House District #5

Another district with major changes in redistricting was the 5th House of Delegates district.  Once centered in Galax and the counties around there, the district now stretches from Galax to Bristol.  This district had been represented by Bill Carrico until 2011 when Carrico moved into the Senate of Virginia.  Replacing Carrico was Israel O'Quinn, a veteran GOP operative.

House District #5 (map here)
38.2% of the vote in Washington County
21.1% of the vote in Bristol City
20.0% of the vote in Grayson County
14.2% of the vote in Smyth County
6.5% of the vote in Galax City 

2012 Major Party Election Results

Mitt Romney 24,062 (70.0%)
Barack Obama 10,321 (30.0%)

George Allen 23,151 (66.7%)
Tim Kaine 11,561 (33.3%)

Morgan Griffith 21,296 (62.6%)
Anthony Flaccavento 12,749 (37.4%)

WYOMING- The state the Presidential results most closely match with.  Wymong had a margin of 42.3% for Romney, while the 5th Delegate District of Virginia had a margin of 40.0% for Romney.

----------------

President Obama was strongest in this district in the cities- pulling 40.3% in Galax (1,332-900), and 34.3% in Bristol (4,780-2,492).  The more rural areas in between those cities were much bigger margins for Mitt Romney- 73.0% in Washington County (9,581-3,543), 73.0% in Smyth County (3,568-1,318) and 69.9% in Grayson County (4,801-2,068).  

Downballot Tim Kaine pulled a 3.3% crossover- winning 33.3% of the vote against Obama's 30.0%.  Kaine picked up a little more in the rural areas- winning a 3.8% crossover in Smyth, and a 3.9% crossover in Grayson, while picking up less in the cities- 2.6% in Bristol and 2.5% in Galax.  Still the only place that Kaine held George Allen under 60% of the vote was in Galax City where the President also broke 40%.

This is the district where you can see Anthony Flaccavento's massive crossover vote in far southwest Virginia begin to fade away.  On the western side of the district in Washington County, Flaccavento won a huge 6.2% crossover even from the Senate race- scoring 36.5% of the vote with an 8,302-4,782 vote.  But on the other end of the district, Flaccavento is only running 2.0% ahead of Kaine in Grayson County, and 0.5% ahead of Kaine in Galax City.  As we move further east you will see Kaine and Flaccavento start to run very similar numbers against George Allen and Morgan Griffith- with their additional vote over the President being Democrats who wouldn't vote for Obama this time around.

We covered Israel O'Quinn on here long before he ever ran for office.  Since his company was caught breaking the law in 2005, he has divorced his first wife who was involved in that scandal- and remarried.  Hopefully he's done with the shady side of politics- but we will continue to keep a careful eye on him.

An interesting side note about this district- compared to the neighboring 4th district.  Both are rated as "Wyoming" on our scale- and there is only a 0.9% difference between them in the Presidential vote.  But the 4th is expected to be very competitive, while O'Quinn is extremely safe in the 5th district.  You might be wondering why that is...

One thing we look for when doing election analysis is the density of the minority party vote in a district.  For an upset to occur, the candidate of the smaller party has to find some sort of geographic base in the district to prevail in.  In the case of the 4th district, the GOP drew it in such a way that a candidate from the mountain side of the district could pull such a vote- and in fact we have seen that happen there before.  In this district (5th)- the Democratic vote is heavier in the cities on opposite ends of the district.  A district like this is going to be extremely tough for a challenger because they would need an existing base in two different places- not just one.  That combined with the GOP performance of this district makes O'Quinn one of the safest members of the General Assembly.  

Previous Districts Covered
House District #1- Terry Kilgore (Utah)
House District #2- Mark Dudenhefer (Delaware)
House District #3- Will Morefield (Utah) 
House District #4- Joe Johnson (Wyoming)
House District #13- Bob Marshall (New Mexico)
House District #28- Bill Howell (Florida)
House District #50- Jackson Miller (Michigan)
House District #51- Rich Anderson (Ohio)
House District #52- Luke Torian (Hawaii)

Comments

[VirginiaLib]

Running seven points ahead of the top of the ticket would be great in the more competitive districts back east. But the Democratic brand is so low here in Southwest Virginia even with strong crossover local Democratic candidates don't stand a chance.