Voters are made their way to polls this Tuesday in Northern Virginia to select a new member of the General Assembly after the 33rd Senate District seat was vacated following last year’s midterm elections. Constituents in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, including the cities of Sterling, Leesburg, and Herndon chose between Republican candidate and former House of Delegates member Joe May and Democratic candidate and Delegate Jennifer Boysko (D-Fairfax).
The race has been called for Boysko, who will join the state legislature’s upper chamber.
The results as reported by the Virginia Department of Elections (ELECT) are:
33rd Senate District: 100.00% reporting 54 precincts of 55
Joe May – Republican – 6,373 votes – 30.12%
Jennifer Boysko – Democrat – 14,762 votes – 69.76%
Write-in – 26 votes – 0.12%
May was a member of the House of Delegates between 1994 and 2014, making a name for himself as a moderate Republican in a deeply “blue” part of an already Democratic-leaning Northern Virginia. The inventor and businessman said addressing traffic congestion would have been at the top of his agenda, backed by his experience as chairman of the House Transportation Committee during his tenure as a state lawmaker. He also ran on protecting seniors’ Medicare benefits, supporting access to healthcare coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions, proposed upgrades to Virginia technology laws, and looked towards improving higher education statewide to build a robust workforce.
According to Boysko’s campaign website, she will “push for in-state tuition for immigrants who arrived as children,” and “advocate to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.” Furthermore, she reportedly will work to provide legislation that grants undocumented immigrants and refugees driver’s licenses.
Moreover, the senator-elect said her top priority is working with Governor Ralph Northam (D) to build “an economy that works for everyone.” One of those efforts is $2.2 billion in new state spending, $1.6 billion of which would be recurring after Northam’s term ends. The encroaching Democratic Party will also work during this year’s 45-day session in Richmond to subsidize the earned income tax credit (ETIC) to “level the playing field” among Virginians, tantamount to a middle-class tax increase.
Speaker of the House Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) will call for another special election in the very near future to replace Boysko’s seat in the 86th House District. The 45-day General Assembly session begins tomorrow in Richmond with Republicans holding onto a one-member majority in both the Senate and House of Delegates.