Virginia Democrats’ Chance to Gerrymander
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 November 2019
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The latest round of elections in Virginia brought in a new Democratic majority to the state Legislature. It’s the first time Virginia’s government has been fully Democratic in 26 years. The question now is: What will the Democrats do with all that power? Entrench their newfound majority through partisan gerrymanders or seek a bipartisan solution to redistricting?
Guest: David Daley, authort of Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count and the forthcoming Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I have one question for you. Do you all like the color blue? |
| 0:09.0 | This is what Richmond, Virginia, sounded like, around 10 o'clock at night on Election Day, after the votes had rolled in. |
| 0:17.0 | Because I'm here to officially declare today November the 5th, 2019, that Virginia is officially |
| 0:24.9 | blue. |
| 0:25.5 | Congratulations. |
| 0:27.2 | The governor, Ralph Northam, he is celebrating loudly. |
| 0:32.3 | Democrats had just taken the state house and the state senate. |
| 0:35.3 | Blue! |
| 0:36.3 | Blue! |
| 0:38.3 | Blue! What a great night this is! |
| 0:41.3 | The next day, a local paper would actually call this victory a blue tsunami. |
| 0:46.3 | Dave Daly was watching these returns come in. |
| 0:49.3 | He says, to really understand what happened in Virginia that night, |
| 0:53.3 | you need to get how this blue wave felt somehow both inevitable and hard won at the same time. |
| 1:01.8 | Virginia has now really changed over the course of the last decade. |
| 1:05.4 | It has voted for the Democrat for president in every election since 2008. |
| 1:10.8 | It has elected Democratic governors for the last decade. |
| 1:14.4 | So this was really the last step in the process. |
| 1:22.5 | For Virginia Democrats, gaining control of the state legislature, has been brutal. |
| 1:27.5 | If you go back to the 2017 election, Democrats won 200,000 more votes for the House of |
| 1:34.3 | delegates statewide than Republican candidates. And yet that election ended up in a tie. |
| 1:45.1 | This tie wasn't a mistake. |
... |
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