics. Meghan: Live Blog Copy Comes In Messier And Messier As The Night Wears On

One final note: It’s hard not to conclude the August events in Charlottesville had a galvanizing effect on Democrats in that area. Across the state, raw votes cast were up 16 percent over 2013. But in the city of Charlottesville, raw votes cast were up 31 percent. Northam took 84 percent of the vote there.

We’re about to wrap this live blog, but here’s the current count for the Virginia House of Delegates. There are 100 seats, and Democrats currently hold 48, Republicans 47. Here are the five outstanding races that will determine control — and may be in recount territory:

• House District 27 (Chesterfield County): Del. Roxann Robinson (R) is up by 129 votes.
• House District 28 (Fredericksburg): Bob Thomas (R) is up by 86 votes.
• House District 40 (Fairfax): Donte Tanner (D) is up by 68 votes.
• House District 68 (Richmond): Dawn Adams (D) up by 316 votes.
• House District 94 (Newport News): Del. David Yancey (R) up by 12 votes.

If every one of these races breaks to the current leader, Virginia would have a 50-50 House of Delegates come January.