Matt Blitz / DCist/WAMU
All the seats in Virginia’s closely-divided General Assembly will be on the ballot in November, and after Tuesday’s primary elections, both parties have a clearer idea of which candidates will be competing in swing districts — and who will sail to victory in safe Democratic or Republican seats.
In Northern Virginia, the question on Tuesday night was whether a quartet of Democratic incumbents in the state senate could hold on against well-funded primary challengers running to their left — and with most of the results in, it appeared that two had lost their seats.
Fairfax County School Board member Stella Pekarsky defeated Sen. George Barker in the Senate District 36 race with 52% of the vote to Barker’s 48%. Barker, a 16-year veteran of the senate, is the co-chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, a post that will likely now go to a lawmaker who is not from Northern Virginia.
Sen. Chap Petersen, in Senate District 37, also lost his seat to Saddam Salim, a Fairfax Democratic party stalwart.
Sen. Dave Marsden survived his primary challenge and won the Democratic nomination for Senate District 35. In Senate District 29, in Prince William County, Sen. Jeremy McPike, the incumbent, and challenger Del. Elizabeth Guzman were just 100 votes apart with 95% of the votes counted on Tuesday night.
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