Low turnout
It looks like there may be record low turnout in the Congressional primaries in Northern Virginia — the State Board of Elections site is showing about 1 percent turnout so far, but I can’t tell if the denominator is all voters or just the precincts that have reported. (Ok, I checked again, and it’s up to 1.6 percent, so it must be all voters.) I don’t know if voters are suffering from campaign fatigue after the presidential primaries, are just disgusted by the generally negative campaign, or can’t figure out any real policy differences between the candidates and so just don’t care.
In any case, this race has to set some sort of record for most money spent per vote cast. VPAP only has info on candidates for state office — is the info for federal candidates somewhere?
I haven’t checked to see what precincts are reporting, but with about a third of the precincts in, it looks like Connolly is winning easily. Interestingly, Byrne seems to have done best in Prince William county, which I think is generally more conservative than Fairfax county. (I looked it up, and in the 2004 Presidential race, Kerry got 53 percent in Fairfax and 46 percent in Prince William. I’d guess Fairfax has gotten more blue since then.) But Connolly presumably has much lower name recognition there than in Fairfax.
I think Connolly should win easily in November.
