District 17 is being contested by a Democratic candidate this cycle. The seat is currently held by Republican Christopher Head. This seat was not challenged by a Democrat in the last cycle. The last time it was challenged was in 2013 when Head won by a strong margin of 5,960 votes out of 24,484 cast.
Campaign Website
There is a total of 27 precincts in District 17. 2 in Botetourt County, 19 in Roanoke County, 6 in Roanoke City. Roanoke County makes up a vast majority of the registered active voters in the district.
Here is the share of Active Voters by Locality:
Looking at that pie chart it is pretty obvious you would want to focus on Roanoke County.
Here is chart showing the Republican vote share of active voters by locality. While it is obvious we ought to focus on Roanoke County, there is enough potential in Roanoke City to spend time in those precincts as well.
The final scatterplot shows actual vote totals for Republican compared to total registered active voters in the district. It becomes very clear there is work to do across the board. The precincts that deserve the first ;look are those that fall below the line. they show softer support for the Republican.
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 ELECT 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 17, 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 last evening.