'Almost irrelevant': Virginia Republicans take stock of electoral losses

Tuesday’s elections left the National Rifle Association sitting in a sea of blue.

The gun rights group’s headquarters in Fairfax County, once the place where Republican victories were built in Virginia, is now deep in Democratic territory, signaling just how far this week’s wave election crested.

The last Republican state delegate from Fairfax County lost his seat, and Republicans ceded control to Democrats of the boards of supervisors in neighboring Loudoun and Prince William counties, both of which were Republican strongholds just a decade ago.

Statewide, Democrats claimed control of both chambers of the General Assembly for the first time since the mid-1990s, and with control of the governorship they are poised to unleash an era of liberal lawmaking.