One delegate and one Senate race in Virginia Beach could be close enough to trigger recounts.
Unofficial results from the Department of Elections show Democrat Nancy Guy beating the incumbent, Republican Del. Chris Stolle, by 18 votes in Virginia Beach’s 83rd House District.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Stolle said he was certain he would win in a recount. He incorrectly said the small margin in the race would automatically trigger a recount. There are no automatic recounts in Virginia; the losing candidate must file a petition with the court requesting the recount.
On the Senate side, Democrat Cheryl Turpin is trailing Republican Jen Kiggans 50.36% to 49.49% — within the 1% margin that allows candidates to get a recount in Virginia.
Kiggans claimed victory at a GOP watch party at a Virginia Beach hotel at around 11 p.m. Tuesday.
“We earned each of those votes that we got tonight,” she said at the Crowne Plaza in Town Center. “I’m so excited to go to Richmond and continue to fight for us.”
Dan McNamara, Turpin’s campaign manager, said Turpin wanted to make sure every vote was counted during the canvass before requesting a recount.
“We knew it would be a close race. Closer than I think anyone would think of,” he said Wednesday morning.
Turpin was in the opposite position two years earlier, when Republican Rocky Holcomb wouldn’t concede in the race for the 85th House District. Holcomb was down 394 votes in that race, but it was beyond the 1% margin needed for a recount.
The candidates will have to wait until local election officials canvass the votes from the city’s 100 precincts, which starts Wednesday afternoon.
“They will go through all the tape from all the polling locations and look at the statement of results to make sure the numbers add up,” said Virginia Beach voter registrar Donna Patterson.
Election officials must also count the 205 provisional ballots received, Patterson said. Voters who turned in provisional ballots have until noon Friday to present an ID and validate their ballots.
Once the Department of Elections certifies the votes, the losing candidate will have 10 days to file a petition requesting a recount with the Virginia Beach Circuit Court.
If a candidate is trailing by more than 0.5% but less than 1% when the results are certified and still comes up short after the recount, they have to pay for the recount. In other cases — if the margin is 0.5% or less, or if the trailing candidate prevails in the recount — the city pays for it
The chief judge of the circuit court and two judges appointed by the state Supreme Court’s chief justice make up the recount court and have seven days to hold a hearing and determine if the recount will be conducted. If they decide to order a recount, they also determine how and where it will be done
The court will allow each candidate to choose “recount officials” from a pool of election officers who worked precincts in question.
Until the recount, the ballots will be sealed in a box kept in a locked room or vault. On recount day, ballots will be sent through a high-speed machine that is typically used to count absentee ballots.
At the end of the recount, the court will rule on any questionable ballots.
Democrats took the majority in both the House and Senate Tuesday in a historic win. With Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam in the executive mansion, Democrats have unified control of Virginia government for the first time in a generation.
The battle over control was anticipated by some to be fought in Hampton Roads; Instead, races in Northern Virginia and the Richmond area were the first to flip.
Stolle was elected to the 83rd District in 2009 and had run unopposed since then.
His opponent Guy served on the Virginia Beach School Board from 1996 to 2002. She got a large, last-minute contribution of $348,400 from the Beyond Carbon Action Fund, a group started by New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
The 7th Senate seat became open following the retirement earlier this year of Frank Wagner, a Republican who’d held the seat for 19 years.
Turpin, a high school teacher, ran on her delegate record of expanding Medicaid and her desire for more gun control after the Virginia Beach mass shooting.
Kiggans, a Navy veteran who now works as a geriatric nurse, boasted of being a political outsider, a newcomer tired of the divisiveness in Richmond.
Marie Albiges, 757-247-4962, malbiges@dailypress.com
This article has been updated to reflect Michael Bloomberg’s total contribution to Nancy Guy through his Beyond Carbon Action Fund.
