PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Doors for the polls opened at 6 a.m. Tuesday to voters trickling in throughout the morning. This primary election will decide who headlines the Republican and Democrat sides in the statewide elections for Virginia.
Anthony Hill, an election worker in Norfolk, told us he has been volunteering at polls since the Clinton years.
“November’s the big one, November’s the big one,” he said. “That’s when we’re gonna see a lot of people coming… It’s great to see people come out there and vote,” said Hill.
What happens in this primary directly impacts what happens in the general election. One of the big questions we will get an answer to is who will be the Republican candidate to run against Democrat incumbent Tim Kaine for U.S. Senate.
Hung Cao, a Navy veteran, is endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Eddie Garcia Jr., Jonathan Emord, Chuck Smith Junior and Scott Parkinson are also vying to run against Kaine.
In the House of Representatives Second District, a couple of Virginia Beach Democrats are competing for the nomination to run against Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans. They are Jake Denton and Missy Cotter Smasal. In the first district, two democrats on the Middle and Upper Peninsulas, Leslie Mehta and Herbert Jones Junior are running to take on GOP incumbent Rob Wittman.
Political analysts have their eye on the fifth district, where Republican Representative Bob Good is facing a primary challenger — the Trump endorsed State Senator John McGuire.
Jesse Richman, with the ODU Political Science department, calls it an “Interfactional fight within the party that doesn’t seem to have a clear ideological tincture to it.”
Richman urges voters to make their voices heard in the primaries.
“It’s an opportunity to shape who the candidates are in November,” Richman said. “But if you don’t like the candidates in November, and you didn’t vote in the primaries, well maybe you don’t quite have the right to complain. Go vote, take a role in shaping who the choices are.”
Polls in Virginia close at 7 p.m. You can register at a polling place as long as you go to the one in your precinct. Anyone in line by 7 p.m. will be able to vote.
