Two Virginia Democrats vying to be the face of the resistance to President Donald Trump are squaring off in a gubernatorial primary. Northam's campaign had been expecting about 320,000 voters, similar to the last contested Democratic primary in 2009.
The chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors consistently trailed in public polls of the race for the Republican nomination for Virginia governor, and former lobbyist Ed Gillespie managed to out-raise him by roughly $4 million.
Virginia's establishment-favored lieutenant governor - won the state's Democratic primary on Tuesday, defeating a Bernie Sanders-backed former congressman and dealing a blow to the party's rising progressive wing.
With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Northam led former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello 56 percent to 44 percent.
Perriello made a surprise entrance into the race in January and faced an uphill climb from the beginning.
Democratic legislative candidate Josh King talks about his hopes for winning a Republican-controlled seat in the Virginia House of Delegates in his campaign headquarters in Woodbridge, Virginia, United States, May 8, 2017.
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But even with the state's Republican Party and news organizations of all stripes calling the race for Gillespie, Stewart declared the contest "too close to call" at his Woodbridge victory party Tuesday night. The retired Richmond resident said Northam is strong on issues such as education and healthcare and will continue governor Terry McAuliffe's efforts to bring more jobs to Virginia.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, with his wife Maria, left, speaks at his election watch party in Woodbridge, Va., Tuesday, June 13, 2017. Gillespie barely defeated Corey Stewart, who was sacked as Trump's state campaign chairman previous year and focused his gubernatorial bid on preserving Virginia's Confederate history.
"Initial takeaways are that Northam performed strongly in the Urban Crescent- Northern Virginia, Richmond, and Hampton Roads-and that was all he had to do in the end", says Geoffrey Skelly of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Outside groups have poured money and attention into Virginia, and a vast army of new candidates have flooded the Democratic side of House races - including a record number of women candidates.
In the Democratic primary, Northam was endorsed by almost all of the party's elective officials - from the statehouse to the courthouse.
The primary sets up a general election between a native Virginian with a soft drawl, Northam, who seeks to pair an appeal to bipartisan sensibilities with building anger at Trump, and Gillespie, a non-native originally from New Jersey who must find a way to lure election-deciding independents and hold voters loyal to the new president he has largely avoided. Perriello in turn had a campaign ad in which he promised to "stop Donald Trump" while an ambulance, symbolizing Obamacare, was crushed behind him. I will be a governor for all Virginians, and our policies will benefit all Virginians. Jill Vogel eked out a narrow win over state Sen. Looking at county-level maps of the two races, Perriello's campaign manager, Brennan Gilmore, noted that his candidate-whose old congressional district included a rural area around Charlottesville-won numerous same interior counties as Stewart. Gillespie was ahead of Stewart in the GOP contest in the region's suburbs. Those with more moderate views with the GOP stayed home. Gillespie narrowly defeated Stewart in a race that truly came down to the wire and left Gillespie victorious, but only just. Felty, a 48-year-old surgical assistant, said a GOP victory in Virginia would wrestle back the "narrative being touted in the mainstream media that the Democrats are gaining traction" under Trump.
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