The 30th district- long set in Culpeper, Madison and Orange counties- is mostly Republican territory, but has been willing to support regional Democrats in General Assembly races. Much of this district was represented for decades by Edd Houck in the Senate, and this seat helped keep the Democratic majority together in the House of Delegates with Butch Davies representing it in the 1990's. Once the House reached a 50-49-1 tie after the 1997 elections, Davies called it quits and local doctor George Broman took the open seat in 1999- one of the handful of GOP pickups that gave the Republicans control of the House of Delegates for the first time. Broman retired after two terms, and Ed Scott won this seat. Scott's local popularity can not be understated. Democrats did not field a Democratic nominee against him in the open seat race- and have not since fielded a single nominee against Scott since. Scott may be the first Republican in House history to go without major party opposition for his first decade in the General Assembly. Scott did face a primary after his first term when he voted for Mark Warner tax package, but easily beat back that challenge 65%-35% as well.
House District #30 (map here)
44.6% of the vote in Orange County
37.4% of the vote in Culpeper County
18.0% of the vote in Madison County
2012 Major Party Election Results
Mitt Romney 20,496 (56.7%)
Barack Obama 15,629 (43.4%)
George Allen 20,589 (56.4%)
Tim Kaine 15,893 (43.6%)
Eric Cantor/Robert Hurt 20,909 (58.8%)
Wayne Powell/John Douglass 14,656 (41.2%)
(Broken down below)
Eric Cantor 16,933 (58.0%)
Wayne Powell 12,273 (42.0%)
Robert Hurt 3,986 (62.6%)
John Douglass 2,383 (37.4%)
MONTANA- The state the Presidential results most closely match with. Montana had a margin of 14.1% for Romney, while the 30th Delegate District of Virginia had a margin of 13.5% for Romney.
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All three localities in this district were strongly Republican at the Presidential level this year. In Orange County, Mitt Romney defeated Barack Obama by a 9,244-6,870 (57.4%) vote. Madison County also went to Romney by a 3,869-2,639 (59.4%) margin. While the entire counties of Orange and Madison are included in this district, Culpeper County is split between the 30th and 18th districts. In the Culpeper precincts in this district, Romney won a 7,383-6,120 (54.7%) victory. The much more Democratic areas of Culpeper- including the Town of Culpeper are included in this district- the precincts in the 18th district in Culpeper gave Romney a much larger 66.0% of the vote.
There's very little crossover voting in this area in the Senate race. In Orange County, George Allen defeated Tim Kaine by a 9,114-6,972 (56.7%) vote in the Senate race- a crossover for Kaine of 0.7% from Obama. In Madison County the vote was 3,978-2,678 (59.8%) for Allen, or a crossover for him of 0.4% above Romney. Finally in the Culpeper precincts here, Allen won a 7,497-6,243 (54.6%) vote- or a crossover of 0.1% for Kaine.
All three of these counties were in the last 7th Congressional district, but redistricting put Madison County back into the 5th district where it had been a couple of decades ago. Culpeper and Orange stayed in the 7th district. Majority Leader Eric Cantor led the GOP ticket in Orange with his 9,396-6,473 (59.2%) win over Wayne Powell- a crossover of 1.8% from the top of the Republican ticket. Cantor also led the GOP in Culpeper with a 7,537-5,800 (56.5%) win- also a crossover of 1.8% above Romney's vote. Those are fairly small crossover tallies for someone like Cantor who vastly outspent his competition in Wayne Powell- but as you can see this area didn't show much crossover in any of the races. The largest margin anyone got here this year was Robert Hurt in Madison County where he scored a 3,986-2,383 (62.6%) win or 3.2% above Romney. However, his vote tally in Madison was only 8 votes above George Allen- so much of his improvement over Romney/Allen was from falloff voters for Obama/Kaine that did not vote in the Congressional race for John Douglass.
There's not much analysis here for Ed Scott. He's popular, and has run unopposed for a decade. Nothing is on the horizon that suggests either of those things will change either. This could be an interesting open seat if Democrats recruited a good candidate as these areas have been known before to be much more open to local Democrats than statewide ones- but there is no sign that Scott is ready to quit anytime soon. This will continue to be a GOP hold for as long as he wants it.
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 #5- Israel O'Quinn (Wyoming)
House District #6- Anne Crockett-Stark (Oklahoma)
House District #7- Nick Rush (Kansas)
House District #8- Greg Habeeb (Arkansas)
House District #9- Charles Poindexter (West Virginia)
House District #10- Randy Minchew (North Carolina)
House District #11- Onzlee Ware (Rhode Island)
House District #12- Joseph Yost (Virginia)
House District #13- Bob Marshall (New Mexico)
House District #14- Danny Marshall (North Carolina)
House District #16- Don Merricks (Mississippi)
House District #17- Chris Head (Tennessee)
House District #19- Lacey Putney (West Virginia)
House District #28- Bill Howell (Florida)
House District #32- Tag Greason (New Hampshire)
House District #33- Joe May (Alaska)
House District #50- Jackson Miller (Michigan)
House District #51- Rich Anderson (Ohio)
House District #52- Luke Torian (Hawaii)
House District #87- David Ramadan (Washington)
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