Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti scored victory unopposed in the Nov. 7 election, but also received a reminder that she was not the first choice of every voter.
More than 4,800 voters in Arlington and Falls Church – 8.8 percent of those voting – cast write-in ballots for commonwealth’s attorney, according to unofficial but largely complete election results posted by the Virginia Department of Elections.
Compare that to write-ins cast in the four other races for constitutional offices, where Democratic candidates also were unopposed: 2.6 percent for Clerk of the Circuit Court Paul Ferguson; 3.3 percent for Sheriff Jose Quiroz; 2.8 percent for Treasurer Carla de la Pava; and 2.7 percent for Kim Klingler, who was elected to succeed Ingrid Morroy as commissioner of revenue.
Because the write-in total against Dehghani-Tafti was less than 10 percent of the total vote, county election officials were not required to break out and then report the results.
Dehghani-Tafti in June won a contentious Democratic primary race against Josh Katcher, and in 2019 – fueled by huge amounts of outside money – defeated two-term Democratic Commonwealth’s Attorney Theo Stamos in the Democratic primary.
Dehghani-Tafti was one of a trio of left-leaning prosecutors elected to office in major Northern Virginia jurisdictions in 2019, in part owing to the infusions of outside cash. All three sought re-election in 2023.
The commonwealth’s attorney in Fairfax County, Steve Descano, survived a write-in challenge – which picked up 23 percent of the vote. In Loudoun County, Democrat Buta Biberaj, who had been abandoned even by some of the county’s Democratic leadership, lost to Republican Bob Anderson despite massively outspending him.
