Last time I wrote a story it was about canvassing in Western Henrico County, Virginia for Hala Ayala in the primary last spring, which she won. Shortly after the primary ended, I had my routine mammogram, put off by COVID. Unfortunately, this time the results did not come back routine. I ended up most of the summer getting surgery to remove my stage one breast cancer in July, and radiation in September. Long story short, I’m grateful that it was localized and I have good prognosis. This put my volunteering on hiatus for the summer and early fall. By September, I felt I could get back into volunteering.
At a September outside fundraiser for Hala Ayala, I got in touch with the staff helping the Blakely Lockhart for Delegate campaign in the 56th (my district), where we were trying for the third time to win this gerrymandered district against Republican John McGuire. Since I couldn’t jeopardize my radiation treatment, I asked if I could lit drop instead of knocking on doors. They immediately said yes, and shortly afterwards, got lit dropped off at my door and Minivan lists emailed to me. I immediately settled into the routine of getting
my radiation at 9:15am, going home, and putting on skin cream, gathering my lit and phone charger and dropped lit on 75-120 doors. The doctors said to get exercise and I got around 15,000 -18,000 steps a day! I found I could do a precinct in a week. I started writing “Vote Early Now!” at the top of the lit. See her early voting results below.
Week after week, I tackled one precinct after another in Henrico. I missed not having conversations, but had to finish my 3 week radiation first. Once I was done with treatment, I started knocking doors for Rodney Willett’s campaign that was a Republican target to flip on weekends, doing 6 turfs for him. I still lit dropped for Blakely’s campaign, as we needed to reach as many people as possible. The title picture shows one of the canvass launches that Hala Ayala came to speak at. I knocked until Monday evening before the election. Did not see any evidence of canvassing from John McGuire or his staff the entire time.
I did see some Youngkin door hangers and tried to pass them to the coordinated / Terry’s campaign. Check out his bulleted points for “Day One” — Restoring Photo ID laws and making it easy to vote (huh?) and hard to cheat. Apparently, his son wasn’t properly schooled and tried to vote as a 17 year old twice and in the wrong polling location. Yes, the next four years are going to be tough.
Final canvassing stats: 2,679 doors (also did some text messaging for Hala a few times)
At least this time the election wasn’t immediately called for John McGuire.
Results: 56th election results
In suburban Western Henrico County, Blakely did quite well. McGuire 50.32% to Lockhart 49.45. I think that’s why John McGuire got nervous and spent a lot of money in the last week or so of the campaign on a commercial, a first for the 56th district. Unfortunately, we are lumped in with entire Louisa (rural) county, part of Goochland (rural) county, and part of Spotsylvania (rural) county. She also surpassed John McGuire in early mail and in-person absentee voting (maybe me writing that on lit helped some?- at least where I canvassed).
I still can’t fathom why my Republican neighbors could vote for him since John McGuire at Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. Sedition Hunters found a photo of him near the Capitol Police line.
Blakely Lockhart summarized her campaign as follows: “
I have received the most votes out of any Democratic candidate to ever run in this district.
At this time, we have received 70% of the total absentee ballot, breaking records in the 56th.
Throughout this race, we were told time and time again that there was no chance that we could make the 56th district competitive. But I am proud to share that we have turned one of the reddest districts in our entire Commonwealth purple. We have shown the rest of Virginia that the 56th district is not to be overlooked any longer.
Together, we have knocked over 12,000 and raised over 100,000 dollars in actual cash. We have registered hundreds of new voters. We have shown our community that they matter to us and that they matter in our great Commonwealth. We have built insurmountable momentum and will not stop our fight.
We have proved that you cannot underestimate a grassroots movement founded on bold ideas.”
Until the midterms next year…..