At 10 p.m. Tuesday night, the 400 Northern Virginia Democratic party faithful packed into Falls Church’s State Theatre, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe took the stage to announce that Virginia had gone for Hillary Clinton in today’s national presidential election. It allowed the crowd, sullen as Clinton’s rival Donald Trump began knocking off Democratic stronghold states, to explode, followed by one of McAuliffe’s trademark rousing speeches. “Virginia is the first battleground state to go blue,” he exclaimed, and promised “when the night is over, we will win it all.”
While that promise continued to fade as more results from around the U.S. came in, it was not until 40 minutes later that CNN officially projected Virginia for Clinton and her running mate, Virginia U.S. Senator Tim Kaine. At the point CNN called Virginia for Clinton, she had 48.2 percent of the vote with 46.7 percent for Trump and 87 percent of the vote counted. Appearing on the stage at the State with McAuliffe was Virginia U.S. Senator Mark Warner and Virginia’s three U.S. Congressmen, Don Beyer, Gerry Connolly and Bobby Scott.
U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock in the 10th District has been projected to win over Democratic challenger LuAnn Bennett.
