The Year in Review!

Good morning! To mark our first full year of Williamsburg Watch, we selected what we consider the 10 most important news stories of the year. Plus -- home sales drop in November.

Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash

Top local stories of 2025:

#1: Democrats spend multimillions to sweep the 69^th and 71^st House of Delegates seats.

Virginia and New Jersey were the only states with statewide elections this year, and our local Democratic candidates for the House of Delegates benefitted from the flood of money that poured in to win full control of the state legislature and the gubernatorial, lieutenant governor and attorney general seats.

Democrats Jessica Anderson and Mark Downey overturned the incumbent Republicans in the 71^st and 69^th house districts that represent the Historic Triangle.

They poured twice as much money into their campaigns as the Republicans – a total of $5.173 million, or $119 for every vote they won.

Incumbents Amanda Batten and Chad Green spent $2.45 million between them, or about $63.40 for every vote they captured.

Voter turnout in James City County rivaled the turnout in the last presidential election, a rarity in local races, according to numb…