District 81 has a new candidate in the pipeline from what I hear. I am not sure she has publically announced yet and I have not found any web presence yet so I will not announce for her here. But, I did want to put the numbers together for this district.
The Democratic candidate would be stepping up to compete for the seat currently held by Republican Barry Knight. This seat was contested in the last cycle, but only by a Green Party member. No Democrat ran for this seat in the last cycle. The Republican won by 3,062 votes. It is great to see someone apparently stepping up to challenge this seat for the Democrats this fall.
Thanks for stepping up!
District 81 Fast Facts
There are 2 localities in the district; 10 precincts in Chesapeake City and 10 precincts in Virginia Beach 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, there is opportunity everywhere. I would reach out to the Greens and try to bring them in at least until Republicans are no longer so close to being able to amend the constitution. While they may not be the best advocates for our message always if we can keep them off the ballot or if they insist on running bringing them into the Democratic caucus process so the race in the fall is not split between Greens and Democrats would be key.
The two localities are fairly evenly split in terms of total Active Voters to reach.
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 81, let her know you are a candidate or working on the campaign if you are a member of her committee.
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 this morning.