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Democratic today.
Every election since then has been a Republican victory.
Here and there- 1987, 1995 and 2003 a Democrat has carried the county’s vote for dele■ gate.
But those are the only exceptions to Republican hegemony, and in each case the Republican won the seat. Even when the state as a whole went Democratic, Rappahannock went Republican. And even when the state went Democratic for statewide office, Rappahannock nearly always went Republican.
Over the last ten years, the trend has been ever more pronounced. The Republican Party captured the House of Delegates in 1999, and in the elections of 2003, 2001, 1999 and 1995 the Republican ran unchallenged for either our State Senate or Delegate seat.
What happened this time? Is it a sea change in Rappahannock? Is it a fluke of this particular election?
It is hard to avoid concluding that this shift means something. For a decade, the county voted more consistently Republican than the generally Republican state. This time the county voted more Democratic than the state as a whole.
Has Rappahannock become more liberal than the state? That seems unlikely.
Statewide too, Democrat Tim Kaine won very handily, the Lieutenant Governor’s race was extremely close, the Attorney General election is still up for grabs and the Democrats picked up two seats in the House of Delegates and within a hair’s breadth of a third.
In that context, Rappahannock’s Democratic sweep is just slightly out of line with
96.3%