The ninth is right!

[Deleted Account 5,203]

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/state/#VA

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/county/#VAH09p1

 

90% of the vote in, and Griffith had 51% of the votes to Boucher's 47%! I've been waiting for this night since I knew who Boucher was. So, SO happy. I think this will be a pivotal night in SWVA's history. For the first time in a long, long time, I have real hope for SWVA.

[rhsfan88 22]

Was getting ready to post that UVAO. Im sitting here in Florida and saw the news and I figured this place would be abuzz tonight. Great news!!

[Deleted Account 5,203]

Tazewell County really carried the day: 59% for Griffith, and 2300 of the 7000 vote differential on its own.

What's shocking, and telling, is that Boucher lost Washington County AND Bristol. Just, wow...

Honorable mention to Patrick County: 60% for Boucher, the highest differential by percentage.

[bucfan64 309]

Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[vthokies4life 10]

Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder if bucfan is excited. :)

[RichlandsAlum 678]

Remembering the days when the 9th District GOP Committee could have fit comfortably in a mid-size sedan.....

 

This is HUGE.

 

Well done, neighbors. Well done.

[Graham-VT Fan 46]

I wasn't sure I would live long enough to see Boucher get fired. I bet Ricky is cursing the day that he voted (no, helped craft) for that cap and tax bill. Well done Fightin' Ninth!!!!

[bhs7695 185]

<----------------- did his part!!

[bhs7695 185]

http://www.roanoke.com/266058

 

Griffith pulls upset; GOP rolls

 

House Republicans march to brink of control; GOP gains in Senate; Rick Boucher said "a tidal wave of sentiment" pushed him out of the 9th District.

 

By Mason Adams and Katelyn Polantz | The Roanoke Times

 

BRISTOL -- Republican Morgan Griffith won a stunning victory in the 9th Congressional District on Tuesday, unseating 28-year incumbent Rick Boucher and accomplishing a task thought impossible just a few months ago.

 

Griffith rode a wave of momentum, distaste for President Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and a flood of outside money that helped level the playing field against Boucher's heftier campaign fundraising.

 

"I'm glad to have put the fight back into the Fighting Ninth of Virginia," he told a raucous group of more than 200 at the Holiday Inn in Bristol. They chanted "USA! USA!" as he took the stage.

 

Griffith later called his upset a "clear repudiation" of Obama and Pelosi's priorities and said their cap-and-trade energy legislation was the "2-ton elephant" that swung his victory.

 

"Washington has a lot of problems, and I now ... feel the burden to correct some of those," Griffith said in a statement.

 

Griffith, the Virginia House of Delegates majority leader who has represented Salem and parts of Roanoke County since 1994, was considered an unlikely candidate when he entered the race this spring, particularly because he lived just outside the district's boundary in Roanoke County.

 

But despite running behind in polls most of the summer and fall, Griffith peaked over the past few weeks.

 

Griffith won by considerable margins in most of the district's localities, including Boucher's Washington County.

 

Boucher won only three of the six coalfield counties -- which had been key to his tightly contested victories in 1982 and 1984 -- as well as Covington, Galax, Montgomery County, Norton and Radford, but not by large enough margins to overcome his losses elsewhere.

 

"I think it was just a tidal wave of sentiment that the other party should have control of the House of Representatives," Boucher said. "I think it was prevalent throughout the entire nation. The record of achievement that we've had and the promise of what we could do in the years ahead really could not withstand that tidal wave of sentiment."

 

About 150 people gathered to support Boucher at the Senior Center in his hometown of Abingdon, but the mood was downbeat for much of the evening -- even before the race was called for Griffith. Several people left even before Boucher made his entrance about 9:30 p.m.

 

In his remarks to the crowd, Boucher called his congressional tenure "a labor of love" for the 9th District and said he enjoyed every day of it before concluding, "I'll see you along the trail one of these days."

 

Jeremiah Heaton, the independent candidate in the race, issued a statement criticizing Griffith's residency just outside the district: "The 9th Congressional District is the only Congressional District in America whose new Congressman will live in a hotel."

 

Griffith is not required by law to live within the district to represent it as its congressman. He has said he expects his house to be within the 9th after next year, when legislators must add about 67,000 people to the district.

 

Boucher -- the longest-tenured congressman to represent the 9th Congressional District since the Civil War -- had long been thought unbeatable.

 

No opponent had run a competitive race against him since the 1980s.

 

Boucher's 1982 opponent, 84-year-old Bill Wampler -- the last Republican to represent the 9th District before that dramatic upset -- appeared with Griffith and congratulated the new congressman with a license plate emblazoned with the number "9."

 

Many 9th District residents carried positive first- or second-hand stories about interactions with Boucher, and he was renowned for his ability to pull federal money for infrastructure projects, particularly the construction and expansion of waterlines and broadband Internet.

 

Griffith wouldn't say whether he would continue to support some of Boucher's popular agenda items, though Boucher had offered to advise the new congressman on the transition and help him represent Democratic voters.

 

This year Boucher entered the race looking strong, touting his vote against the federal health care reform bill and an early endorsement from the National Rifle Association.

 

But he was done in by a number of mixture of politically unpopular decisions and factors he couldn't control.

 

Boucher was an early supporter of Obama's 2008 run, which didn't play well in a district where Obama lost all but four localities. And during a year of voter anger at Washington, D.C., Boucher's 28-year incumbency was a liability.

 

He also played a key role in writing and voting in favor of the cap-and-trade energy legislation that Griffith argued would send electricity rates sky-high and kill the coal industry. Boucher maintained that he intervened at the request of coal industry leaders and that his work on the bill went a long way toward preserving coal's future.

 

Griffith, however, was able to use the issue to pry cracks into Boucher's reputation as a fighter for coal and create enough doubt to turn one of the incumbent's historic strengths into a weakness.

 

Those missteps may still not have defeated Boucher if it weren't for other factors. He raised nearly twice as much campaign money as Griffith, but an influx of spending by outside, third-party groups helped make up that difference.

 

The National Republican Congressional Committee invested more than $800,000 into the race on Griffith's behalf.

 

He was also aided by Americans for Job Security, American Action Network and other groups that spent heavily on television ads that attacked Boucher for his links to Obama and Pelosi and criticized him for the cap-and-trade bill.

 

"The level of attack ads was just breathtaking," Boucher said. "Nothing like that has happened in the history of the western part of Virginia. ... It's kind of hard to weather that."

 

With Tuesday's win, Griffith will become the first man from outside far Southwest Virginia to win the 9th District seat since James "Cyclone Jim" Marshall of Craig County held it for one term in the late 1800s.

 

Griffith's win also raises questions about who will fill his seat in the Virginia House of Delegates as well his job as House majority leader. He did not say whether he would step down immediately or wait until his congressional swearing-in.

 

His victory will force a special election to fill his seat in Richmond.

 

Griffith said he'd support his close friend and seat mate, Virginia Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott County, to succeed him as majority leader.

Edited November 3, 2010 by bhs7695

[Hacker 82]

If I'm not wrong, former Congressman Wampler served 20+ years in Congress as well, before losing to Boucher. Our district has been represented by two Congressmen in the last half century.

 

I'll be curious to see how long Griffith serves, or if he has higher aspirations.

[GMan 3,569]

If I'm not wrong, former Congressman Wampler served 20+ years in Congress as well, before losing to Boucher. Our district has been represented by two Congressmen in the last half century.

 

I'll be curious to see how long Griffith serves, or if he has higher aspirations.

 

I would wager on "higher aspirations"...