As you may well know, Democrats face the task of picking up one seat while retaining all of their seats in order to regain control of the Virginia Senate. In my estimation, this comes down to five seats: three held by Democrats, two by Republicans. A rundown of those five races follows.
SD-06 (Norfolk, Mathews County, Eastern Shore)
2014 statewide result: Warner 53%, Gillespie 45%
2014 special election: Lynwood Lewis (D) 50.00%, Wayne Coleman (R) 49.96%
2013 statewide result: McAuliffe 52%, Cuccinelli 41%; Herring 53%, Obenshain 47%
2011 election: Ralph Northam (D) 57%, Ben Loyola (R) 43%
Candidates: incumbent Lynwood Lewis (D), attorney Richard Ottinger (R)
In 2014, Lynwood Lewis ran for this seat in a special election following the election of Ralph Northam to Lieutenant Governor. He took what should have been a slam-dunk and turned it into a nailbiter, eventually winning (after a recount) by 9 votes. This year, he faces Norfolk attorney Richard Ottinger, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for last year's special election. In order to avoid a repeat of last year, Lewis had better pay more attention to the Norfolk part of his district.
Norfolk is key to the district, as it makes up 57% of the district's voters. Wayne Coleman, the Republican in that race, almost pulled off an upset due to the fact that Norfolk voters, apparently unaware of or unimpressed with the Eastern Shore Democrat on their ballot, didn't turn out, making up only 46% of the votes cast. Meanwhile, Lewis' strategy of relying on his strength on the Eastern Shore didn't pan out the way he hoped: despite being elected and re-elected easily to an Eastern Shore House of Delegates seat, he still lost Accomack County by a 3 percent margin. (Accomack, making up less than a quarter of the district's voters, ended up casting nearly a third of the votes in the special election.)
So far this year, Lewis has raised $167,000 with $163,000 in the bank, while Ottinger has pulled in $110,000 and has $50,000 on hand. Undoubtedly, both parties will contribute heavily to the spending here.
SD-07 (Virginia Beach)
2014 statewide result: Gillespie 50%, Warner 47%
2013 statewide result: Cuccinelli 47%, McAuliffe 46%; Obenshain 53%, Herring 47%
2011 election: Frank Wagner (R) unopposed
Candidates: businessman/Army veteran Gary McCollum (D), incumbent Frank Wagner (R)
Frank Wagner has held this seat for 15 years and has been so secure that he hasn't faced an opponent since 2003, when he easily dispatched Democrat Clarence Holland by a 59-41 margin. So why is he vulnerable? His opponent, Democrat Gary McCollum, has about 368,000 reasons why. McCollum has shown himself to be one of the most prodigious fundraisers of this year, pulling in $368,000. Wagner is no slouch, having raised $291,000 this year, and still has a $428,000 to $274,000 cash-on-hand advantage.
Now, of the five races on this list, this is the only one I would not rank as a tossup. I think Wagner is favored, due to his incumbency and the fact that the district is swingy but has a slight Republican lean (accentuated by the low turnout that this year will bring), but it's good for Democrats that they have at least one strong challenger to a Republican incumbent.
SD-10 (Richmond, Chesterfield County, Powhatan County)
2014 statewide result: Warner 49%, Gillespie 47%
2013 statewide result: McAuliffe 46%, Cuccinelli 42%; Herring 51%, Obenshain 49%
2011 election: John Watkins (R) 56%, David Bernard (D) 43%
Candidates: Chesterfield County Supervisor Dan Gecker (D), Richmond School Board member Glen Sturtevant (R), paralegal Carl Loser (L), former Chesterfield Supervisor Marleen Durfee (I)
Democrats tried to turn this district into a safe pickup in redistricting, but were hamstrung by then-Gov. Bob McDonnell's veto. They had to settle with moving this district from safely Republican to swing status. Republican incumbent John Watkins was not seriously challenged in 2011, and his opponent still managed a respectable 43 percent of the vote. Watkins decided to retire, giving Democrats their best shot at picking up a seat this year.
Dan Gecker is the Democratic nominee, and he's an interesting one, having been twice elected as an independent to the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors in a heavily Republican (57-42 Romney) seat. The Republicans have selected Glen Sturtevant, who, like Gecker, has won election without his party label, having won a seat on the Richmond school board by a 58-41 margin in 2012. Sturtevant's school board district, however, is 50-50, not tilted towards either party. Gecker has been a big fundraiser, pulling in $367,000 this year (though a significant chunk of this is self-funded), and having $172,000 on hand. Sturtevant has raised $156,000 and has $73,000 on hand.
Also on the ballot are a Libertarian, Carl Loser, and an independent, Marleen Durfee. Durfee served one term on the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors (like Gecker, elected as an independent), but was defeated for re-election in 2011. It seems unlikely that Durfee will have much of an effect on the race, though, as her former supervisor seat only has two precincts in common with SD-10.
SD-21 (Roanoke, Giles County, Montgomery County)
2014 statewide result: Warner 54%, Gillespie 42%
2013 statewide result: McAuliffe 49%, Cuccinelli 41%; Herring 51%, Obenshain 49%
2011 election: John Edwards (D) 56%, Dave Nutter (R) 44%
Candidates: incumbent John Edwards (D), retired surgeon Nancy Dye (R), Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Don Caldwell (I)
If any race has been an unpleasant surprise for Democrats, it's this one. Edwards was already facing a stiff challenge from Nancy Dye, and had been sleepwalking through the race. Dye has outraised him this year, pulling in $111,000 and having $104,000 on hand to Edwards' $86,000 raised and $92,000 on hand. Then Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Don Caldwell, ostensibly a Democrat, jumped in as an independent. Even if Caldwell only siphons off a few percent from Edwards, it could be enough to throw the election to Dye.
SD-29 (Manassas, Manassas Park, Prince William County)
2014 statewide result: Warner 56%, Gillespie 41%
2013 statewide result: McAuliffe 57%, Cuccinelli 39%; Herring 59%, Obenshain 41%
2011 election: Chuck Colgan (D) 55%, Tom Gordy (R) 45%
Candidates: Alexandria city employee Jeremy McPike (D), Manassas Mayor Hal Parrish (R)
This district will be a test of whether Democrats can get their people out to vote, because it suffers from extremely poor turnout in these off-off-year elections. In 2011, turnout was just over 24,000 votes, which was the lowest turnout in any State Senate district that had both a Democrat and Republican running that year. It will be incumbent on McPike's campaign to generate enthusiasm among minorities in the district (which is 28% African-American, 24% Latino, and 8% Asian), particularly as there may be some bruised feelings following the primary, in which McPike, who is white, defeated two candidates of color, Atif Qarni and Michael Futrell.
McPike will also need to get his fundraising in gear, as Republican nominee Hal Parrish has massively outraised him so far. Parrish has pulled in $416,000 (albeit over a quarter of that was from his existing mayoral campaign account) and has $238,000 in the bank, while McPike, drained from the primary, has only raised $97,000 and has $28,000 on hand. Democrats will likely have to dig deep into their pockets to make up for Parrish's money advantage.
Parrish has one more advantage over McPike, in that he's well-known locally both as mayor and as the son of former Del. Harry Parrish, who easily held his seat for 25 years. McPike did run a surprisingly close race for the House of Delegates in 2013, losing to Del. Scott Lingamfelter by a single percentage point, though it can't be said whether his near miss was due to his strong campaign or the winning McAuliffe/Northam/Herring ticket, all of whom carried the district.
To wrap things up, here's a rundown of three other State Senate races to keep an eye on. These are two second-tier targets for the Republicans and one target for the Democrats; I don't expect them to be the deciding seats. If any of the three fall, it will be a bad night for one of the two parties.
- SD-13 - This seat in the NoVa exurbs was easily won by Republican Dick Black in 2011, despite Black's extremely conservative views. Democrats are running physician Jill McCabe against him. She's done some respectable fundraising, pulling in $165,000 so far, but it's going to be an uphill climb for her.
- SD-33 - Democrat Jennifer Wexton easily won this Loudoun County-based seat in a 2014 special election, succeeding Attorney General Mark Herring. Republicans would like to win this one, but they're stuck with a second-rate candidate in Stephen Hollingshead, who ran in the VA-10 Republican primary last year and finished a distant fourth with 6 percent of the vote.
- SD-39 - Democrat George Barker held on to this seat by a 53-47 margin in 2011. It's a polarized district, stretching from blue Alexandria to red Prince William County. Republicans recruited Joe Murray to run here; Murray very nearly upset Charniele Herring in a special election for a heavily-Democratic House of Delegates seat back in 2009, losing by a mere 16 votes. Murray probably won't have as favorable an environment as that extremely low-turnout situation, but the Republicans will probably kick in to his campaign to hold Barker's feet to the fire.