VPAP Visual Illustrates Potential GOP Gains

The latest visualization from Virginia Public Access Project shows Republicans have a good chance at picking up several seats in the House of Delegates next year.

The visual is called “VPAP Index” and it charts how each district leans Republican or Democrat in comparison to the entire commonwealth. They conclude that four Democrats and two Republicans are in seats that are against their partisan index. That means Republicans, should they hold everywhere else, could gain two seats to their current one seat majority.

The four Democrats are Delegates Wendy Gooditis (10th), Chris Hurst (12), Cheryl Turpin (85), and Schuyler VanValkenburg (72). The Republicans are Delegates Tim Hugo (40) and David Yancey (94). Delegate Hugo won re-election last time by about 100 votes and Delegate Yancey won re-election by drawing lots as his race ended in a tie. Democrats expect to run the same opponent as last time against Yancey and, lucky for Republicans, Hugo has drawn one of the weakest opponents possible, more on that here.

But the methodology used to determine this updated index only looked at the last two statewide elections, which were 2016 president and 2017 governor races. Those races were, of course, heavily influenced by political factors at the federal level plus Republicans ran a horrible candidate for governor in 2017. The full explanation of VPAP’s methodology is linked here.

2019 elections are a little more than a year away. A new General Assembly session will start in January, a court ordered redistricting plan needs to be hammered out before the 2019 elections, and countless other factors will play out with serious impacts on next year’s elections. It’s still anyone’s ballgame.

.

Share on social media