Amazingly enough, control of Virginia’s House of Delegates is still up in the air as a pair of extremely tight races are headed for recounts. Here’s everything you need to know:

There are 100 seats in the House.


Republicans won 50 of them in the Nov. 2 elections, Democrats won 48, and two races remain uncalled.


Those uncalled races are for seats held by two Democratic delegates: Alex Askew (85th District in Virginia Beach) and Martha Mugler (91st District in Hampton Roads).


Republican candidates currently lead in both the uncalled races, but their margins are so razor-thin—127 votes and 94 votes, respectively—that Democrats have requested recounts.


These last two races will determine whether Republicans win an outright majority, or whether the chamber will be split 50-50, forcing Republicans into a power-sharing arrangement with Democrats.

There’s no sugarcoating it: The odds that Democrats can overcome the GOP margins in both these races are long. But when there’s any chance at all of stopping Republicans from seizing power, we need to take it. That means we need fight to make sure every vote is correctly and fairly counted. In fact, one error in the initial vote tally halved the Republican’s lead in Mugler’s race, prompting her to withdraw her concession.

The traditional media has been eagerly writing the Democrats’ obituaries ever since the elections earlier this month, but a turnaround here would undercut that narrative and snatch a share of victory from the jaws of defeat. That’s why we have to help. The campaign arm of the Virginia House Democrats is handling these recounts, and Mugler and Askew have asked their supporters to contribute to those efforts.

Please donate $3 now to help Virginia Democrats make sure every vote is counted in the battle for the state House!