Democrats have been looking to Virginia all year to set the stage for what they hope will be big gains at the state level in 2018. But they may be disappointed…

Nationwide, Republicans hold 34 governor’s offices, a historically high majority, and have control of twice as many state legislative chambers as Democrats…

‘My gut tells me this is a margin-of-error race,’ says Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport.

Gillespie has run an aggressive campaign against Northam, who has yet to catch fire among many Democrats. Republicans in the commonwealth like to point out that their candidates often finish ahead of their polling results — including Gillespie himself, who wasn’t considered a factor in the 2014 U.S. Senate race but ended up finishing within a single percentage point of unseating Democrat Mark Warner.…

…Northam has adopted progressive positions on issues such as criminal justice reform and the minimum wage, but he has faced complaints from environmentalists, notably that he has failed to condemn two natural gas pipelines that have been proposed in the state.