I woke up at 5:15 today, drove to my sister's dorm at William & Mary, picked her up, we had breakfast, were at the polls before 7, where we both voted for Webb, O'Donnell for VA-01, which is a longshot but not an impossibility under a "tsunami" scenario, and "NO" on the hate amendment. Then she stayed at the polling place to help with the "vote NO" campaign for the hate amendment, while I left to go back to Newport News.
Here in NN, Webb's official campaign doesn't have much of a presence, but we do have a dedicated local Democratic Party infrastructure, and from 8 am onwards I was waiting for a call from them to send me off on GOTV missions. I had also placed a call/message to the Hampton Roads Webb campaign headquarters in VA beach to indicate my availability for door knocking and GOTV.
Later in the morning, Charlie (chair of the local Dem committee) sent me to an asst. living facility with another fine Democratic volunteer, where we were supposed to drive anywhere from 2-10 voters to their polling places. As it turned out, we only turned out 2 voters there, however, one of them would not have voted without our efforts, because she had recently moved from just a few blocks down the street, and she thought that because she hadn't registered to vote at her new address, that she couldn't vote at her old polling place, which is of course not true. So we got her to her old polling place and she voted, and I took another lady to her new polling place, and she voted. So far, each of us had delivered two votes for Webb.
Then, as we returned these voters to their homes, I got a call from Webb campaign HQ in VA Beach, replying to my phone message with leads on two more Dem voters who needed rides to the polls. So I and my new volunteer friend each took one of those, and we each turned out another solid D vote.
Now, Newport News is on the James-York peninsula, and it is a city that is about 1-2 miles wide, but 25 miles long. So unfortunately, my second voter lived on the far opposite end of town, and it took a good hour and a half to get downtown, find her, drive her to the polls, wait for her to vote, and drive her back. And at that point I had to attend a meeting at work from 4-6 pm, so my volunteering efforts were over at that point, unless I get a call between now and 7 pm.
But all in all, given that between myself and one other volunteer we delivered a total of 6 solid D votes (including our own), in an area in which the Webb campaign has no formal presence, I feel good about the level of effort I was able to give. Now I'm still in the office, gonna leave and grab a 12-pack on the way home to watch the results come in.
The VA situation looks good to me:)!!!