Via Richmond Times-Dispatch:
Sen. R. Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania, has conceded defeat in his race against Republican Bryce Reeves, officially handing control of the state Senate to Republicans.
Houck was entitled to seek a recount after the certification of results on Nov. 28, but opted not to do so as canvassing in Spotsylvania and Louisa counties made it clear that he had been defeated.
This brought the official count to 20-20 with the VA Senate tie breaker being Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling.
Bolling made it clear Wednesday that power sharing was off the table.
“Make no mistake about it, there is a Republican majority in the state Senate,” he said.
That gives the GOP total control of state government, with both chambers and the governorship.
Before Tuesday's election, media was reporting that VA's vote would be "an early signal" for Barack Obama. (Source- Reuters)
Political analysts said loss of the 40-seat state Senate to Republicans would be a bad sign for Obama as he seeks to win Virginia and its 13 electoral votes next year.
WSJ calls this Obama's defeat because of how much time, money and effort the Obama campaign has put into Virginia in the last six months:
So the White House is pouring resources into what Tim Kaine, the state's former Democratic governor, now pridefully refers to as Democrats' "New Dominion." The Obama campaign has held some 1,600 events in the state in the last half-year alone. Only last month Mr. Obama hopped a three-day bus trip through Virginia and North Carolina. Obama officials keep flocking to the state, and Tuesday's election was to offer the first indication of how these efforts are succeeding.
Let's just say the New Dominion is looking an awful lot like the Old Dominion. If anything, more so.
Virginia Republicans added seven new seats to their majority in the House of Delegates, giving them two-thirds of that chamber's votes—the party's largest margin in history. The GOP also took over the Virginia Senate in results that were especially notable, given that Virginia Democrats this spring crafted an aggressive redistricting plan that had only one aim: providing a firewall against a Republican takeover of that chamber. Even that extreme gerrymander didn't work.
Every Republican incumbent—52 in the House, 15 in the Senate—won. The state GOP is looking at unified control over government for only the second time since the Civil War. This is after winning all three top statewide offices—including the election of Gov. Bob McDonnell—in 2009, and picking off three U.S. House Democrats in last year's midterms.
Realistically it could be argued that Virginia has always been considered a red state and in 2008 when Obama took the state with a seven point lead it was an anomaly and no one but the Obama campaign expected Virginia to turn purple as a swing state or even turn to blue.
As of five days ago, USA Today had Virginia listed as a "swing state" in their polling, naming it as one of the states that could be a "path" to a second term for Barack Obama by way of 270 electoral votes needed to win.
Obama's job performance disapproval rating in other states the USA Today has listed as important shows more than just an uphill battle for his reelection prospects in 2012.
With the loss of Virginia and Obama's high disapproval rating nationally as well as individually state by state, barring a miraculous turnaround of the economy and a major lowering of the 9 percent unemployment rate, his reelection chances just lowered considerably with the loss of the Virginia Senate and a two-third majority in the Virginia House.
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