VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Voters in House District 21 decided between Democratic incumbent Kelly Convirs-Fowler and Republican challenger Tanya Gould in Tuesday’s election — however, the official results were still slow to come in.
The candidates vyed to represent portions of Chesapeake and Virginia Beach in the Virginia House of Delegates.
As of 4:55 p.m. on Wednesday, Convirs-Fowler led by less than a 1% margin with 50.33% of the vote.
Tuesday night, Convirs-Fowler said the results are in and she’d won her third term outside the margin of a recount. According to the Department of Elections, two precincts had yet to be reported as of Wednesday night.
“The adventure is not over. Numbers have changed this morning. It appears we have fallen under the 1% threshold and may be able to request a recount. We are working on next steps,” Gould’s campaign manager on Wednesday morning.
Convirs-Fowler was a political novice when she was first elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in November 2017. During her tenure, she said she was a key vote in Virginia’s Medicaid expansion, led the effort to decriminalize marijuana, and voted to raise teacher pay and provide small businesses with tax breaks, according to her WAVY-TV 10 Candidate Profile.
Convirs-Fowler believes the most important issue facing District 21 is access to affordable healthcare, an issue she has tackled as a delegate through Medicaid expansion and capping co-pays on insulin and inhalers. If elected, she said she planned to focus on adequate funding for stormwater projects and public schools.
Gould is a human trafficking survivor and advocate who worked with the White House to craft national policies as a member of the U.S. Human Trafficking Advisory Council. She founded a nonprofit called Identifiable Me in 2012 and works to help sexual violence survivors work toward self-discovery, according to her WAVY-TV 10 Candidate Profile.
Gould said she believes District 21 is facing three top issues: Education, job creation, and frustration over divisive politics. If elected, she said she would work to lower taxes to help local businesses and support legislation that will cut regulations and end taxation on PPP and Rebuild VA loans.