District 42 is being contested by 2 Democratic candidates this cycle. The seat is currently held by Republican Dave Albo. This seat was challenged by a Democrat in the last cycle. In that last cycle Albo won by a 4,592 vote margin out of 17,082 cast.
There are a total of 17 precincts in District 42 all in Fairfax County. This district is unique in all of the contested districts I have reviewed so far in that the Republican won every single precinct last cycle. It is still worth digging into the data to see where opportunities may lie in the upcoming campaign.
Here is chart showing the Partisan Vote Share by Precinct:
Just glancing at the above chart I would definitely begin looking into the precincts with a large number of people who did not vote last cycle. Newington, Laurelhill, Westgate, Fountainhead and Orange. Some of these favored the Republican heavily, but the volume of people not voting suggests opportunity in these areas.
The next chart shows the margin of victory in the various precincts.
As noted above, the Republican enjoyed an across the board victory last cycle. Not only that but he won with significant margins in almost all of the precincts. That means there is opportunity across the board. Any progress anywhere could yield very positive results in this district.
The final scatter plot simply reinforces the above findings. The Republican won a sweeping victory across the board. Fundamentally, I would target the Republican precincts that fall below the red line and look for support from the precincts where the Democratic vote totals are above the blue line. Although, given the scope of the Republican victory any progress anywhere will pay dividends.
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 42, 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.