From this morning’s SCB, Geoffry Skelley over at the UVA Center for Politics prognosticates on the condition of the Virginia House of Delegates. All you need to know in just one table:
Table 1: Potentially in-play seats
Skelley opines:
To refresh, there is still no chance that Democrats will win a majority of the chamber’s 100 seats. Republicans presently hold a 68-32 edge (counting one independent caucusing with the GOP), giving them an impregnable advantage in the House. Even more helpful to Republicans is the fact that the only sure-fire pick-up in the House is going to be a Republican one in HD-4, an ancestrally Democratic district in southwest Virginia currently held by retiring Del. Joe Johnson (D). The GOP is the only party fielding a candidate there.
…
Given the nature of these races, it’s very hard to predict just where the McAuliffe-led Democratic wave may crest. It may be a very small breaker, carrying only one or two of these seats on election night. Or it could be a tidal wave, taking as many as seven or eight of them. Most interestingly, none of these races could be rated at least Leans Democratic, despite McAuliffe’s lead and the fact that many of these districts have been relatively Democratic in recent presidential years. That is to say, there are no likely Democratic pick-ups even though the current atmosphere is favorable to Democrats. Instead, many of the seats listed above can be called Toss-ups, and it’s hard to make an educated guess which way the coin flips will fall on Election Night.
We’re hearing anywhere from 4-6 HOD seats are truly up for grabs, with about 12 seats “in play” — the definition of which being that the powers-that-be are watching those races. But under no conditions is the House Republican majority under threat given the 68-32 makeup of the caucus.
The good news is that, despite what happens in the gubernatorial race, the GOP will have a firewall in both the GOP-led Republican House and the tied Virginia Senate — and perhaps a majority should Northam’s district, which is a 55% GOP district, finds a credible candidate to pry the seat out of the Democratic doldrums.
