On November 5, Democrats gained eight seats in the Virginia General Assembly, 2 in the 40-member Senate, and 6 in the 100-member House, flipping the General Assembly to Democrat control. The year of the 400th anniversary of the Virginia House of Burgesses, essentially the starting point of the Commonwealth, the most liberal government Virginia has ever seen had been elected, as the governor, Ralph Northam, is also a Democrat. While Democrats have had full control of Virginia before, it was southern-style moderate Democrats that had the most power.
These elections are our best look into the political climate headed into 2020, so let’s put them under a microscope.
So I’ll state the obvious first, this was a big win for Democrats. But it’s a big win many nonetheless saw coming. Virginia voted for Hillary Clinton by over 5 points, and it’s only gotten bluer since then. Not to mention that a court re-drew the once-gerrymandered district map to be more fair to Democrats. The way it is now, Virginia isn’t a state Trump has to win to get 270 electoral votes.
Hillary Clinton won 79 General Assembly Districts to Donald Trump’s 61. On November 5, Democrats won 76 seats total, to the Republican’s 64. 2 districts in each chamber (4 in total) voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and a Republican in 2019, so 5.1% of HRC districts voted Republican. 1 district in the Virginia House of Delegates voted for Trump in 2016 and a Democrat in 2019, so 1.6% of Trump districts voted Democrat. If these percentages are applied to the U.S. House, Republicans would be in control of the House, 232-203. Currently in the U.S. House, 13.6% of Trump districts are represented by Democrats, while only 1.4% of Hillary Clinton districts are represented by Republicans. If these percentages are applied to the Virginia General Assembly, Democrats would have a 25-15 majority in the Senate and a 61-39 majority in the House of Delegates, a far cry from the slimmer 21-19 and 55-45 majorities they got. These metrics show that Democrats didn’t have as big of a night as they perhaps should’ve had, and that they shouldn’t be too comfortable about their U.S. House majority.
Here’s the good news for Democrats: They didn’t lose any of their own seats in either chamber. The only flips were from Republican to Democrat, not the other way around. Republicans only really got close in one rural Southside seat because of a good candidate and lower turnout among African-Americans, which is a troubling trend for Democrats they’ll need to reverse to win in 2020. Of course, this is probably just because Democrats only had to defend seats in districts that voted for Hillary Clinton. Still, it reinforces the idea that Republicans will have a tough time knocking off Democrat incumbents in Hillary Clinton seats, and that most, if not all, of Republican’s congressional flips in 2020 will come from states/districts that voted for Trump in 2016.
There are two elections in Virginia in 2020 I consider competitive, both of them for the House of Representatives: The Lean Democrat District 2 in Hampton Roads, and the Toss-Up District 7 in Central Virginia. Both districts were won by Trump in 2016, but are held by Democrats. The General Assembly results only reinforce my rankings. 4 districts total flipped from Republican to Democrat in Hampton Roads, but only one did in Central Virginia. I think these results show that Hillary Clinton’s strength in the area was mostly due to her running mate, Tim Kaine, who’s popular there. With Kaine unlikely to be the running mate again, it will be hard for Democrats to improve in Central Virginia. The Incumbent Democrat there, Abigail Spanberger, will have to work hard to stand out from the party at-large to win crossover support. It seems like she knows this, as she made headlines for criticizing members of “The Squad”, a group of 4 super-progressive congresswomen of color. However, there’s a good chance the Democrat presidential candidate wins left-trending district 2.
You might be wondering why I think the Virginia General Assembly elections are our best look into 2020, and not the three Governor elections this year. This tweet I made after the Louisiana Governor election helps explain why. Remember that Democrats won governor elections in Kentucky and Louisiana, and came close in Mississippi, three very red states.
The Virginia elections also had relatively high turnout, and had candidates that were more in line with their party. They were also arguably as important as the governor elections.
Of course, there are limitations to a method like this. Most of the competitive districts in Virginia were in affluent and/or diverse suburbs. They say pretty much nothing about non-affluent working class communities in Michigan, or how Cuban-Americans in Florida will vote, for example. Political conditions could also rapidly change in the next year. The economy could go into recession, Democrats could nominate Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, or maybe a bombshell will come of the impeachment inquiry. It could be a totally different environment, rendering these results useless for this purpose. State legislative elections and federal elections can also be two very different ballgames. Maybe the Governor’s blackface scandal or the Lieutenant Governor’s sexual assualt scandal weighed down Democrats across the state. But I think there’s more good news to be had for Republicans, mainly because they held on in 4 suburban Hillary Clinton districts, and they only lost one Trump district. It shows the suburban swing towards Democrats may not be of as high a magnitude as Democrats hope, and the blue wave of 2018 may be receding.
I think I’ll end this article by looking at those 4 Clinton-Republican districts and the 1 Trump-Democrat district, which could be models of success. The 2 Republicans in Clinton districts in the House of Delegates are both female doctors who are moderate on healthcare. This makes sense, as the Republican vote in the House to pass the Freedom Caucus-approved “skinny repeal” of Obamacare in 2017 was one of the driving forces behind the 2018 wave. One of them, who represents the Hampton Roads area, was in the Navy. This helps a lot as there’s a large military presence in the region. Another Clinton-R district is represented by Kirk Cox, the Speaker of The Virginia House of Delegates. As speaker, he had a lot of money and surrogates at his disposal, and it was too much to overcome. In the last Clinton-R district, incumbent Republian Rob Bloxom was just well-connected in the district, and also a moderate on immigration. Looking at the Trump-Democrat district, winner Joshua Cole wasn’t really anything special. I think this result just speaks more to the changing atmosphere in North Virginia. Demographics are changing, and historically Republican voters there have increasingly been voting Democrat. Had the 2016 election be held today, this Trump+1 district probably would’ve backed Clinton.
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