Close, But No Cigar in Fairfax?

Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) has conceded acknowledged that he is about 1200 votes behind in the Fairfax County Chairman’s race to Supervisor Sharon Bulova (D).  If this holds up, no doubt Fairfax voters will get what they voted for when Bulova’s Fairfax finally goes belly-up and declares bankruptcy before her term is up.  At that point, they’ll be begging for Herrity or some other Republican to come in and pick up the broken pieces of their county.

While as the title of this post says this race may be ”close, but no cigar,” this marks the second time within a month that a Republican candidate has finished within one-percentage point of the Democrat candidate in Northern Virginia.  Of course Republicans would have loved to have picked up either of these races, but again if tonight’s result does not change then in the end neither seat changed hands.  What the GOP did accomplish, however, is to show that it is still a viable party in NoVA and finish better in both this race and in the 46th House Dist. than any other Republican has in years.

There are lessons to be learned from both races and techniques to be adapted and fine-tuned by future GOP candidates running in these areas, but Republicans are on the road back in Virginia. Consider both contests dry runs before the real thing in November.

Still, we will wait and see what news tomorrow’s canvass brings us.