Article snippet: CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Tonia Hugus, 69, threw up her arms under the purplish lights of an election night party at a brewery here. On first glance it was hard to know why. Leslie Cockburn, the Democratic House candidate Hugus supported, had lost by 6.5 percentage points. President Trump had shored up the Republican majority in the Senate. But there was a bright spot. “I’m so happy we got the House,” Hugus said. Hugus became more politically active after white nationalists unleashed open racism, grief, and fear in her city two summers ago. Since then, Charlottesville has become shorthand in American parlance for violence, for the nation’s racial divide, and for the president’s tendency to divide — rather than soothe — with his words. So, after a campaign season that concluded with more dark rhetoric from the president, the midterms held a particular resonance for some residents of a city who had watched an all-too-real incarnation of hatred and fear spill into its streets. Voting here surged over the last midterms, and residents watched as Trump’s fear-mongering closing message helped repulse enough voters around the country to deliver the House back to Democratic hands, even if their own anger was not enough to wrest the sprawling Fifth District from Republican control. “A midterm is not going to solve all of the racial tension and the problems that we have, the deep-seated issues in America,” said Lakisha Mozie, 35, a corporate administrator, the morning af... Link to the full article to read more