Thanks to the folks at Daily Kos for putting together this spreadsheet of Virginia House districts by their 2012 U.S. Senate and Presidential results. As you can see (click on image to “embiggen”), there are 16 incumbent Virginia House of Delegates Republicans sitting in “Obama districts,” and 18 in “Kaine districts.” The 18 “Kaine districts” are:
#2 (59.4% Kaine): Del. Mark Dudenhefer vs. Michael Futrell
#12 (54.2% Kaine): Del. Joseph Yost vs. James Harder
#13 (55.4% Kaine): Del. Bob Marshall vs. Atif M Qarni
#21 (53.5% Kaine): Del. Ron Villanueva vs. Susan Hippen
#23 (51.0% Kaine): Del. Bill Howell vs. UNCONTESTED
#31 (53.9% Kaine): Del. Scott Lingamfelter vs. Jeremy McPike
#32 (53.5% Kaine): Del. Tag Greason vs. Elizabeth Miller
#34 (52.8% Kaine): Del. Barbara Comstock vs. Kathleen Murphy
#42 (54.3% Kaine): Del. Dave Albo vs. Ed Deitsch
#50 (54.4% Kaine): Del. Jackson Miller vs. Richard Cabellos
#51 (52.2% Kaine): Del. Rich Anderson vs. Reed Heddleston
#67 (55.4% Kaine): Del. Jim LeMunyon vs. Hung Nguyen
#84 (50.6% Kaine): Glenn Davis vs. Brent N McKenzie
#85 (51.1% Kaine): Scott Taylor vs. Bill Dale
#86 (61.4% Kaine): Del. Tom Rust vs. Jennifer Boysko
#87 (56.9% Kaine): Del. David Ramadan vs. John Bell
#93 (58.3% Kaine): Del. Mike Watson vs. Monty Mason
#94 (53.5% Kaine): Del. David Yancey vs. Robert Farinholt
Given that Democrats currently have just 32 out of 100 House of Delegates seats, if we could win all of these “Kaine districts” back, we could get to a 50/50 split. No, I don’t think we can win them all back in one cycle, or even two cycles, but given the changing demographics of Virginia, it’s almost inevitable that we will win them eventually — the only question being “how long?” This November, let’s make sure we make a good start at it.
P.S. Of course, as I pointed out the other day, these candidates need to be adequately funded to have a serious chance of winning.
P.P.S. Also, check out Not Larry Sabato’s excellent series on Virginia’s House districts.
