Election Live: Misusawa wins Republican Senate race; Volosin out in Roanoke council contest; no surprises elsewhere 8%
By Dwayne Yancey27%
8/4/2026, 1:01:00 AM
Keywords: Election, Primary, Virginia, Senate Race, Roanoke City Council, Bert Misusawa, Peter Volosin, Joy Powers
BS Summary: This article contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Overconfidence Bias, and Hasty Generalization, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 13.6% saturation with 239 hits. Analysis detected 1,520 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,760 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 18.6% and a BS Rank of 8% (25,465 of 27,618 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 92.20% of the article peer group.
A voting sign in Lynchburg.
Photo by Matt Busse.
Welcome to our running updates on the primary results.
This is where we’ll be posting updates during the day and then analyzing the returns after the polls close.
Reminder: Polls open at 6 a.m., close at 7 p.m.
Once the polls close, we’ll have live results from the Associated Press.
If you have photos from any of the polling locations today, you can share them at dwayne@cardinalnews.or g.
Please let me know who you are and where the photo was taken.
If you’re looking for information on who’s on the ballot and where the candidates stand, see our Voter Guide.
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8:00 p.m.: Powers now tops 50% in 9th District Democratic race
Sorry we don’t have much to analyze tonight, folks.
The only real drama of the night is in the Roanoke City Council race, where incumbent Peter Volosin is on his way to losing.
Joy Powers hasn’t officially won the 9th District Democratic primary yet, but she’s over 50% now so seems destined to prevail.
In Harrisonburg, incumbents Dany Fleming and Monica Robertson have won, but still no results out of Montgomery County.
I’ll stick around awhile here but I’m going to transition to writing a column on these results.
7:51 p.m.: No surprises in congressional races
This may be the earliest election I’ve ever covered.
All the expected front-runners (Democrat Shannon Taylor in the 1st, Democrat Elaine Luria in the 2nd, Democrat Tom Perriello in the 5th, Republican John McGuire in the 5th and Democrat Don Beyer in the 8th) are winning handily.
The only congressional race still out is the 9th District Democratic contest, where Joy Powers leads and seems likely to win but hasn’t done so yet.
We have no results yet from the Democratic primaries for Montgomery County sheriff or Harrisonburg City Council.
7:39 p.m.: Roanoke council race appears over; Volosin out
We have 9 of 20 precincts in but they’re showing a clear trend: Raekwon Moore, Vivian Sanchez-Jones and Danny Clawson.
Incumbent Peter Volosin is running last in almost every precinct that’s reporting, and they’re from various parts of the city.
Hard to see how he makes up for that.
7:31 p.m.: Bad news for Brookins and Volosin in Roanoke
More numbers are number in from Roanoke.
We have two precincts reporting, besides the early voting.
One of those is Lincoln Terrace, in one of the city’s Black neighborhoods.
Harvey Brookins, one of two Black candidates in the race, finished fourth out of five candidates.
It’s hard to see how a Black candidate wins in Roanoke without scoring well in Black neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, incumbent Peter Volosin is last in both Lincoln Terrace and South Roanoke, as well as the early in-person voting; he took third in the early mail voting.
7:29 p.m.: Misusawa wins
Well, that didn’t take long.
The Associated Press has already projected Bert Misusawa as the winner of the Republican Senate race.
7:24 p.m.: Early leaders in Roanoke: Moore, Sanchez-Jones, Clawson
That’s the early order from the Department of Elections (Raekwon Moore, Vivian Sanchez-Jones and Danny Clawson), although the site doesn’t say where the votes are from in the city.
My guess is those are early votes that have been counted but not yet attributed to their home precincts.
In any case, if that’s the final order (and it may not be), that would squeeze out incumbent Peter Volosin.
Roanoke Democrats are nominating three council candidates; they have five to choose from.
7:16 p.m.: Misusawa takes early lead in Republican Senate race
OK, here they come!
Bert Misusawa has jumped to an early lead in the three-way Republican Senate race.
This is based almost entirely on localities that have counted their early votes.
7:00 p.m.
The polls have closed
And now we wait.
If you’re looking for election returns, we have live results from the Associated Press.
Of note: AP isn’t moving results from any local primaries except for Arlington.
Those you’ll need to get from the Department of Elections.
As soon as we have numbers to talk about, I’ll talk about them.
Until then, I’m going to watch the mama racoon and three babies on the back deck.
Tom Petty was right: The waiting is the hardest part.
5:30 p.m.: Turnout remains low in most places
Only one candidate sign (for Kim Farington) was at the voting precinct at the Fincastle Baptist Church in Botetourt County.
Photo by Dwayne Yancey.
Here’s how low turnout is today: Some places that normally report turnout figures aren’t doing so.
Prince William County reports at at 5 p.m. just 2.3% of the county’s registered voters have cast ballots (and this includes the early voting).
Prince William has only a Republican Senate primary on the ballot; no Democratic primaries.
We see more action in Arlington County.
Its election office reports: “5pm turnout estimates show 5.832576694% of Arlington has voted today.
This is in addition to 0.4% who voted early or by mail in the Republican Primary and 5.7% in the Democratic Primary.”
Arlington has both the Republican Senate primary, as well as hotly-contested Democratic primaries for the 8th House District seat (where incumbent Don Beyer faces four challengers) and the county board.
Still, the overall theme of the day is turnout is low.
That means your vote counts more proportionately speaking.
Just sayin’ . . .
2:22 p.m.
Turnout is low; Prince William County reports just 1.6% voting
A lone voter walks into the voting precinct at the Fincastle Baptist Church.
Photo by Dwayne Yancey
This is hardly shocking but voter turnout today is quite low.
I just made an inspection tour of some precincts in Botetourt County (where the only thing on the ballot is the Republican Senate nomination).
Granted, early afternoon is not prime voting time, but at some precincts I saw no activity at all.
In Fincastle, I did see a few voters.
Also of note: The only signs out are for Kim Farington, one of the three Senate candidates.
By “signs,” I mean one sign at each voting place, so the plural applies to multiple precincts.
More officially, Prince William County (which also has just the Republican Senate primary today) reports that just 1.6% have voted by 1 p.m.
This takes into account the early voters, too, by the way.
As of 1 PM, roughly 2,300 voters have voted in the Republican Primary today.
Another 3,200+ have voted early or by mail.
That's a combined 1.6% turnout so far.
Polling places are open until 7 PM.
There is no Democratic Primary in PWC today.
- Prince William County Office of Elections (@PWCVotes) August 4, 2026
1:13 p.m.: Are we seeing a lot of late deciders?
Our Voter Guide is getting slammed with traffic today, which suggests to me we’re seeing a lot of late deciders.
The most searched-for candidates are the three Republican contenders for the U.S.
Senate, followed by the Democratic candidates for the 9th District nomination.
We’re also seeing a burst of interest in the Democratic candidates for the 1st District nomination.
11:20 a.m.: A cool graphic
Social media is pretty quiet this morning, aside from calls to vote.
However, we do have this cool graphic from Del.
Nadarius Clark, D-Suffolk, so there’s that.
Courtesy of Del.
Nadarius Clark.
9:44 a.m.: The scene at the polls in Christiansburg
Signs for primary 2026 in Christiansburg.
Photo by Laura Kebede-Twumasi
By all accounts, turnout across Virginia this morning is light; not surprising given the nature of these primaries and how many votes have shifted to early voting.
We do have our first photo from the polls.
This one is from Christiansburg where, in additionao the statewide Republican primary for U.S.
Senate, there are Democratic primaries to pick a 9th District House nominee and a sheriff’s candidate.
Do you have photos or some report from your polling place?
You can share at dwayne@cardinalnews.org .
6 a.m.: Polls are now open
And the voting begins.
4 a.m.: What we know so far
The three Republican Senate candidates: Kim Farington, Bert Misusawa and David Williams.
Republicans are holding a statewide primary to pick a candidate to face Sen.
Mark Warner, D-Va.
Republicans also have three House primaries, in the 5th, 7th and 10th districts.
Through Saturday, there were 67,457 early votes cast in Republican primaries.
The heaviest-voting district was the 5th, where there’s both the Senate primary and a House primary where incumbent John McGuire faces a challenge by Melanie Lucero.
Of those 67,457 early votes, 13,063 were cast in the 5th District, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, which has compiled early voting data from the Department of Elections.
The second heaviest-voting district was the 1st, which has no House primary: 8,945 early votes.
The 7th District primary has drawn 6,376 early votes; the 10th District primary 5,836.
Democrats have no statewide primary but are holding House primaries in five districts: the 1st, the 2nd, the 5th, the 8th and 9th.
There also are Democratic primaries for local offices in Arlington County (county board), Chesterfield County (Dale District supervisor), Harrisonburg (city council), Montgomery County (sheriff) and Roanoke (city council).
Through Saturday, there have been 97,147 early votes cast in Democratic primaries.
The heaviest-voting congressional district is the 8th District, where incumbent Don Beyer faces four challengers: 25,984 early votes have been cast there.
In second place, the 1st District, where seven candidates are seeking the right to run against Republican incumbent Rob Wittman: 21,262.
The 5th District primary has produced 17,982 early votes, the 2nd District 17,873, the 9th District 9,211.
What does it mean that Democrats have cast more votes in scattered primaries than Republicans have in a statewide one?
Maybe nothing; we know Democrats have embraced early voting more than Republicans have.
On the other hand, it could be an early warning signal about a sluggish Republican base this year.
We won’t know for sure until November.
That’s a long time to wait, I know, so in Monday’s column, I wrote about five questions I’ll be looking for the primary results to answer.
If you need a refresher on what Virginia’s congressional districts look like, here you go:
Virginia’s current congressional districts, approved in late 2021.
Courtesy of Twotwofourtysix.
Speakers
4speakers4.7%attributed speech1,677writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageVirginia Public Access Project
30 attributed words36% of attributed speech40% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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