House District #43

Gladys Keating was first elected in 1977 to the House of Delegates and when single member districts were created she had a district drawn for her in southern Fairfax County in the Springfield/Franconia area.  The 43rd district has remained fairly stable in the same area of the county since that time.  Keating became a Committee Chair while Democrats held the majority but as she began to age in office her district saw growth of new neighborhoods around Kingstowne packed full of younger voters that didn't know her as well.  Tom Bolvin challenged Keating in 1995 and came up short, then challenged her again in 1997 and held Keating to a narrow win.  By 1999 with House control on the line, Bolvin was able to oust Keating, one of two incumbent Democrats to lose that year as the GOP took a 52-47-1 majority.  Four Democrats stepped forward to run against Bolvin, but the other three dropped out in favor of former Fairfax Democratic Committee Chair Mark Sickles who had most of the party establishment endorsements.  Despite that support- and Mark Warner's 22 point win here on top of the ticket in 2001- Bolvin was able to defeat Sickles and win re-election.  But in 2003 with lower turnout aiding him, Mark Sickles was able to prevail over Bolvin in the rematch and turn this seat blue again.  Since then, Sickles has easily won contested re-elections in 2005 and 2009 while winning without GOP opposition in 2007 and 2011.  The 43rd after redistricting is very similar to the seat that has existed for the last thirty years since it was created.  After the 2011 elections, Sickles became Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, the #2 position in party leadership.   

House District #43 (map here)
100% of the vote in Fairfax County

2012 Major Party Election Results

Barack Obama 26,001 (65.9%)
Mitt Romney 13,437 (34.1%)

Tim Kaine 25,783 (66.6%)
George Allen 12,947 (33.4%)

Jim Moran 24,397 (65.7%)
Patrick Murray 12,759 (34.3%)

RHODE ISLAND- The state the Presidential results most closely match with.  Rhode Island had a margin of 28.0% for Obama, while the 43rd Delegate District of Virginia had a margin of 31.9% for Obama. 

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The 43rd district is an interesting combination of many different demographic groups in Northern Virginia.  The district has long been based in the Franconia area, which is also the most competitive part of this district.  These are older neighborhoods that were part of some of the early growth in Fairfax County and have a lot of original residents still living there.  However as older residents left this area became much more diverse.  These precincts gave Barack Obama a win over Mitt Romney by a count of 8,051-4,923 (62.1%).   From this population base the 43rd district runs in a few different directions.  To the east the 43rd includes a couple of precincts around the Huntington Metro Station.  These areas are full of younger voters that want to be able to walk to a Metro station.  Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney here by a 2,758-1,057 (72.3%) vote on election day.  On the other side of Franconia there are many neighborhoods full of newer homes and younger families anchored by the Kingstowne neighborhood, a large planned community near the Franconia-Springfield Metro station.  In these neighborhoods Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney on election day by a margin of 6,205-3,486 (64.0%).  Finally, the district stretches thinly to the south to include some very strong Democratic precincts in the Lorton area that Republicans did not want in the 42nd district.  Barack Obama won this area by a 4,605-1,929 (70.5%) tally over Mitt Romney.

In the U.S. Senate race between Tim Kaine and George Allen the Franconia area of the district gave Kaine a win by a 8,190-4,825 (62.9%) vote over Allen.  That is a 0.8% better performance for Kaine than Obama got there.  Tim Kaine also won big around the Huntington Metro station where he beat George Allen by a 2,801-989 (73.9%) vote.  That was a 1.6% better performance for Kaine versus Obama, partly driven by crossover votes and partly driven by younger Republicans leaving the race blank rather than vote for George Allen.  In the Kingstowne area precincts, Kaine prevailed by a 6,325-3,369 (65.2%) vote over Allen, a 1.2% better showing for Kaine than Obama.  The Lorton area is a big asterisk.  The electoral board shows a win for Tim Kaine here of 4,068-1,819 (69.1%) over George Allen, but one precinct appears to have a few hundred votes for Kaine and about one hundred votes for Allen missing, as well as votes missing in the Congressional race.  While there are areas of the state with falloff voting, this precinct is way out of line with anything else I've seen- including every neighboring precinct- and I think the results are reported incorrectly.  For now, this area shows George Allen running 1.4% ahead of Mitt Romney, but I will update this post when we get the correct vote tallies here.

The 43rd district is one of two that are entirely in Fairfax County and entirely in the 8th Congressional District.  The Franconia area is where Jim Moran's district Congressional office has long been located and Moran prevailed over Patrick Murray here with a vote of 7,680-4,789 (61.8%).  The falloff votes gave Murray a 0.3% better showing than Romney here.  In the Huntington area Jim Moran won by a vote count of 2,604-1,033 (71.6%), an improvement for Murray of 0.7% above Romney's showing.  In the Kingstowne area precincts, Jim Moran won by a 5,957-3,318 (64.2%) vote over Patrick Murray, and the falloff votes there gave Moran a 0.2% bump over Obama's numbers in the same precincts.  The Lorton area has the same problem as the Senate race in one precinct- so I expect to see the results updated at some point.  For now, Jim Moran defeated Patrick Murray with a vote of 3,914-1,722 (69.4%), a 1.1% better showing for Murray than Romney got there.

Mark Sickles has put this seat in the "Safe Democratic column since he was elected, although it probably always should have been other than some unique circumstances here in the late 90s's that led the seat to flip for two terms.  This is a great district to be in the Democratic leadership from because it is hard to imagine any issues that would come up in Richmond where a strong majority of Sickles' constituency wouldn't strongly support the Democratic position.  If anything Sickles may be most vulnerable to his left from a primary challenge given his very pro-business voting record that has led to his poor rating from consumer advocates.  While you might think that would be a huge problem because of the low income in much of this district- those types of voters don't participate in small turnout elections like primaries- so Sickles is unlikely to be unseated by a populist primary challenger.  With the recent redistricting adding even more Democratic votes into this district and the overall trend line in Fairfax County, the 43rd district should be in Democratic hands for a least another few decades or at least until the political winds have a dramatic shift.

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 #15- Todd Gilbert (Idaho)
House District #16- Don Merricks (Mississippi) 
House District #17- Chris Head (Tennessee)
House District #18- Michael Webert (South Dakota)
House District #19- Lacey Putney (West Virginia)
House District #20- Dickie Bell (Texas)
House District #22- Kathy Byron (Kentucky)
House District #23- Scott Garrett (Idaho)
House District #24- Ben Cline (Arkansas)
House District #25- Steve Landes (Kentucky)
House District #26- Tony Wilt (Mississippi)
House District #28- Bill Howell (Florida)
House District #29- Bev Sherwood (Tennessee)
House District #30- Ed Scott (Montana)
House District #31- Scott Lingamfelter (Minnesota)
House District #32- Tag Greason (New Hampshire)
House District #33- Joe May (Alaska)
House District #36- Ken Plum (Rhode Island)
House District #37- David Bulova (Massachusetts)
House District #40- Tim Hugo (North Carolina)
House District #41- Eileen Filler-Corn (New Jersey)
House District #42- Dave Albo (Nevada)
House District #44- Scott Surovell (Rhode Island)
House District #50- Jackson Miller (Michigan)
House District #51- Rich Anderson (Ohio)
House District #52- Luke Torian (Hawaii)
House District #57- David Toscano (Hawaii)
House District #58- Rob Bell (Texas)
House District #59- Matt Fariss (South Dakota)
House District #60- James Edmunds (North Carolina)
House District #67- Jim LeMunyon (Michigan)
House District #86- Tom Rust (Massachusetts)
House District #87- David Ramadan (Washington)