District 12 is being contested by a Democratic candidate this cycle. The seat is currently held by Republican Joseph Yost. This seat was challenged by a Democrat in the last cycle, however, the declared Democrat appears to be a first-time candidate. Despite the competition it does appear that Yost scored a comfortable victory with a margin of 2,758 votes out of 15,832 cast in the district.
The announced candidate is Chris Hurst:
District 12 Fast Facts
- Residents = 80,010
- Active Registered Voters = 40,093
- Percent Registered = 50%
- Total Vote in Last District 33 Race = 15,832
- Participation Rate = 40%
- Total Vote for Republican last Race = 9,245
- Total Vote for Democrat last Race = 6,587
- Localities = Giles, Montgomery & Pulaski Counties and Radford City
There is a total of 31 precincts in District 12. 9 in Giles County, 17 in Montgomery County, 2 in Pulaski County and 3 in Radford City. The Republicans won 20 precincts and most of those by comfortable margins, while most that were won by the Democrat were more closely contested. And while 40% participation sounds bad, it is pretty strong compared to some of these Virginia districts since the races are in "off-year" cycles. I would definitely consider registration drives in this district as that 50% registered active voters rate is pretty low.
Here is the partisan vote share of Active Voters by Locality:
As noted above registration drives might be a key tactic, so while looking at the chart focusing on Montgomery County might make sense, a deeper dive on population to determine where the under registration rate is would be warranted.
Here is chart showing the vote share by precinct. This clearly shows that where the Republican won, they tended to do so decisively, the few "big wins" by the Democrat are in low turnout precincts. So low in fact we are talking about 3 and 4 votes in each precinct :
The final scatterplot shows actual vote totals for Republican and Democrat in the last race compared to total registered active voters in the district. It becomes very clear there is work to do across the board. The gap in each precinct is fairly narrow all things considered.
While this looks like a tough race, it is eminently winnable. It is encouraging to see many Democratic precincts beat the Republican trend line. It is a mark of how closely contested this district actually is despite the comfortable margin for the Republican last cycle.
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This is just a quick snapshot on some of the analysis that can be done simply based on publicly 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 12, 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.