Yes, it has been a long time since I last posted and while a lot of things have changed, my interest in politics has not changed. All Politics is still Local!

All 140 seats in the Virginia General Assembly – 100 in the House of Delegates and 40 in the Senate – are up for election this year. This is the first General Assembly election since redistricting. One result of that process was a significant number of retirements across the state, some of which were due to two or more incumbents being placed in the same District due to the redrawing of the lines. (The home addresses of incumbents was not a consideration in the redistricting process, which I think was a good thing, even though we lost some really good people and a tremendous amount of institutional memory.) We also saw a fair number of primary contests, some between incumbents like that between Senators Louise Lucas and Lionell Spruill. Another result was a number of open seats – that is, districts in which no incumbent ran. Finally, there was the complete renumbering of all districts.

So if you have been confused with the what you’ve seen so far this year, you’re not alone. Use this tool to look up your new districts.

Using data from VPAP, I have determined that Hampton Roads has 28 contests on the ballot: 20 in the House and eight in the Senate. (Let me know in the comments if I missed any.) Of those, four House district and one Senate district have candidates running unopposed. Interestingly enough, two of the unopposed House districts were open seats: HD69 and HD95. Chad Green (R) will represent HD69 while former delegate Alex Askew (D), who defeated Rick James in the June primary, will represent HD95.

Also unopposed are Cia Price (D) in HD85, House Appropriations Chair Barry Knight (R) in HD98, and Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Mamie Locke in SD 23.

Below is a list of the Contested Races, including VPAP’s rating of the district.

Although there are 23 contested races, I don’t see them all as competitive. District demographics and past voting behavior are not the only factors in electoral success. Candidate quality matters – a lot. And money matters – perhaps way more than it should. At this point, I think three contests are competitive: HD97, SD 22, and SD24 and another eight (HD71, HD84, HD89, HD93, HD96, SD17, and SD21) may turn out to be. We will know more once the next campaign finance reports drop 9/15. My intention between now and then is to write up a little about all of the contested races.

Control of the General Assembly is at stake. Keep in mind that voters may register through Election Day (and vote using a provisional ballot). You can check your registration through the Virginia Department of Elections Citizen Portal here.