Richmond Free Press © 2018 Paradigm Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
VOL. 27 NO. 45
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
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41st Annual Richmond Marathon kicks off Saturday
November 8-10, 2018
Photos by Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press
Democrat Abigail Spanberger of Henrico heads to the podium late Tuesday night to claim a razor-thin victory in the 7th Congressional District contest against incumbent GOP Rep. Dave Brat. Congressman A. Donald McEachin, a Henrico Democrat, celebrates his re-election to the 4th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives at a joint victory party with Ms. Spanberger Tuesday night at a Henrico County hotel. He defeated Republican challenger Ryan A. McAdams and Libertarian candidate Peter Wells.
Dems take the House
Voter enthusiasm, coupled with rejection of Trump policies, results in Democrats regaining the U.S. House of Representatives in midterm election Free Press wire reports
WASHINGTON Voters brought an end to one-party Republican rule in the nation’s capital in Tuesday’s election. Propelled by a surge of rank-and-file enthusiasm and widespread urban and suburban dissatisfaction with President Trump, Democrats took control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 2011. Democrats picked up at least 27 House seats, including three in Virginia, to boost their total to a majority of 221 seats of the 435 in the lower chamber. While some election results were still unavailable Wednesday, they appear to be in line with a typical mid-term election and below the results of 2006 when Democrats gained 31 House seats in delivering what then-President George
W. Bush described as a “thumping.” “Thanks to you, we owned the ground,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — likely the next House speaker — said Tuesday night. “Thanks to you, tomorrow will be a new day in America.” Women were among the big winners in the House, with 33 newcomers gaining seats — including the three Virginia win-
More election coverage on A6 and A7 ners — and 65 incumbents winning re-election. Among the new faces in Congress will be two Muslim women — Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — and two Native American women — Deb Haaland of New Mexico and Sharice Davids of Kansas — who will be the first from their communi-
ties to serve in Congress. There were other major wins for diversity. Progressive insurgent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, who overtook goliath Rep. Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th Congressional District in a stunning upset, became the youngest woman elected to Congress in the nation’s history. Massachusetts sent the state’s first black woman to Congress in Democrat Ayanna Pressley and Texas elected their first two Please turn to A4
House races in Virginia
Newcomer Abigail Spanberger claims narrow win over GOP incumbent By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Democratic newcomer Abigail Spanberger of Henrico defied conventional wisdom and upset U.S. Rep. Dave Brat to win Virginia’s 7th Congressional District seat in her first run for public office. Her victory came on a night when two other Democratic women upset Republican incumbents in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia, ensuring Virginia would send seven Democrats to the House of Representatives in January. Currently, the state’s 11-member House delegation includes seven Republicans and four Democrats.
Ms. Spanberger, a 39-year-old former CIA officer, personified the suburban women outraged at the divisive and destructive approach of President Trump. She edged out Rep. Brat, a 54-year-old economist, by piling up a collective 30,000-vote lead in the two biggest jurisdictions in the district, Henrico and Chesterfield counties. Rep. Brat handily won the eight more rural and less populous counties in the 7th District that stretches west from Richmond to Culpeper County and includes Goochland, Powhatan and Amelia counties, but he could not overcome Ms. Spanberger’s lead in the Richmond suburbs that are no longer reliably Republican.
She won Henrico County by 20,000 votes. And in Chesterfield County, which reported election results late because of voting problems at two precincts, Ms. Spanberger won by 10,000 votes. By 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Rep. Brat was still refusing to concede, while his Democratic challenger was shedding joyful tears and claiming victory to the roars of approval from elated supporters at an Election Night party at a Henrico County hotel. Ms. Spanberger, who refused campaign contributions from corporate political acPlease turn to A4
Mayor Stoney pushes $1.4B plan to revitalize Downtown By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Mr. Sessions
Trump fires Atty. Gen. Sessions Reuters
WASHINGTON U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was fired on Wednesday after receiving unrelenting criticism from President Trump for recusing himself from an investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential race. In a step that could have implications for the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, President Trump replaced Mr. Sessions with Matthew Whitaker, who will be acting attorney general. He had been Mr. Sessions’ chief of staff. The top Democrat in the U.S. Senate immediately called on Mr. Whitaker to recuse himself Please turn to A6
The grand plan to overhaul a big chunk of Downtown — including replacing the Richmond Coliseum with a new, larger arena — with a combination of taxpayer dollars and private investment funds is now headed to Richmond City Council for review. Mayor Levar M. Stoney last week enthusiastically rolled out the ambitious plan to completely redo about 13 blocks near City Hall over the next five years with a projected investment of $1.4 billion. The plan would change the face of an area that once was an African-American neighborhood known as Navy Hill, create hundreds of new affordable apartments,
provide black-owned and minority companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in new contracts and generate thousands of new jobs to help lift untold Richmond residents out of poverty. However, the development would for at least 18 years sop up most of the new real estate taxes and a major chunk of other taxes the development would generate, money that would be needed to cover the cost of the proposed new Coliseum and other public improvements, including improvements to Clay, 6th, 7th and Leigh streets, as well as the redevelopment of the historic Blues Armory. Please turn to A4
Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press
This property in the 4700 block of Jefferson Davis Highway, at the intersection of Walmsley Boulevard in South Side, is the site where Mayor Levar M. Stoney wants to relocate the city Department of Social Services, according to three members of City Council who attended a Oct. 29 briefing. The department is now located at 9th and Marshall streets across from City Hall. But that property is earmarked for redevelopment into a building with 457 apartments and space for a grocery store.
Regina H. Boone/Richmond Free Press
After marking his ballot, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Richmond heads to the machine to cast his vote at Precinct 203 inside The Hermitage Richmond continuing care retirement community on Westwood Avenue in North Side. He and has wife, Anne Holton, have voted at the precinct for the last 28 years. The Democrat easily won re-election over GOP challenger Corey Stewart.
Sen. Tim Kaine glides to big re-election victory By Jeremy M. Lazarus
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine declared that Virginia rejected the “the politics of hatred and division … the politics of peddling lies to get ahead” after handily winning re-election to his second six-year term. “You rejected that because we’ve been there, we’ve done that, we’ve got the scar tissue and we’re not going back,” Sen. Kaine told the crowd at his victory party in Northern Virginia. “… Tonight Virginia showed who we are and who we aren’t,” he said as he prepared to return to a Senate that will be more firmly in the grip of Republicans who won additional seats to expand their majority. Still, it was a big night for the former Richmond mayor and Virginia governor whose race was called just minutes after the polls closed at 7 p.m. His large margin of victory appeared to help down-ticket Democratic candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives. Confirming pre-election polls anticipating his win, Sen. Kaine secured victory by a comfortable margin of 14 percentage points over Republican rival Corey Stewart and Libertarian Matt J. Waters, or twice the margin by which Sen. Kaine beat former Gov. George Allen in 2012 to win his first term. In an election billed as a referendum on President Trump, the 60-year-old incumbent from Richmond amassed 1.9 million votes to 1.3 million for Mr. Stewart and nearly 62,000 for Mr. Waters. Please turn to A6