CNalysis Newsletter - April 15th, 2021
New podcasts with 2021 VA candidates, Virginia House rating changes coming Saturday, hyperdetailed interactive map coming out this weekend
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Welcome to the CNalysis regular newsletter. Every two weeks, you will get the latest in state legislative politics as well as our forecasts and other work.
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Virginia House Rating Changes to be Made in CNalysis Forecast Saturday
Today, campaign finance reports will start to trickle in for Q1 here in Virginia, covering January 1st to March 31st. We are expecting to make rating changes on Saturday thanks to this data, though we obviously do not know how many changes will be made. We already know that we will be making at least one in HD-66, though that is due to Sheila Bynum-Coleman dropping out of the race.
It’s also likely that we will be changing HD-21 from Lean Democratic to Tilt Democratic thanks to the Republicans recruiting a very strong candidate in this seat with demographic groups that swung rightward in 2020, though we want to see the financial numbers here first: if the GOP candidate, Tanya Gould, underperforms expectations, we will likely keep it in the Lean Democratic column.
Enough data should be in by Saturday for us to make rating changes. You can check our homepage that day for the article we’ll put out on what the rating changes are, and how our forecast odds have changed.
Saturday should be enough time for campaign finance data in competitive races to roll in on VPAP, which we will be using to analyze the data. If there are holdouts that produce data that require a rating change, we will update the article.
CNalysis to Release Interactive Map of 2020 Presidential Election by State Legislative District & Most Recent State Legislative Election Result this Weekend
Coming out as soon as Friday night, CNalysis will be releasing an interactive map that shows the 2020 presidential election in state legislative districts across the country. This is by far the biggest project we have worked on so far. We have calculations from 35/50 states so far and plan on trying to get every single state in before every state finishes its redistricting process.
Not only will this map have the presidential results by state legislative district, but you will also be able to see the most recent state legislative election result in each district, as well as being to compare and contrast state legislative candidates to their respective party’s presidential nominee performance. A loyalty map showing the districts’ incumbent party and how the district voted in 2020 will also be included.
Electoral data savants across “Election Twitter” have pitched in and provided their calculations for the map outside of states that do not already calculate this data themselves, such as Montana. In the legend on the top left of the map, you will be able to see who calculated the data.
For the election result data itself in these down-ballot races, we will have over 30 states by the time the map is released and will continue to enter the data as quickly as our volunteers for this project are able to. If you have experience in Google Sheets/Microsoft Excel as well as pulling election data and are interested in helping out to collect state legislative election data for this project, please contact us.
The map, once up, will appear on our Maps page. Below is a preview of just one of the many layers on the map viewers will be able to look at (it is also the only layer that does not use percentages), showing party loyalty (districts with incumbent party vs. how the district voted in the 2020 presidential election) in the lower state legislative chambers. This one is my personal favorite.
Our goal with this map is to help educate the public on the uniqueness of state legislatures compared to congressional elections (ticket-splitting is far more common on this level); we also hope it can be a useful guide for comparing upcoming maps in the redistricting process as states either undo gerrymanders or, unfortunately, draw new ones. Make sure you share it with your friends and family who may find this interesting once it comes out! Any time we get new data entered on the map, we will announce it on our Twitter, which you should follow if you aren’t already!
Our Latest Work
cinyc9: 2021 Virginia General Assembly Endorsements (regularly updating)
Charles Nuttycombe: Virginia Democrats Go Head-to-Head in Gubernatorial Debate
Podcast: Chaz’s Thoughts: The First Democratic Gubernatorial Debate
The Latest in State Legislative Politics
Marijuana will be legal in Virginia on July 1, years earlier than planned - Daily Press
‘Overtly racist and deeply offensive’: SC state rep. calls for colleague’s resignation (wistv.com)
Sheila Bynum-Coleman does not turn in signatures for VA HD-66 bid, endorses Katie Sponsler
Republicans overperform in New Hampshire House special election and Connecticut House special election