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Democratic Victors in Virginia Special Elections [1]

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Date: 2025-01-08

Two Key Democratic Wins in Virginia’s Special Elections– Congratulations Kannan Srinivasan and JJ Singh! January 8, 2025

Democrats, after the awful November 5, 2024 elections, will be shut out of the White House by Demagogue Donald on January 20, 2025. They are now in the minority in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Democrats will, therefore, have to rely on the State Attorneys Generals and Governors that they have, as well as the “Team Blue” state legislative chambers that they still control to resist Donald and his national GOP reactionary gang.

Much of the political media was pushing the meme that the special elections in Virginia, the first to occur after Donald’s 2024 win, might show a lack of Democratic enthusiasm for their candidates. According to this “reasoning,” GOPers could sweep all three Old Dominion January 7, 2025 contests. Well, it didn’t work out that way. In two out of those three special VA contests, Democrats handily won. In District 26 of the VA House of Delegates (HD) Democrat JJ Singh clobbered his GOP rival Ram Venkatachalam by a 16.6 % margin (58.3%- 41.7% with 63% of the votes in). In the 32 VA State Senate District (SD), Democrat Kannan Srinivasan pulverized GOPer Tumay Harding by the identical “y uu ge” 16.6% spread with 67% of the votes in (nytimes.com, 1/07/25). Only in the VA 10th SD, west of Richmond, in a heavily GOP area, did Republican Luther Cifers easily win by defeating Democrat John Trammell getting 57.57% of the vote ( Seecardinalnews.org, Beyer, E., 1/07/25).

Two of these special elections all took place in Northern Virginia’s Loudoun County in the Washington suburban area. The third special election which the GOPer won took place west of Richmond in a strong-leaning GOP area. Loudoun County used to be a very rural area and was once reliably GOP. In the 2000 presidential election, Loudoun County gave “W” Bush 56% of its votes (Cohen & Cook 2022 Political Almanac). Now, with the influx of immigrants and federal workers along with its dislike of Demagogue Donald, Loudoun has headed Democratic (Cohen & Cook). Still for several years, Loudoun County was fairly swingy and analysts often talked about how hot button political issues “played” in Loudoun County. In 2020, Biden won Loudoun County by 26 points. However, in 2024, although she won Loudon County, Harris underperformed Biden’s 2020 vote, winning by just 16 points, while Trump had his best showing there in his three campaigns. In 2024, Demagogue Donald got 41% of the Loudoun County vote (loudounnow.com, 11/05/24). In these two special January 7, 2025 elections, the winning Loudoun Democrats outperformed Harris’s margin by about 3% (bluevirginia.us, lowkell, 1/07/24). Loudoun County is now not only heavily built up, it is also a very wealthy area in the U.S. In 2019, Loudoun had the highest U.S. median household income, $142,000 (Cohen & Cook 2022). These three special elections had been held to replace vacancies left by two state legislators who had won seats in the U.S. House. The third member of the House of Delegates vacated his seat to run for the VA State Senate (cardinalnews.org, Beyer, E., 1/07/25). Let’s take a closer look at these two Democratic Loudoun County winners.

Democrat JJ Singh’s parents came to the U.S. from India to obtain better jobs, a key reason for immigration to this country. After studying during the day and working at night, they spent their careers in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. A University of Virginia graduate, their son JJ Singh became the first turban-wearing Sikh to work in the Peace Corps. In Oruro, Bolivia, Singh worked with farmers to help them harvest crops and also with single mothers to help them start and grow businesses ( jjsingh.com/about ). He was a senior U.S. Senate adviser and small business owner. He has pushed for energy efficiency. (jjsingh.com). His parents taught him to give back to the U.S. what this country gave to them. Singh and his wife are raising two daughters in VA’s Loudoun County. Singh is proud to be able to represent VA’s 26th HD (cardinalnews.com).

Democrat Kannan Srinivasan,an Indian American, was elected to the VA House of Delegates (HD) in 2023. He is chair of the Virginia State Medicaid Board (wiki, Washington Post).

In these two special election victories for “Team Blue,” both these Democratic winners emphasized defending abortion rights as well as tax relief and putting more money into K-12 education (virginiamercury.com, Woods,C., 1/03/26). Preserving abortion rights is a key issue after the GOP-dominated reactionary Supreme Court, with three Trump appointees on it, recently overturned “Roe v. Wade” in its “Dobbs” decision.

With these two special election victories in the Old Dominion, Democrats continue to hold the VA State legislative chambers where they can act as a check on GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin. In this post-Trump 2.0 election, “Team Blue” took nothing for granted. It poured $100,000 into these contests (thehill.com, Manchester, J., 1/07/25).

Singh and Srinivasan were able to get their base to cast ballots for them. The two Democratic victors in Loudoun County show that voters in a rather “purplish/Blue” state will go for “Team Blue” even though their nominees have come from recent immigrant backgrounds. Unfortunately, when a woman like Kamala Harris ran, too many Democrats, even in now “Blue-trending” Loudoun County stayed home or voted for Demagogue Donald because of misogyny. America has come a long way in accepting people of different ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds. However, IMHO, sex is still the last “glass ceiling” that has not been cracked. Nevertheless, with these two VA special election wins, Democrats should be encouraged that their base will not “play dead” and bow before Demagogue Donald. Again, congratulations Old/New Dominion winners JJ Singh and Kannan Srinivasan!



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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/8/2295823/-Democratic-Victors-in-Virginia-Special-Elections?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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