Rain Falls, Voters Trickle

In Loudoun, where there’s just one item on the ballot, voter turnout had been sparse up to noon. Of the precincts General Registrar Judy Brown had heard from between 10 a.m. and noon, some had as few as two voters, while the ReHau precinct in Leesburg, near the top of the list, had just 55 voters.

While primaries for congressional districts are taking place elsewhere, Loudoun is part of the 10th district, which has three candidates for the fall election—incumbent Frank Wolf (R), Democrat Kristin Cabral and Independent J. Kevin Chisholm—but no party primaries were needed. The only primary in Loudoun was for the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate to take on Democrat Tim Kaine in the fall. George Allen, Jamie Radtke, Bob Marshall and E.W. Jackson are facing off in the primary.

“It’s not real busy,” Brown said, half-joking that the weather helped keep her office’s turnout estimate on track. “We were kind of predicting turnout to be lower and the rain has helped.”

The Belmont Ridge precinct in Ashburn had reported 44 voters. Eagle Ridge reported 23 voters, while Dominion Trail and Greenway each had 17.

Around the region, Allen and wife Susan greeted voters Tuesday morning at Washington Mill Elementary School, a precinct near their home in Mount Vernon.

“Well, our goal obviously is to win and the bigger the turnout the better," he said. "I think most people recognize that the larger the turnout the stronger it’ll be for us. We have a lot of support through Virginia because people know me. We’re cautiously optimistic.”

Just before 10 a.m., Del. Bob Marshall, a candidate in the U.S. Senate race in Virginia, stepped out of his white Ford Crown Victoria and slowly strolled up the sidewalk of Signal Hill Elementary School in Manassas to cast his ballot at his home precinct in the Republican primary.

“I’m satisfied with what time I had [campaigning]; I can’t tell who’s voting. This is like flying blind with no instruments or anything,” Marshall said. “I had a lot of volunteers around Virginia, but clearly we didn’t have the money that (Republican U.S. Senate candidate) George Allen did, but this— at least the way it looks like it's turning out—is a campaign of intensity, not one of name ID. We’ll find out at 7 o'clock tonight how accurate that is.”

[Patch editors Jessie Biele and Jamie Rogers contributed to this story.]