2017 tie

The district's election in 2017 was unusually close. Shelly Simonds challenged Yancey for the second time. Unofficial election night results showed Yancey with a 12-vote lead.^[10] The race had statewide significance because if Yancey were to win, Republicans would hold a majority in the House of Delegates, but if Simonds were to win, the parties would each have 50 seats, which would have required a power-sharing agreement in the chamber. On November 20, the Virginia State Board of Elections certified Yancey as the winner by 10 votes. Simonds requested a recount.^[10] The recount gave Simonds the win by a single vote.^[11] Following this, a three-judge panel decided that a potential overvote ballot should be counted for Yancey, thus tying the race. The potential overvote ballot shows a vote for both Simonds and Yancey with Simonds' crossed out, but also shows the vote for the governor crossed out.^[12] The winner was set to be decided based on drawing a name out of a bowl on December 27.^[13] Appeals by Simonds' campaign postponed the drawing until January 4, 2018. At that time, David Yancey's name was drawn by lot and he was declared the winner.^[7] The loser of such a drawing maintains the right to ask for another recount.^[5][6] On January 10, 2018, Simonds declared that she would not seek a second recount and that she was conceding the race to Yancey.^[14]