All right, I've been waiting and waiting for the state Board of Elections to put a final candidate list up, and I'm fed up with them, so I'm going with what's posted on the Virginia Public Access Project. If anything changes, I'll edit the diary, assuming that the list gets posted while this is still on the front page.
First, let's talk competition. 27 out of the 40 seats in the Senate are being contested by more than one candidate, and 23 of those have both a Democrat and a Republican running. Redistricting has not helped the Democrats avoid a surfeit of challengers; Republicans have fielded candidates in 18 of the 22 seats held by Democrats, while Democrats only have candidates in 5 of the 18 Republican-held seats.
The House is much worse for democracy than the Senate; only 38 out of 100 seats have two or more candidates running, and only 27 of them have a Democrat and a Republican in the race. Republicans have put forth candidates in 12 Democratic seats, while Democrats have candidates in 13 Republican-held seats. Both parties have candidates in the two seats currently held by an Independent (one of whom is retiring). But as we all know, Governor McDonnell proclaimed the House map to be fair and balanced, but the Senate map was a partisan gerrymander.
After the jump are my ratings tables, ratings changes, and a few post-primary updates.
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