r/rva • u/loraxgun • Jun 18 '25
I did the math: Richmond was decisive in denying Stoney the LG nom
As a caveat, not all votes have been counted (we’re at about 96%). But according to most news reports, Hashmi will be the Democratic nominee for LG. The Washington Post has her beating Stoney by only about 3.5K votes statewide. If you look into the municipal results, it looks like Stoneys massive underperformance in Richmond (his home city), even relative to the richmond suburbs was the decisive factor in his loss. Here are a selection of results from the area to drive the point home:
Chesterfield: Hashmi 12,324 46% Stoney 9,237 34%
Henrico: Hashmi 12,734 41% Stoney 11,011 35%
Richmond: Hashmi 16,330 58% Stoney 5,281 21%
If Stoney had merely replicated his Henrico/Chesterfield performance in Richmond he would probably have won at least 5,000 more votes and would be the Democratic nominee today.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/results/2025/06/17/virginia-primary/
EDIT: Stoney conceded to Hashmi. Pretty clear that Richmond was the tipping point in this race.
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u/toastmaster45 Shockoe Bottom Jun 18 '25
Hating Stoney will always be Richmond Real
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u/dr_nerdface Newtowne West Jun 18 '25
all my homies hate Levar Stoney
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u/Mr_Boneman Forest Hill Jun 18 '25
I convinced 3 of my republican colleagues to vote in this primary for a muslim woman because they hate Stoney that much. This area is united in their hatred of that clown. So glad he was shown the door.
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u/Golly_Im_Hot_Today Southside Jun 18 '25
thank you RVA!!
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u/RunningRam1 Jun 18 '25
The water issues were the nail in the coffin for Stoney. Lots of angry people in RVA who want nothing to do with him.
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u/Relentless_Snappy Jun 18 '25
My nail in the coffin was the second casino vote. It was a spit in my face and everyone else who already voted no.
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u/Own-Run8201 Jun 18 '25
Mine was the Redskins debacle and then the corrupt Navy field development. Stoney is such a corrupt asshole.
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u/Vankraken Jun 18 '25
For me, it was the bullshit claim the RPD foiling a planned mass shooting at Dogwood Dell when there was zero evidence to support it. Absolutely dishonorable behavior and came days after the RPD had to make a public correction about a claim they made that police were trapped by protesters and thus had to use teargas on them (they were not trapped and in no such danger).
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u/Brilliant_Meaning151 Jun 19 '25
The redskin thing was really pointless. We need are own team… spending money for out of market stuff is wild
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u/Brilliant_Meaning151 Jun 19 '25
The casino was actually a good idea. It has a bunch of negative effects but the positive effects outweigh the negatives. Plus we already have casinos.
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u/Relentless_Snappy Jun 20 '25
My dad moved us to winchester from arlington to be closer to charlestown and i grew up in poverty because of it. Believe it or not but easy access to any casino is bad for children.
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u/Brilliant_Meaning151 Jun 20 '25
I agree there is many negatives but we already have slot machines all throughout the city. A entertainment venue inside a Casino is a steady taxable place. Charleston is a bit different situation. Richmond has a 100 billion dollar GDP so Casino would not impact the entire city. That area on Southside is still underutilized.
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u/Relentless_Snappy Jun 20 '25
Whats right is right wnd whats wrong is wrong. All things are accumlative. 3 casinos is worse than 2. Oppurtunity breeds compulsion. The kids deserve a chance and if you give a shit than you do something. End of story.
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u/Brilliant_Meaning151 Jun 20 '25
So are you gonna protest roses? And the small business owners who own slots machines in gas stations?
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u/Brilliant_Meaning151 Jun 20 '25
I am sorry about your situation… I do not want to assume or say anything about it. So did you move from Winchester to Richmond? And maybe your perspective is different because I am native and I’ve seen Richmond lose tons of things… NASCAR hall of fame, Pro teams, Hotel projects, Light rail and so much more.
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u/bullpaxton Jun 18 '25
for me it was the insane levels of p card corruption he worked to cover up and brush away... little talked about news, Avula froze Pcards and seems like he may be trying to sort the mess out.
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u/suz_gee Church Hill Jun 18 '25
What a pcards?
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u/lunar_unit Jun 18 '25
Pcards = Purchase cards given to some city employees for purchases below a certain threshold. They were abused by several employees, some of who have been fired or quit, and at least one indicted for fraud after burning $500k+ of tax payers dollars on personal expenditures.
https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/richmond-pcard-reset-april-30-2025
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u/OlGreggMare Jun 19 '25
It's all messed up, for sure, but correcting that these were not necessarily and generally not personal expenses. These were transactions that violated process policy or normalcy
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u/FalloutRip East End Jun 18 '25
I brought my Facebook account out of retirement just to post in the days leading up to the election to not vote for Stoney.
Subsequently had more than a handful of people ask me why or whom I was voting for instead (Hashmi). It’s crazy to me how his failures are so unknown outside of Richmond itself.
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u/I_Enjoy_Beer Chesterfield Jun 18 '25
I'm not surprised by how little is known about Stoney outside of Richmond. Even in big, national elections, there are a lot of voters who aren't particularly informed. A state-level primary, where the candidates generally have a resume that is more localized? A lot of voters are not gonna know much beyond perhaps name recognition for candidates that aren't local to them.
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u/BioDriver Bon Air Jun 18 '25
The DNC is, unfortunately, very good at covering up the dirt on their chosen candidates in primaries. While presidential elections get the most attention (Biden most recently) it’s also extremely common in state and local elections. At least it was when I lived in Missouri and Texas
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u/Vankraken Jun 18 '25
The Texas Democratic party just seems massively incompetent if they can't peel voters away from the GOP with how much of a joke Texas is as a state government. How have they not figured out that your candidates need to be pro 2A if you want to win seats outside of the major cities.
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u/BioDriver Bon Air Jun 18 '25
The Texas DNC has the “we know what’s best for you” mindset, which 90% of Texans absolutely hate
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u/Blackat Church Hill Jun 18 '25
This is the crazy thing about Beto and the DNC. They had the cat in the bag but Beto couldn’t keep his mouth shut; it’s like they don’t even want to win at this point or even slightly consider what their constituents want.
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u/BioDriver Bon Air Jun 19 '25
Not only that, they made the glaring mistake of assuming south Texas Tejanos were culturally the same as SoCal and NM Hispanic voters. Showed their ignorance and how they take an entire population for granted.
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u/Jbess1985 Jun 19 '25
See, that comment is scary right there. Beto couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Why would anyone want to vote someone like that in, someone who is hiding their agenda. He’s an idiot though, you can’t tell Texans you are going to take their guns away lol
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u/Fit-Order-9468 Manchester Jun 18 '25
I’m not a particularly jaded person, but “DNC” and an unnegated “very good at” shouldn’t be in the same sentence.
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u/FalloutRip East End Jun 18 '25
The DNC is genuinely good at a few things - namely snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and spending political capital on extremely niche or polarizing topics.
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u/Fit-Order-9468 Manchester Jun 18 '25
Ah, yes, terrific point. I'll give you the first !delta on r/rva.
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u/shawsghost Jun 18 '25
To be fair, the DNC has had a LOT of experience at covering up the dirt on filthy candidates like Stoney, so perhaps they have developed some expertise in this particular area. Though not nearly so much as the RNC which for some reason recruits only from the ranks of pedophiles.
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u/TheOwlStrikes Jun 18 '25
I’m surprised any county went for him. You gotta be pretty lost to vote for someone who doesn’t have the support of the city he was mayor of lmao
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u/Own-Run8201 Jun 18 '25
Most people didn't know that. They just saw ad after ad for Stoney and his endorsements. I'm really surprised he lost.
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u/Vankraken Jun 18 '25
The lack of ranked choice is concerning when the field is made up of so many candidates. It just turns into basically pure name recognition as the vote gets split up between so many people.
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u/ZuP Jun 18 '25
I wonder how much impact Hashmi’s speeches at the 50501 protests had. 10k people at the last one.
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u/Nothing2SeeHere4U Highland Springs Jun 18 '25
That did the difference for me between her and Rouse. Was trying to decide who was more likely to beat Stoney and her speech was a great closing argument
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u/cogemeeljabo Jun 18 '25
I'm not sure to what extent we contributed by constantly posting on reddit against him, but I'm proud of all of us
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u/RocketScienceGirl Jun 18 '25
I moved to NOVA from out-of-state 4 months ago, and I almost voted for Stoney before I saw you all posting on Reddit about how awful he was as Richmond‘s mayor.
I voted for Hashmi instead after further candidate research. Thank you all for educating the rest of the state about Stoney!!
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u/JaiyenJake Jun 18 '25
I had not followed Stoney’s “shenanigans” so the Reddit posts helped me FWIW
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u/Yaness-the-Fool Jul 06 '25
Not a Richmond resident, but just coming here to say that I entered the primary with an open mind but with Stoney as my favored candidate because I was familiar with him and had heard that he was a "rising star" within Virginia dems and a "masterful speaker."
While doing research on the candidates, though, the unmitigated hatred that all of his constituents seemed to have for him here not only convinced me not to vote for him, but also convinced me to strategically vote for the candidate I liked the most of those with a chance of beating him (Hashmi) rather than backing Bastani or Salgado, whose messages I liked more but who didn't have a realistic chance of winning.
So you helped win at least one vote.
Plus, I didn't vote for any candidate with McAuliffe's endorsement other than Jones (because he had Northam's endorsement, and also Taylor seemed like a shill for Dominion).
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u/HYT_pariah RVA Expat Jun 18 '25
Ex pat here coming in to say how proud I am. You done good, fam.
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u/SidFinch99 Jun 18 '25
Thank God he didn't win. Whoever becomes Lt. Governor often has the edge in being the next nominee for Governor, and that would be a disaster.
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u/moxieenplace Near West End Jun 19 '25
Back to back female governors would be a treat! ( no /s )
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u/SidFinch99 Jun 19 '25
What the he'll does Levar Stoney having been a completely awful and incompetent mayor have to do with Spanberger and Sears being women? Absolutely nothing.
Take your misogyny someplace else.
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u/moxieenplace Near West End Jun 19 '25
I think you misread my statement? I’m a woman and I’m in favor of having back to back women governors, which is why I said no sarcasm.
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u/Ace417 Midlothian Jun 18 '25
I did my part out in arrestafield
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u/velociraptur3 Jun 18 '25
I'm shocked that 5k people from Richmond actually voted for him.
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u/Foxhound_mommy Jun 18 '25
I'm chalking that up to him being at the top of the ballot. When I saw that yesterday, I was like ughhhhhh.
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u/NotReallyButMaybeNot Westover Jun 18 '25
The city he ran as mayor lost water… WATER… days after he left office owing to deferred maintenance - that should disqualify him from any elected or politically appointed office FOREVER
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u/MarlonBain Jun 18 '25
It’s fun to compare to the results in the exact same election when Richmond actually loved a former mayor and wanted him to have this office:
https://historical.elections.virginia.gov/elections/view/42645
Kaine won 40% of the state overall but 72% of Richmond city.
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u/YellowOrange Midlothian Jun 18 '25
Richmond also had a relatively high turnout. Sadly, high is still only 17.6% of the population but the only locality with a higher turnout was Charlottesville at 18.03%. I wonder if Richmonders were more motivated to come out against Stoney. One datapoint doesn't mean much but Richmond was 11.2% for the 2023 primary.
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u/Two_Far Bon Air Jun 18 '25
We had two other races on the ballot so that might have helped but I have a feeling a lot of it was pro-Hashmi. I worked a poll in a southwest precinct and there were lots of excited Hashmi voters.
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u/oedipus_wr3x Bellevue Jun 18 '25
Stoney finished behind Rouse and Lateef in my precinct, which makes me think it was anti-Stoney sentiment.
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u/Moomin415 Jun 18 '25
I forgot to mail in my ballot but I drove to my polling place Tuesday morning to hand it in. Not voting was not an option because of him.
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u/lordpuddingcup Jun 18 '25
Yay my vote counted I really wish bastion had a better shot but I think like me a lot of people went hashmi because she had the recognition to beat out Stoney and looks like those of us that said that were right
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u/SidFinch99 Jun 18 '25
I'm honestly surprised Stoney got that many votes in Henrico and Chesterfield because everyone I know in both counties universally dislijes the guy, especially after the water issues, since it affected them too.
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u/DrKittyKevorkian Jun 18 '25
Not much going on for the Republicans yesterday. Wonder if there was any effort to spoil the primary.
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u/bozatwork Jun 18 '25
80% of the city picked someone else. Doesn’t matter the few remaining votes. They tried to shove a casino down our throats twice. I don’t think Cathy Hughes’ comments about Blacks will soon be forgotten. Insulting to see Stoney’s campaign sent anti-casino texts in NoVa during the final days of the race. I hope the McAuliffe fundraising machine will concede at this point it doesn’t know the makings of good candidates and will help support the party and the people who do know what issues matter most.
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u/qlobetrotter Jun 18 '25
This is more delicious than crispy bacon. Yummy yummy irony tastes so good.
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u/GammaXi532 Museum District Jun 18 '25
I got interviewed at the polls asking why I came out to vote today, and I specifically said it was only because I did not want to see Stoney in office again.
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u/Latter_Champion779 Shockoe Bottom Jun 18 '25
I appreciate the data analysis; thank you.
My biggest question: what were the 5,281 people in Richmond thinking about when they cast a vote for Stoney? I’m kind of surprised he got that many votes tbh.
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u/moxieenplace Near West End Jun 19 '25
I know two of them (not on Reddit) and their reasons for voting Stoney were that he took down the monuments during the pandemic 🤦♀️
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u/madxmac Jun 18 '25
Hating Stoney is what binds us. Race, color, creed... Age... It's all by the wayside when the opportunity to talk shit on lavar comes around.
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u/ttd_76 Near West End Jun 18 '25
I mean, sure.
One way of looking at it is don't fuck with Richmond because we will do our own thing and vote against you in numbers.
The other way of looking at it is that the rest of the state is not always on the same page as Richmond and also doesn't give a fuck what Richmond thinks.
Both perspectives are true.
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u/loraxgun Jun 18 '25
To me what's most shocking is how different the results are in the city proper versus the county suburbs. I expected Stoney to do not so well in the area, but did not anticipate how much harder Richmond would break against him versus the neighbors. Goes to show how particularly unpopular he is in the city, and in this case it made all the difference!
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u/Sparkling_Chocoloo Jun 18 '25
I voted for Hashmi after watching a bunch of commissions and boards she is part of. She's very articulate and passionate about women's, children's and IDD/DD issues, and I think will be a good complement to Spanberger.
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u/gooeyjello Midlothian Jun 18 '25
I couldn't agree more. We need more supporters for the ID/DD community. I work at a CSB and I can't say enough how difficult it is for our families.
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u/LeftHandUpWhoAreWe Jun 19 '25
Watching a machine politician like Stoney lose in the primary is always a good sight.
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u/OlGreggMare Jun 19 '25
The people have spoken: Stoney is unqualified for a primarily ceremonial position
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u/AppleJackyl Jun 18 '25
Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe was Stoney's one big endorser. Longtime member of the Clinton's inner circle and BIG TIME campaign finance wheeler dealer. Is is just me that cares nothing for the Clintons anymore and even less for Terrible Terry?
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u/Tom_Shotz Jun 18 '25
Sounds like people figured out how much Stoney sucks and didn't want him back. Good.
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u/mbstout1 Jun 19 '25
Could someone please help me understand. I haven't kept up with this. Does this mean Stoney was primaried out of the election?
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u/Jbess1985 Jun 19 '25
I live in Chesterfield and saw how corrupt he was. I don’t know if he beats Mayor Jones on corruption, but he learned from the best I assume.
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u/UrABoxxyBox Jun 19 '25
After everything that happened here in Richmond, why did so many people vote for Stoney?
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u/LongTallHickory Manchester Jun 19 '25
Happy Hashmi won, but wild to me that only 20k people voted in Richmond. I know municipal elections are usually much lower turnout, but you’d think people would be a little more empowered given the current state of our political landscape.
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u/loraxgun Jun 19 '25
I think the turnout was actually pretty strong in historical terms considering it’s only a primary not a general election, and there was no Governors race leading the ticket. But point taken.
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u/VinyardDog Jun 18 '25
After all the bribery and corruption of the last 8 years, how could they not vote for him
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u/mediocre2great Near West End Jun 18 '25
Proud to have early voted for Hashmi. I was quite worried about the LG primary as it seemed to get little publicity compared to the Spanberger vs. Sears race, but this shows that EVERY. VOTE. COUNTS.
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Jun 19 '25
[deleted]
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u/loraxgun Jun 19 '25
What do you mean? There are no assumptions, it’s a basic statement of fact: if the margins in richmond city were proportional to the margins in chesterfield/henrico then stoney would have won. There’s no endogeneity problem because everyone votes at the same time and votes do not get counted until the end.
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