The results are in:

VA-1: Wittman (R incumbent): 88% over Crabill (12%) --- 6.6% voter turnout
Crabill did have some Patriot support, but from what I could tell, was not very well versed on the issues and Wittman had only been in office a short time and had a decent voting record. In general, I think Patriots should be reasonably satisfied with this outcome.

VA-2: Rigell (R establishment candidate) wins with 39.6% over a host of other Patriot candidates --- 9.3% voter turnout
The main Patriot candidate was Ben Loyola, who received 26.6%; Rigell was the establishment candidate who had actually donated money to Obama. The third place finisher was Mizusawa with 17.4%.  Had Mizusawa dropped out of the race and supported Loyola, Loyola would have almost certainly won.  I believe this race is a loss for the Patriot movement and a win for the corrupt GOP establishment. 

VA-5: Hurt (R establishment candidate) wins with 48.4% over a host of Patriot candidates --- 8% voter turnout
This is a similar situation to VA-2, although it was a closer race between the Patriot and establishment. All of the tea party candidates would have had to drop out of the race and supported the front-runner McKelvey - but once again, the GOP establishment was the victor due to the disorganization of the Patriot movement.

VA-8: Murray 51.8% vs Berry 48.3% --- 3% turnout
As near as I can tell, most Patriot groups favored Murray over Berry, but would have been reasonably happy with either since they both would be far better than Moran, who is the Dem incumbent. This is a minor Patriot victory.

VA-11: Fimian 56% vs Herrity 44% --- 7.3% turnout
Similar to VA-8, most Patriots favored Fimian over Herrity, but would have been reasonably happy with either. There is a general impression that both candidates are more establishment candidates than true liberty-minded Patriots, but they are both far better than the incumbent Dem Connolly. 

Lessons:
The main lesson to be learned from these results is that the Patriot movement needs to become more organized to make sure that the establishment does not use the electoral process against us. Had we been able to concentrate our votes, we almost certainly would have ended up with a better candidate in VA-2 and might have gotten a better candidate in VA-5. We need to develop a plan to ensure that this does not happen again - at least not in this fashion. I propose that the Virginia Tea Party Federation consider developing a convention or caucus based nominating process to decide on the Tea Party candidate in advance of any primary where local Tea Party groups are concerned about a split vote. While we cannot force people out of a primary, we can spread the word that secondary Tea Party candidates are likely to be spoilers and should be avoided - in short, if the Republicans will not remove the corruption from the system, we have to establish a process to get around their tactics. While this approach may not have made a difference in VA-5, it certainly would have changed VA-2.

One also has to wonder why we were not able to recruit a true Patriot candidate to run in VA-11 where the establishment vote would have been split - and for that I take partial blame; it is a lesson learned in hindsight. I had originally perceived a third candidate as noise in a field that was going to clearly spend a ton of money (and which clearly became very negative on both sides). However, in hindsight, I think we should have run someone; I do not know that a Patriot candidate could have won given the money that was at play, but he would have had the advantage of being the only true Patriot and it would have been worth the shot. Nonetheless, VA-11 is at least a minor victory and we always knew that the real race would be in November.

Finally, it is worth noting that the winner in all of these races (except VA-1) won with less than 4% of the total voters in their district. If you have ever wondered why our system is broken, I think that has a lot to do with it. We really need to find a way to convince people that if they don't like the choices they see on the ballot in November, they need to go out and vote in June. I believe that one change in the process would have a huge effect on who we ultimately elect.

I encourage people to come to our meeting on June 18th to hear from some of the candidates and to help us decide how we might want to move forward to restore the Constitution by voting in the right people in November. We will also be discussion some state initiatives and what we can be doing on that front as well.