Nine local incumbents retain seats; three amendments pass statewide vote
~ PVN staff report
LURAY, Nov. 3 — Among the 13 local offices on the ballot Tuesday and the 17 candidates vying for those seats, there will only be two new faces entering local government in January.
One of those new faces is Jon R. Griffith, who will be taking the oath for the District 2 seat on the Page County School Board. Griffith earned 1,007 votes — or 58.6 percent of the ballots in a three-way race. Codi E. Henry, who was appointed to the District 2 seat by the school board back in April, came in a distant second with only 375 votes (21.8 percent), while Karen M. Marcum received 319 votes (18.6 percent). There were 18 write-in votes.
Griffith has two children in the school system, has volunteered with youth sports for two decades, and has served as the Safety and Training Director for the Harrisonburg Electric Commission for the past 10 years. Griffith will serve out the remainder of the four-year term that Henry was appointed to, which runs through Dec. 31, 2027.
The other new face in local government is not really that new… Jason L. Campbell will be making a return to the Stanley Council in January. Campbell won a council seat in 2016 (term began in 2017), but he had to relinquish that seat in 2018 due to moving outside the Town limits. Joseph Mauck filled that vacancy by appointment and then was elected three times to keep his seat over the last decade. Campbell is a 1999 graduate of Page County High School, who works at Advance Auto Parts in Luray.
In a race featuring five candidates for three open council seats, Campbell won the last seat by a margin of only eight votes over incumbent Robyn C. Good, who did little to no campaigning to retain her seat. Campbell received 184 votes, compared to Good’s 176. The top two winners in the Stanley Council race were no surprise, as longtime former mayor and council member Douglas L. Purdham lead all five candidates with 342 votes. Vice Mayor Bruce W. Stoneberger came in second with 287. Donald E. “JR” Good Jr. earned only 148 votes. Voters were allowed to cast ballots for up to three candidates. There were 15 write-in votes. All three seats will be serving four-year terms running through Dec. 31, 2030.
The School Board also had two open seats that were uncontested.
With no candidate listed on the ballot in District 4, former chairman Jason Breeden was effectively unchallenged (as a write-in candidate) to retain the seat he was appointed to fill earlier this year. There were 113 write-in votes cast in District 4 for the school board seat. Breeden was appointed after former District 4 member, Duane Painter, won the chairman’s seat last November. Breeden’s election this fall is to fill the remainder of Painter’s term through Dec. 31, 2027.
Incumbent Britt Thomas was not unchallenged on the ballot to retain his District 5 seat. Thomas was appointed to the School Board earlier this year after technical issues with campaign finance reports filed by last November’s winner, Charlie Queen Jr. Thomas’ election this fall will fill the seat through the remaining three years of Queen’s original full four-year term extending through Dec. 31, 2029. Thomas received 1,320 votes, with 51 write-in ballots.
In Luray, all three incumbents for three open council seats were unchallenged. Former mayor and longtime councilman Jerry R. Dofflemyer earned the most votes with 1,091, followed by longtime councilman and vice mayor Ronald C. “Ron” Vickers with 912, and new appointee Ryan B. “Beaver” Dean with 890. Former Councilman Alex White submitted his resignation on Oct. 8, 2025 with a little over a year remaining in his four-year term, creating the vacancy that Dean filled by appointment last November. All three unchallenged candidates will serve four-year terms extending through Dec. 31, 2030. There were 69 write-in votes.
In Shenandoah, all four candidates for the town council were uncontested. Clinton O. Lucas Jr. continues his long run as mayor with another two-year term extending through Dec. 31, 2028. While Lucas earned 512 votes, there were 246 write-in ballots cast in the race — by far the most write-ins of any local race on the Nov. 3 ballot. New candidate Gary A. “Red” Taylor received the most votes with 566, followed by fellow newcomer Nathan T. Comer with 483, and longtime councilman Lynn E. Fox with 418. There were 72 write-in votes cast. Voters were allowed to cast ballots for up to three candidates. Vice Mayor Bill Kite is stepping away from council after a long tenure, and council member Denise Cave is stepping down after one term. All three new council terms run four years through Dec. 31, 2030.
Republican incumbent Ben Cline saw the closest race of his tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives, as he edged out Democratic challenger Beth Macy by 11 points for the 6th District seat. Cline received 175,789 votes statewide (55.5 percent), compared to 140,201 ballots for Macy (44.3 percent). There were 607 write-in votes statewide. The results were tipped in Cline’s favor by a much greater margin in Page County, with 71.2 percent of the vote (6,739 ballots) going for the GOP incumbent, while Macy drew just 28.6 percent of the local vote (2,711 ballots). Locally, there were 20 write-in votes. The two-year term runs through Dec. 31, 2028.
In Virginia’s House races, Democrats won eight of 11 seats. As of Wednesday morning, Democrats were showing a clear majority in the House of 231-139, with votes for 65 seats still being counted. Democrats picked up (or flipped) at least 27 seats. Some projections were showing a potential final count of 263-172 in favor Democrats, which would represent the biggest flip in the House since the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.
In the Senate race, incumbent Mark R. Warner easily picked up another six-year term in the U.S. Senate, winning 61.1 percent of the vote statewide (2,168,802 ballots). Republican challenger Bert Mizusawa earned only 38.7 percent of the vote (1,373,583 ballots). The vote was reversed in Page County, with Mizusawa recording 69.3 percent of the vote (6,537 ballots), compared to Warner’s 30.5 percent (2,882 votes). There were 9,401 write-in votes statewide, and 19 locally. The six-year term extends through Dec. 31, 2032.
As of Wednesday morning, the Democrats were showing a majority in the U.S. Senate of 54-44, having picked up seven seats.
Local and statewide results for the three proposed amendments to the Virginia constitution are as follows:
• QUESTION 1: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to (i) protect the freedom to make personal decisions about prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion, miscarriage management, and fertility care; (ii) protect doctors, nurses, and patients from being punished for these decisions; and (iii) allow for restrictions on access to abortion during the third trimester of pregnancy except when the patient’s health is at risk or the pregnancy cannot survive?
— PAGE COUNTY — 3,099 Yes (32.90 percent) to 6,314 No (67.1 percent)
— VIRGINIA — 2,181,695 Yes (62.4 percent) to 1,315,442 No (37.6 percent)
• QUESTION 2: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to (i) remove the ban on same-sex marriage; (ii) affirm that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender, or race; and (iii) require all legally valid marriages to be treated equally under the law?
— PAGE COUNTY — 2,846 Yes (30.2 percent) to 6,577 No (69.8 percent)
— VIRGINIA — 2,023,422 Yes (57.4 percent) to 1,503,140 No (42.6 percent)
• QUESTION 3: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended (i) to provide for the fundamental right to vote in the Commonwealth; (ii) to revise the qualifications of voters so that a person convicted of a felony is not entitled to vote during his period of incarceration but is automatically invested with the right to vote upon release from incarceration; and (iii) to update the existing prohibition on voting by persons found to be mentally incompetent to instead apply to persons who have been found to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting?
— PAGE COUNTY — 2,731 Yes (29 percent) to 6,676 No (71 percent)
— VIRGINIA — 1,988,440 Yes (56.5 percent) to 1,532,732 No (43.5 percent)
In this November’s general election, there were 9,506 ballots cast in Page County among its 18,298 registered voters — a voter turnout of 52 percent.
For Unofficial Election Results for Page County,
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