District 83 is being contested by a Democratic candidate this cycle. The seat is currently held by Republican Chris Stolle. He ran uncontested last cycle. In 2015 Stolle drew 10,233 votes in that uncontested race. The registration numbers in this district are also pretty low. It is great to see a Democrat run in this district. It is ripe for the picking.
DISTRICT 83 FAST FACTS
District 83 is comprised of 2 localities, Norfolk City and Virginia Beach City. There are 20 precincts in all with 12 in Virginia Beach City and 8 in Norfolk City. While registration numbers seem low in this district, the heavy military presence might serve as the contributing factor to those lower Active Voter numbers.
Here is the share of Active Voters by Locality:
This district is weighted toward Virginia Beach City for sure just judging by that pie chart. Let's turn to precinct data and see what we find there.
This next chart shows republican vote share compared to those that did not vote by precinct.
This bar chart reveals that the real opportunities within this district span the two localities. While the pie chart indicates you might want to focus more effort on Virginia Beach City, this chart shows that there are at least some key precincts (Bayview and East Oceanview jump out) to focus on there. In fact, the Republicans strongest vote gainers come from Virginia Beach precincts (Thoroughgood and Chesapeake Beach precincts). Even while they appear to be strong precincts for the Republican, the sheer volume of non-voters means there is likely opportunity even there.
The final scatter plot shows actual vote totals versus the Active Registered Voter total per precinct. The weakest support for the Republican will be the precincts below the red line. These precincts would form a good starting point for building support for any Democratic campaign in this district.
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 83, 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.