A Tale of Two Districts

Virginia’s two northern-most Congressional Districts have open-seat elections this year. Democrat Jim Moran will retire from the 8^th District (centered on Arlington) after 24 years. Republican Frank Wolf will retire from the 10^th District (centered on Leesburg) after 32 years. Both are members of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Neither had trouble with reelection over the decades.

You might expect a political free-for-all over two Congressional seats “owned” by incumbents for decades. You would be only half right.

In the 8^th District, only one Republican has filed to run. At last count, 12 Democrats are competing for the Democratic nomination.

Numbers are reversed in the 10^th District. Only one Democrat is running. Seven Republicans are competing for the nomination.

The Cook Partisan Voting Index (Cook PVI) rates Moran’s 8^th District as D+16. A nominal Democrat will usually beat a nominal Republican by 16 points. This makes the 8^th District a certain Democratic win. Baring a felony conviction, whoever wins the Democratic Primary in June will almost certainly win the general election in November.

High as it is, Virginia’s 8^th District has far from the highest Cook PVI in the Nation; it is only tied for 73^rd place among House districts held by Democrats nationwide. It puts Virginia-8 within the top 37% percentile of Democratic-held seats in the US House of Representatives.

The 10^th District, currently held by Republican Frank Wolf has a Cook PVI of R+2.  That places Virginia-10 in the bottom 12% percentile among GOP-held seats in the House.

Given the narrow Cook PVI margin, Democrats are optimistic for winning Virginia-10's open seat in 2014. However, any Democratic optimism is a stretch. There is a reason for the raft of Republicans fighting for the nomination versus only one Democrat. Virginia-10 is gerrymandered to favor Republicans.

In the 2012 Presidential election, President Obama lost the 10^th District to Mitt Romney by 1%. In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Democrat Terry McAuliffe also lost the 10^th to Republican Ken Cuccinelli by 1%. Despite massive fundraising advantages and get-out-the-vote campaigns by both Democrats, the 10^th voted Republican.

The 2013 race Virginia’s Attorney General pitted Democrat Mark Herring (a state senator from Loudoun County, the most populous county in Virginia-10) against Republican Mark Obenshain. They statistically tied each other in Virginia-10.

The 2013 race for Lieutenant Governor was more definitive. The Republican candidate, Bishop EW Jackson was a laughingstock. His statement that “yoga can lead to Satanism” was only one in a series of extreme positions. Others included, “Democrats are anti-God” and “Planned Parenthood is worse than the Ku Klux Klan.” His Democratic opponent, Ralph Northam was a state senator, pediatric neurologist, professor of ethics in medical school, a Gulf War veteran and graduate of VMI (where he was president of the Honor Court). Despite the Democrat’s clear character advantage, Northam won the 10th Congressional District by only 52-48%.

If their biographies were reversed, if the Republican was credible and the Democrat was incredible, the Republican would have won in a landslide. This is the reality in Virginia-10. Only an extreme Republican candidate puts the congressional election in play. Although Virginia-10 has a slim Cook PVI of R+2, that “+2” is solid. Whether or not the gerrymandered District votes for a Democrat is less determined by the credibility of the Democrat than by the incredibility of the Republican. This is why a raft of Republicans versus a single Democrat are competing for this open seat.