No concession from Republican challengers in losses in two Virginia congressional districts

One race was close and the other a blowout, but the candidates who lost in Virginia’s 7th and 4th congressional districts did not concede on Wednesday after local electoral boards certified the re-election of Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, and Rep. Donald McEachin, D-4th.

Spanberger defeated Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, by 8,208 votes in Virginia’s tightest congressional contest, a nationally watched campaign that could have affected the balance of power in the House of Representatives.

McEachin drubbed Republican challenger Leon Benjamin by 91,403 votes, according to locally certified totals posted online by the Virginia Department of Elections.

On Monday, the state will certify the results in all of Virginia’s elections, including the 11 congressional races.

Freitas has been waiting quietly for the final votes to be certified since Spanberger declared victory on Nov. 4, after votes for the Democrat from early in-person voting and mailed absentee ballots overwhelmed the substantial lead the Republican had held on election night.

However, in the 4th District, Benjamin sent out an email on Wednesday morning alleging election fraud and soliciting donations to challenge the results in court.

“The Democrats stole my election — plain and simple!” he declared in the email, which also alleged a “leftist coup” against President Donald Trump after his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

In Virginia, Biden defeated Trump by almost 450,000 votes — a margin of more than 9 percentage points. The Associated Press declared the former vice president the victor in the national race on Saturday after Biden won Pennsylvania, but the president is challenging the election outcome there and in other battleground states crucial to the Electoral College vote necessary to win the presidency.

The Republican Party of Virginia sent an email on Tuesday that alleged “corruption and voter fraud” in the presidential election and solicited donations for an “election integrity fund.”

“This election is under attack by the corrupt Democrats,” Virginia Republican Party Chairman Rich Anderson said in the email. “We cannot stand idly by and let them get away with this!”

Benjamin, a fervent Trump supporter, did not respond to requests on Wednesday for evidence of election fraud or details about any legal challenge that he planned to file.

His email focuses on fundraising and urges supporters to donate money to pay legal bills to contest the election results. It does not say whether he has filed a lawsuit to do so.

McEachin’s campaign declined to respond to the allegations.

The email Benjamin sent Wednesday appeared to have been written the day after the election, claiming that he had been “dominating the vote last night.” Early in-person and mail-in absentee votes turned a narrow McEachin lead late on election night into a rout the next morning. Ballots cast early, either in person or by mail, were counted after those cast at traditional election precincts on Nov. 3.

“We went to bed ahead by a lot,” Benjamin claimed in the email. “Then, the Democrats pulled thousands of suspicious mail-in ballots out of nowhere!”

Benjamin had led early, based on Election Day voting, but McEachin pulled ahead by about 1,000 votes just before midnight. By the next day, the congressman had a lead of more than 80,000 votes, which grew over the next week by 11,000 votes as localities finished counting mailed absentee ballots cast before the polls closed at 7 p.m. on Election Day.

McEachin’s victory margin exceeded 23 percentage points, far beyond the 1% threshold required for a recount under Virginia law.

Susan Swecker, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, said in a statement Wednesday: “It’s time for Virginia Republicans to accept the reality that they lost this election fair and square. Refusing to concede and pushing false allegations of fraud or stolen elections undermines the bedrock of our democracy.”

Anderson, the state Republican Party chairman, acknowledged in an interview on Wednesday that the 91,000-vote difference between McEachin and Benjamin is “a substantial delta,” but said he knows nothing more about Benjamin’s allegations than those made in the blast email.

Anderson, a former Republican member of the House of Delegates from Prince William County, said he has spoken with Freitas, his former colleague in the legislature.

“He wants to wait until the last vote is counted and he has data on which to pursue his next decision,” the party chairman said.

“Nick is being quiet,” Anderson said. “Leon is being rather vocal. I think that’s probably a difference in personality.”