CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – UPDATED: Good campaign noon Tuesday statement added.
Area voters went to the polls Tuesday for Republican and Democratic primaries in the 5th and 7th Congressional districts, and Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Tim Kaine. Kaine is unopposed for the Democrats’ nomination.
Results:
7th District:
Democrats: Eugene Vindman is the projected winner of the Democrat’s nomination. He is an Army veteran who said he is not done serving. He is the twin brother of key Trump adversary in his first impeachment, Alexander Vindman. Eugene was serving as an ethics lawyer with the National Security Council at the time, and his brother shared with him what he heard in the phone call from then-President Trump to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He won the 7th District nomination by a landslide with 49% of the vote in a 7-way race while no other candidate got 14.
The seat is currently held by Democrat Abigail Spanberger who declined to run for re-election as she prepares to run for Governor next year.
Republicans: Former Green Beret Derrick Anderson won a fairly close 6-way race over Cameron Hamilton. He wins by roughly 8% with all but one precinct in.
5th District:
Democrats: A 3-way race that was pretty quiet over the months has been won handily by Lynchburg business woman Gloria Witt. She garnered 57% of the vote to beat Gary Terry and Paul Riley who were in the low 20s.
Republicans: The race between two-term incumbent Bob Good and Trump-endorsed state Senator John McGuire is considered “too close to call”. McGuire has nearly a 0.5% lead in the unofficial VDOE count. The margin is just over 300 votes. While McGuire claimed victory Tuesday night, Good posted on social media around noon Tuesday:
“This race remains too close to call. We are in a period where the law provides a process for evaluating the accuracy of all the vote totals from election day to ensure everyone can have full confidence in the certified results. Provisional ballots and mail-in ballots are also still to be counted. We are asking for full transparency from the officials involved and patience from the people of the 5th District over the coming weeks as the certification of results is completed. We believe we can still prevail.”.
U.S. Senate:
Republicans: Former Navy Special Ops officer Hung Cao, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, has trounced four other hopefuls for the nomination. He collected just under 62% of the vote while others were struggling for the 10% mark.