Virginia Democrats win legislature — gaining unified control of the state government

On Tuesday night, for the first time in decades, voters elected a unified Democratic majority in the Virginia General Assembly — giving the Democratic Party unified control of the state government.

The Associated Press and Washington Post have called control of both chambers for Democrats.

Virginia was the only remaining state won by Hillary Clinton where Republicans had retained full control of the state legislature, largely through an aggressive gerrymander that was recently struck down by courts.

This marks the first time since Reconstruction that a clearly left-of-center party has won a state government trifecta in a former Confederate state.

The election was considered not only to be a test case for determining how competitive the state may be at the presidential level in 2020, but an opportunity for Democrats to advance major progressive legislation on everything from gun violence to labor rights to the long-sought ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.