Peninsula voters rejected a progressive Democrat and picked a moderate Tuesday as the party’s nominee for a House of Delegates district in Hampton, Poquoson and York County that been a GOP stronghold until a court-ordered redistricting transformed it. In the Historic Triangle, voters in another primary election picked an anti-tax Republican to face a Democratic doctor eager to push for gun control.
In a sense, the story of the race to be the Democratic candidate for the 91st House District in Hampton and Poquoson is a one of a changing political map and a party’s still-evolving politics. It pits a long-time stalwart of Hampton Democratic politics, city School Board member Martha Mugler, against a new-style Democrat, Michael Wade, who talks of working-class Virginians and their needs — a turn of phrase not often heard in Virginia in recent decades.