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We did it Virginia!! [1]

['View Profile', 'Back Of Bourke']

Date: 2026-04-21  

This was a significant blow to Peter Thiel and the billionaires who poured money into this race, flooding it with ads designed to confuse and inflame voters. Every streaming platform seemed saturated with negativity, and my mailbox was filled daily with misleading campaign mailers.

What stood out most was how contradictory the messaging was. One set of ads claimed that a “Yes” vote would undermine Black voting rights, even going so far as to invoke the March on Washington. Then, almost immediately, another ad would feature a rural farmer warning that the same vote would give minorities too many advantages, leading to gun rights being taken (an oldie but goodie) away or men being placed in women’s sports (the new fear mongering dejour).

Despite the sheer volume of spending, and a steady stream of “No” advocacy on FOX, they fell short. It’s a reminder that even well-funded smear campaigns don’t always win.

Another factor I think was Trump’s gestapo in Washington DC, a prelude of Minnesota. All around the district, people showed up in droves. Despite Virginia having five GOP representatives, not one of them stood up for the people being terrorized. In watching the returns, PBS had a graph that showed the benchmarks each county had to make. Alexandria looked like a freaking mountain. People were pissed!

Despite the “NO” vote leading from the time the polls closed at 7pm to 8:44 pm, there was a big shift in the vote at 8:45pm, and the YES vote was called. WHY? Because all the rural counties had come in at 95%, with Fairfax and Richmond, two giant blue areas where “YES” was overperforming, only had 50% of the vote in. The prognasticators knew it was over in that instant, and the “NO” vote would not lead ever again.

Before I moved to Florida, I lived here in Old Dominion. As disappointed as I was in Florida for almost every vote, I was always amazed Virginia would do the right thing–even when it was solid red at one time. I was there when we elected the nation’s first Black Governor, Doug Wilder. I was there when we defeated Oliver North for Senate. I was there (in spirit) when Virginia voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and never voted for a Republican presidential candidate again. I knew my state would come through one more time.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/4/21/800025238/community/we-did-it-virginia/

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