ARLnow.com27%
Democrats outnumber Republicans 15 to 1 in early Falls Church ballots, so far 8%
By Scott McCaffrey21%
7/22/2026, 12:30:34 PM
Topics: Voting, Primary Elections
BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Negativity Bias, and Availability Heuristic, with Representativeness Heuristic as the most egregious example at 9.7% saturation with 59 hits. Analysis detected 520 faulty-reasoning hits from 611 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 24.2% and a BS Rank of 8% (20,263 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 92.60% of the article peer group.
Falls Church is staying true to its reputation as a Democratic bastion, based on voting trends leading into the Aug. 4 primary.
Of the 346 ballots cast as of July 20, a total of 324 — or 94% — have been in the Democratic primary for 8th District U.S.
House of Representatives.
The remaining 6% have been cast in the Republican primary for U.S.
Senate.
Figures were reported by city registrar David Bjerke at the July 20 Falls Church Electoral Board meeting.
Broken down by type of ballot cast through the meeting date:
* In-person voters cast 121 Democratic ballots, three Republican ballots
* Dropbox voting totaled 93 Democratic ballots, six Republican
* Mail-in ballots totaled 110 for Democrats, 13 for Republicans
Total turnout as of the meeting was 3% of the city’s registered voters, "kind of low," Bjerke said.
He anticipates a final voter turnout of between 14% and 17%, with Democratic ballots far outnumbering Republican ones.
Virginia is an open-voting state; any registered voter can cast a ballot in the Aug.
4 Democratic or Republican primary, but not both.
Early voting began June 18 and runs through Aug.
1.
State primaries are typically held in June.
This year, the General Assembly pushed them back to August to accommodate the potential of major changes in congressional districts.
While voters approved redistricting in an April primary, the Virginia Supreme Court invalidated the results, citing procedural errors by the Democratic General Assembly majority.
In the 8th District Democratic primary, incumbent Rep.
Don Beyer is being challenged by Adam Dunigan, Michael Duffin, Mo Seifeldein and Lorena Bruner.
The winner moves on to face Republican Tony Sabio on Nov.
3.
In the Republican U.S.
Senate primary, Kim Farington, Bert Mizusawa and David Williams are competing to take on Sen.
Mark Warner in the general election.
Both seats are viewed by most analysts as Democratic strongholds this election season.
In 2025 in Falls Church, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger won 84.3% of the vote compared to a statewide 57.6%, while in 2024, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won 79.5% in the city compared to 51.8% statewide.
**First day of Sunday voting a bust:** Falls Church election officials recorded exactly two voters casting ballots on the first of two Sunday voting days leading up to the Aug. 4 state primary.
One of those casting a ballot was an election official helping to supervise the office on July 19, city registrar David Bjerke said at the July 20 meeting of the Falls Church Electoral Board.
The General Assembly earlier this year mandated two days of five-hour Sunday voting for all elections, including primaries.
Falls Church and other localities will host another round of Sunday voting on July 26.
The registrar told Electoral Board members he appreciates providing voting options on Sundays, but thought mandating two of them for low-turnout primaries represented a "waste of resources" for small offices such as the one in Falls Church.
Electoral Board members are likely to share similar views when they meet soon with the city's state lawmakers, Sen.
Saddam Azlan Salim (D-37) and Del.
Marcus Simon (D-13), in preparation for the 2027 legislative session.
Turnout may have been negatively impacted by the final game of the World Cup being played on July 19.
The office did have the Spain-vs.-Argentina showdown playing on television for the benefit of staff and the solitary member of the public who cast a ballot.
Voting on Sunday, July 26 will run from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at Falls Church City Hall.
As with July 19, Bjerke expects turnout that day to be "very light."
Speakers
1speaker22%attributed speech474writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Selected voice
63%flagged-word coverageDavid Bjerke
137 attributed words100% of attributed speech45% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.