Let’s Flip It Fair in Virginia!
How we’ll flip for fair maps, fair elections, and better democracy this November.
At 400 years old, the Virginia General Assembly is the oldest continuous legislative body in the Western Hemisphere. One might assume that, given this history, building upon this legacy by supporting representative democracy would be important to the General Assembly. But as the actions of the Virginia GOP — which controls the Assembly — have shown us, this hasn’t been the case for almost a decade.
Look no further than two federal courts ruling that Virginia’s House of Delegates and congressional maps were unconstitutionally gerrymandered along racial lines. Or research that found Virginia to be the second-worst state in the nation to vote in due to its strict voter ID law, non-existent early voting, and early registration deadlines. And there’s the fact that Democrats didn’t win a majority in the House of Delegates in 2017 despite winning a majority of statewide votes.
Election Day, November 5th, is our final chance to turn things around. This year, every seat in the Virginia General Assembly is up for election; it’s also the last election before redistricting begins in 2021. By flipping both the House of Delegates and state Senate, we can make it clear to the Virginia GOP that its era of undermining democracy is coming to an end.
It’s time to Flip it Fair in Virginia.
Flip it Fair
When Flippable first targeted Virginia in 2017, we focused on the House of Delegates. The Virginia GOP had a veto-proof supermajority in the chamber, and our plan was to shift the balance of power. Our community helped Flippable alums (now Delegates) Jennifer Carroll Foy, Elizabeth Guzman, David Reid, Danica Roem, and Kathy Tran, flip their seats. Those five victories, along with 10 other flips, broke the Virginia GOP’s supermajority and reduced its control of the chamber from 66–34 seats to 51–49.
This year, we want to flip the House — and we need to flip at least two seats to do it. We’re prioritizing GOP-held districts where electoral results in recent statewide and presidential races indicate that a significant number of voters are willing to elect a Democrat in a legislative race. To do this, we analyze the following:
- Votes in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections
- Votes in the 2013 and 2017 gubernatorial elections
- Margins of victory in those elections and recent state House races
But flipping alone won’t be enough to take the House — we also need to hold seats. And a number of Democrat-held districts are vulnerable this year.
Our first targets in Virginia represent two such districts. Delegate Dawn Adams and Delegate Wendy Gooditis flipped their seats by the closest margins in the 2017 election: 345 votes (0.8%) and 1,136 votes (3.9%), respectively. Their then-incumbent GOP opponents, had won both their 2013 and 2015 elections by double-digit margins. And although both districts voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, they voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. Keeping these districts in Democratic hands is crucial for flipping the House in November.
Our strategy in the Senate is more straightforward yet no less crucial: we need to flip at least two seats to gain control. (Presently, the GOP holds 21 seats to Democrats’ 19.) In at least two competitive GOP-held districts — which we’ve identified using the aforementioned approach — the incumbents have already announced their retirement. This eliminates the incumbent advantage, making the district even more competitive.
The Stakes
Flipping Virginia won’t be easy. The scandal that has embroiled party leadership will likely hinder Democratic state legislative candidates’ ability to raise money. As a result, it will be harder for these candidates — especially those running for office for the first time — to build out an operation that enables them to reach as many voters as possible.
It’s important that we support candidates who are running to bring much-needed change to Richmond, and we’ll be announcing additional candidates in the coming weeks. By investing in the right races in 2019, we can pave the way for fair elections in 2020 and fair redistricting in 2021.
The stakes are high, and the lines have been drawn. Let’s flip Virginia to the right side of history.
