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Virginia State Senate and House of Delegates 2023 Ratings Update [1]

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Date: 2023-05-04

With the candidate filing deadline having recently passed and new campaign finance reports made available, I thought it would be a good time to summarize my Virginia State Senate and House of Delegates (HoD) ratings in a single post, as well as to provide any rating changes and give my overall assessment of the chambers. It should be noted that parties can nominate candidates after filing deadlines, so seats that are uncontested now may still get Democratic or Republican challengers. I have also noted any retirements that have occurred since I first wrote about these districts a few months ago.

At the top of the post, I have included a chart with my ratings for all the competitive seats. As per usual, I have excluded non-competitive seats (“Safe Republican” or “Safe Democrat”) unless they are projected to flip. It probably isn’t necessary to note, but Dem-held seats are in blue and GOP-held seats are in red. In the chart above, the State Senate is on the left and the House of Delegates is on the right (with Democrat abbreviated as “D” and Republican abbreviated as “R” in the rating headers).

State Senate changes:

SD 4: Lean Republican → Likely Republican

SD 20: Lean Republican → Likely Republican

SD 31: Toss Up → Lean Democrat

House of Delegates changes:

HD 21: Lean Democrat → Toss Up

HD 49: Likely Republican → Safe Republican

HD 55: Likely Democrat → Safe Democrat

HD 69: Lean Republican → Likely Republican

HD 96: Likely Democrat → Safe Democrat

Starting with the State Senate first, there are three rating changes, two of which favor the Republicans (SD 4 and SD 20), and one that favors Democrats (SD 31).

Both SD 4 and SD 20 have been moved from Lean Republican to Likely Republican. These narrow Trump 2020 seats had the potential to be incumbent vs incumbent races, as both Democratic and Republican incumbents had been drawn into these districts. However, in both cases, the Democratic incumbents (John Edwards in SD 4, and Lynwood Lewis in SD 20) had opted not to run for reelection. The GOP should have an even easier time holding these districts now, given that they have the sole advantage of incumbency. I should note that I also have reclassified SD 4 as a GOP-held district, as opposed to Dem-held (it no longer makes sense to consider this Dem held without Edwards running). In exchange, to keep the number of Dem-held and Republican-held seats constant, I am also reclassifying the open SD 17 (which is still a Toss Up) as Dem-held.

SD 31 on the other hand has been moved from Toss Up to Lean Democrat. This rating changed because Jill Vogel, the Republican incumbent, isn’t running for reelection. Many prognosticators have kept this seat as a Toss Up, even with Vogel’s retirement, likely due to Republican candidate Juan Pablo Segura’s large cash advantage. However, I have a hard time seeing the Dems not being at least slightly favored, given that the district supported Biden by a decent 13-point margin. For comparison, in the 2021 elections, the Republicans only won one seat in the House of Delegates that supported Biden by this high of a margin (and 2023 will almost certainly be a better year for Dems than 2021).

In the House of Delegates, there are five rating changes, three of which favor Republicans (HD 21, HD 49, and HD 69), and two of which favor Democrats (HD 55 and HD 96).

HD 21 was extremely close in the 2021 Governor’s race, with Dem Terry McAuliffe losing the district by a little more than 3 points. However, I originally classified the seat as Lean Democrat due to Biden’s very large margin of victory (over 26 points) and that the Dems should be able rebound with a stronger national environment (than 2021). However, upon further reflection, it seems that Biden’s performance might be more of an anomaly than the 2021 results. Specifically, in the 2022 midterms, Dems only narrowly carried the seat at the congressional level by 2 points, which is far closer to McAuliffe’s performance in the district than it is to Biden’s. If this seat had a Dem incumbent running, I probably wouldn’t have changed the rating, but with no incumbent I feel that Toss Up is a more appropriate rating.

HD 49 has been moved from Likely Republican to Safe Republican and thus is not included on my chart. It doesn’t appear that Dems are seriously contesting the seat (which I originally argued was necessary to make the seat competitive), as the Dems just recently nominated a candidate, after the filing deadline passed. Apart from the fairly close presidential results, the district doesn’t seem to be at all competitive. In particular, Dems lost the district at the congressional level in 2022, by nearly 20 points, on par with McAuliffe’s terrible performance in 2021.

The shift of HD 69 to Likely Republican (from Lean Republican) is because Dem incumbent Mike Mullin isn’t running for reelection. With no Dem incumbent, the Republicans should be even more favored to hold the seat.

Both HD 55 and HD 96 have been moved from Likely Democrat to Safe Democrat. I had originally classified HD 55 as Likely (as opposed to Safe) due to the GOP having the incumbency advantage, with Republican incumbent Rob Bell being drawn into the district. However, with Bell not running for reelection, the Democrats should be guaranteed to pick up the seat, given that the fundamentals are completely safe for them.

My original decision to classify HD 96 as Likely Democrat was arguably a stretch to begin with. One of the reasons I classified it as Likely (as opposed to Safe) was the lack of a Democratic incumbent. However, this is no longer the case, as HoD Dem incumbent Kelly Fowler is now running for the seat (though she will have to get through the four-way Dem primary). In addition, there still aren’t any Republican challengers for the seat, making it difficult to imagine a competitive race.

It should also be noted that two of the districts included on the chart, HD 52 and HD 100, still don’t have any Democratic candidates. If these seats remain uncontested, they will obviously be moved to Safe Republican. Also, both of these districts were thought to have two incumbent Republicans running against each other (as mentioned in my original article). This is no longer the case, as only one of the Republicans in each of these districts is running. Specifically, Wendell Walker is now the only Republican in HD 52, while Robert Bloxom Jr, is now the only Republican in HD 100.

HDs 31 and 73 are also open as neither of the respective incumbents, Democrat Wendy Gooditis and Republican Roxann Robinson, are running for reelection.

Finally, my overall ratings are Lean Democrat for the State Senate and Toss Up for the House of Delegates.

As I stated in my original post, the current balance in the State Senate is 22D – 18R, meaning the Democrats can afford to have a net loss of at most one seat in order to retain control of the chamber. Currently, the Dems are favored to flip two GOP-held seats (SD 16 and SD 31), so even if the Republicans were to flip all three of the toss ups and hold onto all the seats they are favored in, this wouldn’t be enough for them to flip the chamber (assuming Dems also hold all the seats they are favored in), as it would be a net gain of just one seat. In other words, the GOP needs to win at least one Dem-leaning seat to win control of the chamber.

In the House of Delegates, the balance of the chamber is 52R – 48D, so the Dems need a net gain of at least three seats for control of the chamber, with a net gain of exactly two seats resulting in a tied chamber (power sharing agreement). Currently, there are five toss-up seats, four of which are GOP-held, and one of which is Dem held, so the Dems need to win at least four of these (toss-up) seats for an outright majority in the chamber, assuming that both parties win all the seats they are favored in (with Democrats and Republicans each favored to flip two seats). One advantage for the Dems is that they are far less exposed than the Republicans, with only three (Dem-held) seats classified as “Lean” or “Likely” Democrat, while fourteen (GOP-held) seats are classified as “Lean” or “Likely” Republican.

Thanks to cnanalysis (for the 2020 pres results of the new districts), and VPAP (for the 2022 congressional and remaining statewide results of the new districts).

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/4/2167445/-Virginia-State-Senate-and-House-of-Delegates-2023-Ratings-Update

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