Two Weeks Out Summary: Democrats becoming better positioned in suburbs, but weaken in Southside
Could low black turnout in Southside cost Democrats the House majority?
This morning I’m making 4 rating changes to the CNalysis state legislative forecast here in Virginia. Three of them are in the House and one is in the Senate, with two favoring Republicans and two favoring Democrats.
HD-84 | Likely D → Lean D
HD-97 | Toss-Up → Tilt D
HD-65 | Tilt D → Lean D
SD-12 | Very Likely R → Solid R
The change in the State Senate isn’t really that important, there was always a strong argument for the 12th remaining in the Solid Republican column given the district’s strong Republican partisanship and Democrats not putting in an effort here. I’m not able to publicly disclose why I made this change, but it was out of precaution at the time. But I will not have an issue with calling this race once the polls close - it could quite likely be a single-digit race, but at this point, the odds of Glen Sturtevant somehow losing the 12th are definitely below 5%, our threshold for a Very Likely Republican rating.
The most important changes are the ones in the House of Delegates, 2 favor Democrats and 1 favor Republicans. Both of the changes favoring Democrats are in races that have been pretty close throughout the year in the suburbs, and the one change favoring Republicans is in Southside.
So let’s get into why I decided to make these changes, some of which are arguably bold with two weeks to go.