Yes there was a big influence by the activists in the Loudoun County elections... in the Democratic Party. The Democrats foolishly (IMO) used a very closed process that limited voter participation by holding a caucus to select its nominees for the Board of Supervisors. The caucus was held from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (yes, that's one hour) in Leesburg (yes, only one polling location) last Tuesday, June 10. The filing deadline for candidates was noon that same day.
The only contested race for Board of Supervisors Democratic Party nominations was in the Potomac District; in the other districts, the party's "annointed" candidate was the only one who filed, so that candidate automatically received the nomination (surprise, surprise). However, Afeefa Syeed, director of the Al Faith Academy private muslim school in Herdon, VA, threw a monkey-wrench into the Potomac District race. She filed just prior to the noon deadline on Tuesday, then beat the "annointed" candidate, David E. Poisson, in the party canvas. The final vote count was 11 votes for Syeed and 4 votes for Poisson.
As Poisson was out of town that day he didn't call his friends to get out the vote for himself... so Syeed won.