Voters choosing who will fill southwest Virginia Senate seat

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Voters in southwest Virginia will cast ballots Tuesday in a special election to fill the seat of the late state Sen. Ben Chafin, who died in January after contracting COVID-19.
Competing for the 38th District seat are Republican Travis Hackworth, a businessman and member of the Tazewell County Board of Supervisors, and Democrat Laurie Buchwald, a nurse practitioner and former Radford city councilor.
Democrats currently have a 21 to 18 Senate majority, and Republicans are looking to hold on to the seat. The sprawling, reliably Republican 38th district stretches from the Virginia-Kentucky border east to Radford.
Chafin had represented the district since 2014. A Democrat, Phillip Puckett, held the seat for more than a decade before Chafin. But the district has voted overwhelmingly for Republican candidates in recent years.