Polls closed at 7 p.m. State Sen. Frank Wagner took third place with around 13 percent of the vote. Polls have shown that Perriello has a slight lead in the race, but that lead may be contingent on unreliable pools of voters who usually sit primaries out.
Democrats didn't initially think they'd have a primary contest until former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello announced his surprise bid against Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam in January. Bernard Sanders and the most liberal activists from the national Democratic Party.
"Tonight, we're one step closer to building a Virginia that works for everyone - no matter who you are, no matter where you're from", Northam said in a Twitter post declaring victory. "[Perriello] proved there's a hunger in the Democratic for bold candidates", says Adam Green, a founder of the left-wing Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "He knows legislators in Richmond so he already has an advantage in being able to get some legislation on the books".
Speaking to a sweaty crowd packed into an Arlington restaurant with no air-conditioning, an ebullient Northam congratulated Perriello for his strong race and urged his opponent's supporters to join his campaign.
From the perspective of progressives, both Northam and Perriello have blemishes on their records that make them imperfect fits for the roles that have been ascribed to them. Addressing his supporters at the State Theatre, Perriello said: "Together we helped elevate mainstream ideas that should have been there all along", citing his support for a $15 minimum wage as an example.
But on a night when the only suspense was supposed to be on the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, the insiders' favorite, put away progressive darling Tom Perriello easily and early.
"It is time for us to get back on offense and stop playing so much defense", Northam said.
Democratic voters were energized in opposition to Trump and turned out in higher-than-expected numbers Tuesday. Gillespie rarely mentioned Trump and aired commercials that showed he was an adviser to former President George W. Bush.
Trump was an issue in the Republican primary as well, but not due to a surfeit of criticism of the president.
Angel Di Maria handed one-year suspended jail term for tax fraud
Now, the admission of the two counts of fraud in 2012 and 2013 will see him pay an additional fine of nearly 780,000 euros. A report in Spanish publication AS has suggested Mourinho penned an agreement to become Madrid boss on March 31, 2010.
Northern Virginia attorney Justin Fairfax won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, defeating Gene Rossi, a retired federal prosecutor, and Susan Platt, a longtime political operative and former lobbyist.
On the Republican side, the race between state Sen.
Jennifer Foy, a lawyer, beat out fellow Democrat Josh King, a Fairfax County sheriff's deputy, in the 2nd House District Primary, which had voters from eastern Prince William County and Stafford County.
The Democratic campaign focused on Northam's experience as a lawmaker working with Republicans, and Perriello saying he could better harness the frustration voters feel over Trump to forge a new direction for the party and bring in new voters for the general election in November.
Two Virginia Democrats vying to be the face of the resistance to President Donald Trump are squaring off Tuesday in a gubernatorial primary that's come down to a choice between heads and hearts.
But even with the state's Republican Party and news organizations of all stripes calling the race for Gillespie, Stewart declared the contest "too close to call" at his Woodbridge victory party Tuesday night.
That lack of enthusiasm may have affected turnout. He was special adviser to the prosecution of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and served as special envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo under the Obama administration.
Northam, a usually low-key pediatric neurologist, won running as a pragmatist with state's Democratic establishment's firm support.
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