Not Larry Sabato

Another Abortion Vote Coming For The VA Senate

No surprises here, the only question is whether Dick Saslaw will allow another major abortion restriction to become law.

Redistricting Analysis

This map of the Northern Virginia Senate districts from the Democratic plan pretty much says it all.

 

 

 

 

Sigh.

Here's the basics of the two plans:

House Republicans eliminated four Democratic districts (Robin Abbott, Ward Armstrong, Paula Miller, Bud Phillips) and moved them into more GOP areas that should provide four pickups.  Additionally the open seat of Albert Pollard and the soon to be open seats of Bill Barlow and Joe Johnson (likely this cycle or next) were kept in strongly GOP.  That's a pickup of 5-7 seats this year for the GOP, with seats currently held by David Bulova, Eileen Filler-Corn, Jim Shuler and Lynwood Lewis all kept competitive for open seat races or very strong GOP challengers in the future.

That puts Republicans on a base of 66 seats out of 100, with two more likely to flip to them soon- and four others they can be competitive in- for a total universe of 72 seats.

Meanwhile, I'm not even sure what to say about these Senate lines.  On paper they improve Democratic performance in some swing districts, but do so by lowering it in safer districts.  The problem with this is a lack of understanding by the Democrats of what off/off year electorates look like.  In the lowest turnout elections, Republicans can come dangerously close to Democrats even in places like Alexandria and Arlington with the right candidates, because the Democratic vote in those areas is younger and extremely unlikely to show up in off/off year elections or special elections.  Say for example in the new 30th that Libby Garvey from Arlington won the D nomination and Republicans fielded a serious candidate from Alexandria City.  If the GOP could keep Alexandria close (and they won 2 of 6 Council seats there last time, plus came within 16 votes of stealing a House seat in a special election) then the district would be a dead heat going into a handful of Dem precincts in Arlington and GOP precincts down the river in Fairfax.  In a Governor's election with higher turnout this type of district would give Democrats a solid 55-67% win no matter how bad the cycle, but in an off/off year election this could be a major problem.

District after district has a similar problem, where you can pinpoint specific GOP candidates who could win the seats.  I only saw 11 safe Democratic seats out of 40 in the Senate, when it was easily possible to start that with 16 or 17 safe seats with the same number of swing seats in the middle.

Given how close the margin of error is here for success, I don't think Democrats can hold the Senate under these lines this November, and this alignment of precincts has absolutely zero chance of holding for the entire 10 year cycle (2011, 2015, 2019) it was drawn for.

A GOP lock on the House, and the Democratic Senate imploding itself.  I'm at a loss for words.

IT'S REDISTRICTING DAY!!!!

Lines are being released today.  Check back here for information as it breaks!  For now, check out this article from Julian Walker this morning on the gerrymander that is about to hit Hampton Roads.

UPDATE:  Maps are scheduled to hit the legislative services website at 3:30 p.m.

UPDATE #2- Some are now speculating 4:30 or 5:00.

How Does Tim Kaine Treat His Staff?

Pardon me for a quick little rant here...

Political jobs are temporary, I get that.  But when you ask people to relocate all over the country for regional field jobs, and then give them two weeks notice (with zero additional severance) that's disrespectful to the sacrifices these people are making to take these jobs.  I think it hurts the party's ability to recruit quality staffers and goes against the whole "fighting for the little guy" mantra that Democrats are supposed to stand for. 

If this was part of a long term plan, why couldn't we at least have let these staffers know in January so they could plan the next steps in their lives?

In other Kaine news, this video has been circulating on Youtube today with people claiming it was Kaine's announcement video.  Pretty funny.

VCU Wins!

CAA is back in the final four!!!

Barbara Favola's Bad Week

Miles has more.  No comment from me!

CONGRATS VCU RAMS!!!

This years George Mason is VCU!

Great Post At Common Sense

Here.

From Facebook Tonight...

Removing this person's name until I get permission to use it....

"Got an email from Sasslow's VA Senate Caucus praising their accomplishments, and in my return email I noted that Dems were disappointed that they let legislation "slip through the crack" which will close abortion clinics. Their reply? "We are removing you from our mailing list!" Instead of fighting Republicans, they get rid of an Obama delegate and precinct captain who works hard for the Party. Brilliant?"

Harris Media

Every couple months Vince Harris reappears on the Too Conservative blog to promote his company that deals with new media for conservative candidates.  Somehow, people continue to take them seriously and they get quoted in articles, such as this one on Virginia politics last week. 

But this quote was even more (unintentionally) hysterical from an article when Tim Pawlenty announced this week:

“But Amy Brown of Harris Media LLC argued that the roll out was nowhere near as effective as it could have been.

...

I think besides the quality of the video, some teenager could put up a video of a Facebook page,” she said.

“This announcement seems to lack the gravitas of running for president.”

Yes, this is from the same "firm" that produced this web video for Keith Fimian last year:

One could argue Fimian might have been the first candidate to lose an election because of the money he spent and wasted on new media like this.