Blue Virginia

There was an election this past Tuesday. I turned my ballot in the week before. What I had was known as an absentee ballot. That meant the voter would be absent and not able to go to the polls on election day. But now that Michigan voters can get such a ballot for any election without giving a reason is it still appropriate to call it “absentee?”

There are the big election stories. All of the Virginia state government turned blue. That’s especially sweet because the headquarters for the National Rifle Association is in Fairfax and most of the Democrats ran on new rules against gun ownership.

Democrat Andy Beshear beat incumbent Matt Bevin by 5,000 votes to become the next governor of Kentucky. For a while it looked like Bevin was maneuvering to get the state legislature, comfortably Republican, to declare something amiss in the results and claim the right to choose the governor. But, thankfully, Senate Minority Leader Morgan McGarvey said they’re not going to play that game.

In the Republican suburbs around Philadelphia – Delaware and Chester Counties – Democrats took all or a majority of the seats on county councils.

And one that’s rather delicious: The vice nasty guy is from Columbus, Indiana. The city council of that city of 44,000 has been controlled by the GOP for nearly for decades. But not anymore.

The LGBTQ Victory Fund provided fundraising support for 111 queer candidates at all levels of government. 80 of them won, including five transgender women. This includes Danica Roem, who was re-elected (an important point) to the Virginia House.

There are now 765 openly LGBTQ elected officials in America according to Out For America. That’s wonderful progress. Alas, it is still only 0.15% of all elected officials.

Bill in Portland, Maine, part of the Daily Kos community observed:

When Republicans defeat Democrats in an election, the media lectures our side to compromise with Republicans. When Democrats defeat Republicans in an election, the media lectures our side to compromise with Republicans.

Sigh.