District 28 has a newly declared Democratic candidate stepping up to compete for the seat currently held by Republican Bill Howell. Howell has not yet declared his intention to run again or not. This seat was contested in the last cycle, the Republican won by 2,788 votes. It is great to see someone stepping up to challenge this seat this fall.
The Democratic candidate is Pastor Joshua Cole:
Thanks for stepping up!
District 28 Fast Facts
There are 2 localities in the district; 18 precincts in Stafford County and 3 precincts in Fredericksburg City. Below is graph highlighting the vote breakdown for each party in each locality compared to total vote and total active registered voters in 2015:
Looking at that chart, the biggest opportunity for Democrats within the district are within the Stafford County precincts. since it makes up 87% of all the registered active voters. There are 18 precincts, 9 of which underperformed the total participation rate of 29% in this district. In those lowest performing precincts the Democrat last cycle lost by only 293 votes. In the 9 that had a participation of 29% and higher the Democrat lost by 2,726 votes. Driving up participation in the lower performing precincts could make the difference in this race.
This is just a quick snapshot on some of the analysis that can be done simply based on publically available data. There is a deeper analysis that can be done for sure.
You can request a file from the Secretary of States office by contacting Vanessa Archie at vanessa.archie@elections.virginia.gov or at (804) 864-8908. Ask what it would take to obtain the Vote History List for District 28, let her know you are a candidate if you happen to be Joshua reading this.
Let's Turn Virginia Blue in 2017.
Note: My name is Donald Braden. This was posted to my blog on my website The Full Slate Project last evening.