Election Day in Virginia is a week away, and it’s time to drop the hottest election take possible: predictions for Democratic gains in the House of Delegates.
All 100 districts in Virginia’s lower chamber are on the ballot, and while they have to contend with the statewide races for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general for oxygen (attention, money, etc.), they’re one of the main electoral events on Nov. 7. Democrats’ ability to make gains here will be a major test of the party’s broader electoral strength in the Trump era.
And Virginia Democrats certainly have plenty of room for gains in the state House. Currently, they hold only 34 seats to the GOP’s 66. In a state that has favored Democrats statewide in 2016 (Hillary Clinton by a 50-44 margin), 2014 (Sen. Mark Warner by 49-48), 2013 (Gov. Terry McAuliffe by 48-45, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam by 55-45, and Attorney General Mark Herring ... by 165 votes), and 2012 (Barack Obama by 51-48 and Sen. Tim Kaine by 53-48), the fact that Democrats hold barely one-third of state House seats seems … odd, to say the least.
The GOP’s expert gerrymander of the House of Delegates is the main cause of this disparity, but another factor has limited Democrats’ ability to make significant inroads against the Republican majority in recent elections: a dearth of candidates. In 2015, only 21 Democratic challengers took on incumbent Republican lawmakers in the House. This year, it’s a completely different story: Democrats are running in 54 of the GOP’s 66 seats. With only 12 unchallenged Republicans, Republican resources are spread thinner this cycle than they’ve ever been in modern Virginia political history. (On the flip side of the equation, only six Democratic lawmakers are facing Republican challengers, and of those, only three are considered “serious” in terms of dollars raised and the partisan voting propensities of the districts.)
Democrats need to flip 17 seats to win a majority in the Virginia House. That’s an almost inconceivable success rate for a single legislative chamber in a single night—without even beginning to take into consideration factors like gerrymandering. Coincidentally, Republicans currently occupy 17 House districts that Hillary Clinton won in last fall’s presidential election, but expecting Democrats to flip all of those seats is unrealistic for a couple of key reasons.
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