How the ‘Resistance’ Helped Democrats Dominate Virginia
- 6 years ago
How the ‘Resistance’ Helped Democrats Dominate Virginia
Sorenson, whose one-woman campaign — the candidate had a demanding day job — was limited by a cumbersome and unsightly cervical collar, had few illusions
that all these new volunteer hearts had been set aflame by the local business owner and retired Navy Reserve commander David Reid, even if everybody who met him agreed right away that he seemed like a profoundly decent guy with the right priorities.
“I wasn’t even out fighting the machine,” she said, “just coming back from the dry cleaners.” The first to arrive at her hospital bed — before her mother — were David Reid, a local businessman,
and his wife, who had called around to every regional emergency room until they found her.
Even those who could readily speak about state and local issues — how the Republicans in the House of Delegates had refused the Medicaid expansion
and passed a sheaf of anti-abortion bills; how Loudoun County was the only district in Northern Virginia without full-day kindergarten; how somebody needed to put a stoplight at Waxpool and Demott, where Sorenson was almost killed — were rarely acquainted with the proper channels for action.
Wins at the top of the ticket brought sighs of relief, but the shouted announcement of each successive delegate victory triggered gasps and whoops of astonishment: the first Asian-American woman, the first two Latina women, the first out lesbian, the first trans woman, an African-American woman, even a woman in a Trump district; altogether at least 11 new Democratic women, seven from Northern Virginia alone, in a swell
that seemed likely to result in 16 flipped districts for a tied House.
Sorenson, whose one-woman campaign — the candidate had a demanding day job — was limited by a cumbersome and unsightly cervical collar, had few illusions
that all these new volunteer hearts had been set aflame by the local business owner and retired Navy Reserve commander David Reid, even if everybody who met him agreed right away that he seemed like a profoundly decent guy with the right priorities.
“I wasn’t even out fighting the machine,” she said, “just coming back from the dry cleaners.” The first to arrive at her hospital bed — before her mother — were David Reid, a local businessman,
and his wife, who had called around to every regional emergency room until they found her.
Even those who could readily speak about state and local issues — how the Republicans in the House of Delegates had refused the Medicaid expansion
and passed a sheaf of anti-abortion bills; how Loudoun County was the only district in Northern Virginia without full-day kindergarten; how somebody needed to put a stoplight at Waxpool and Demott, where Sorenson was almost killed — were rarely acquainted with the proper channels for action.
Wins at the top of the ticket brought sighs of relief, but the shouted announcement of each successive delegate victory triggered gasps and whoops of astonishment: the first Asian-American woman, the first two Latina women, the first out lesbian, the first trans woman, an African-American woman, even a woman in a Trump district; altogether at least 11 new Democratic women, seven from Northern Virginia alone, in a swell
that seemed likely to result in 16 flipped districts for a tied House.