District 31 is being contested by 3 Democratic candidates this cycle. The seat is currently held by Republican Scott Lingamfelter. A brisk primary appears to be the order of the day in this district. One of the 3 candidates this cycle did challenge Lingamfelter in 2015. Sara Townsend's campaign fell short by only 1,219 votes out of 17,793
The 3 announced candidates are:
District 31 Fast Facts
Fauquier County consists of 5 precincts while Prince William County consists of 19 precincts. The Democrat won 12 precincts while the Republican won 11 precincts and the absentee and provisional ballots. They actually tied in one precinct. The Democratic candidate won no precincts in Fauquier County.
Partisan vote share of Active Voters:
This was a close race in 2015. There are any number of paths to victory but looking at the above graph it is obvious that the Democrat needs to focus on Prince William County. Although, with a margin so narrow, ignoring Fauquier County would be foolish.
Here is a plot of the Republican vote totals in the precincts. The dots below the line would be precincts to seriously review first, that means they underperform the average performance for the Republican last race:
The next scatter plot is the Democratic vote in the precincts in the last cycle compared to total Active Voters. The dots above the line might be worked early by the campaign to secure volunteers and donations with a long-term plan to reach out to districts that fall under the line.
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 31, let her know you are a candidate or working on the campaign if you are a member of the campaign 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.