Virginia Democrats dodged a bullet Tuesday and narrowly held onto the chairmanship of Fairfax County, part of the sprawling, increasingly blue Washington suburbs (pop. 1,010,443) that have powered the party’s statewide comeback. It was a narrow win in a county that favored President Obama over Sen. John McCain by 21 points in the 2008 presidential election, but a loss would have been an embarrassment to new Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine. It was, nonetheless, a disappointment for Republicans now rapidly climbing aboard the Twitter train, who encouraged friends to vote for Republican Pat Herrity over Democrat Sharon Bulova.

“Just over 6 pages of Herrity tweets vs. 2 1/2 pages of Bulova tweets,” tweeted Republican web strategist Patrick Ruffini before the polls closed. “GOTV!” Through the night, people at the Herrity victory party tweeted their thoughts and analyses of the vote. Alas, the Democrats beat them anyway.