The 2nd House of Delegates district had been in southwest Virginia since the creation of single member districts in the House decades ago. But with population falling in southwest, a seat needed to be eliminated this redistricting, and Republicans chose to eliminate this one held by Bud Phillips, a longserving Democrat. This seat was moved to the border of Prince William County and Stafford County. Stafford has been booming with new population and had the population for a new seat combined with its southern neighbor Spottsylvania County- but the Republicans decided to put the seat here in order to keep their GOP held seats in Prince William from having to creep further south into Democratic strongholds there. In the first election under these new lines, Stafford County Supervisor Mark Dudenhefer was elected to this seat in 2011.
House District #2 (map here)
53.7% of the vote in Prince William County
46.3% of the vote in Stafford County
2012 Major Party Election Results
Barack Obama 18,812 (59.8%)
Mitt Romney 12,660 (40.2%)
Tim Kaine 18,710 (59.5%)
George Allen 12,739 (40.5%)
Gerry Connolly/Adam Cook 17,352 (57.8%)
Chris Perkins/Rob Wittman 12,684 (42.2%)
(Broken down below)
Gerry Connolly 10,936 (72.5%)
Chris Perkins 4,153 (27.5%)
Rob Wittman 8,531 (57.1%)
Adam Cook 6,416 (42.9%)
DELAWARE- The state the Presidential results most closely match with. Delaware had a margin of 18.9% for Obama, while the 2nd Delegate District of Virginia had a margin of 19.6% for Obama.
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This is a tale of two different districts thrown into one. The Quantico Marine Corps base sits in the middle of the district on the Prince William-Stafford county lines. North of that base are highly diverse neighborhoods in the 11th Congressional district in Prince William County. Those precincts are strongly Democratic and gave Barack Obama a 11,649-4,298 victory, or 73.0% of the vote. Downballot again we see some small crossover for George Allen in an area with high minority population, with Tim Kaine scoring 72.0% of the vote here in a 11,445-4,421 win. Gerry Connolly split the percentage difference between Obama and Kaine, gathering 72.5% of the vote with a 10,936-4,153 win.
In the southern tip of Prince William (near the Marine base) the Congressional voting shifts to the 1st district. Mitt Romney carried the precinct where many of the Marines on base vote by a 1% margin, while George Allen carried it by 7%. The residents directly next to the base are strongly Democratic though, so the area as a whole went to Obama by a 560-391 count, while Kaine won here by a smaller 527-412 vote. With those coattails, Adam Cook was able to get a 10 point win over Rob Wittman with a 486-399 vote.
Moving south from there you will cross the county line into Stafford County. Stafford has been exploding in growth in the last ten years and politically is very divided. Precincts with high minority populations are voting 2-1 Democratic next door to older GOP precincts that are voting 2-1 Republican. The GOP precincts still outnumber the Democratic precincts here, and countywide Mitt Romney won by 9 points. The portion of Stafford included in this district is very similar to that- giving Romney a 9.4% win with a vote count of 7,971-6,603. The district also shifts here in crossover- across the white-majority Virginia exurbs we see Tim Kaine outperform Barack Obama. Here Kaine won about a 3% crossover in the mostly white precincts while running a little behind Obama in the precincts with a stronger minority vote- leaving him on net 1.4% stronger than the top of the ticket in these Stafford precincts. The count in the Senate race was 7,906-6,738. While Romney and Allen won here by 9.4% and 8.0%, Rob Wittman got a crossover vote, making him the only candidate to break 8,000 votes in these precincts- winning them by a 15.6% margin with a vote count of 8,132-5,930.
On net these two distinct districts (one side voting like Hawaii and the other side voting like Missouri) gave the President an almost 20% margin of victory- making this area more Democratic than even Delaware- and within just a couple points of California. That having been said- much of the Democratic vote here doesn't always participate in off year elections. Stafford County narrowly outvoted Prince William here in 2011 when Dudenhefer won the seat- skewing the voting pool into the older and more conservative areas. This seat is all about turnout- and if Democrats can get that turnout, it will be a very hard seat for the GOP to try to hold in the future.
Previous Districts Covered
House District #1 - Terry Kilgore (Utah)
House District #13- Bob Marshall (New Mexico)
House District #50- Jackson Miller (Michigan)
House District #51- Rich Anderson (Ohio)
House District #52- Luke Torian (Hawaii)
Is this the #1 Democratic target in the Commonwealth? Or do Ramadan or Marshall's seats get better odds for the Democrats?
Posted by: Dandem75 | November 25, 2012 at 11:15 PM