After a big game, there’s usually some reporter who shoves a microphone in front of the star player and asks: “So, how did you win?”
I wonder how many are tempted to answer: “Well, probably because we got more points than they did.”
Politics is a lot like sports. In the aftermath of Tuesday’s primaries, we’re asking: “So, how did these candidates win?” The easy answer is: “Well, they got more votes.” Let’s dig a bit deeper, though, to see how some of these candidates got the most votes.
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Senate District 11 Democratic primary: Rural voters save Deeds
On a night where four other Democratic senators were falling to more liberal challengers, state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, proved the exception, although he did have a close call against Del. Sally Hudson, D-Charlottesville.
The current tally shows Deeds up by 553 votes, while we await late-arriving mail ballots. That’s close but outside the margin for a recount. He took 51.45% of the vote to Hudson’s 48.55%.
How did he prevail? He rolled up the vote in the district’s small, rural counties: Amherst, Louisa and Nelson.
Hudson’s goal was to run up the vote in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. That’s where the vast majority of voters were, especially the district’s Democratic voters. She discounted the impact of the small, rural localities in the district. Deeds’ goal was to run up the vote there, and then hope he could win Albemarle County by enough to balance out her margins in Charlottesville.
That’s exactly what happened.
Hudson won Charlottesville by 1,246 votes; Deeds won Albemarle by 1,096. If those two localities alone had been the district, she’d have won by 150 votes. Deeds made up that margin in those rural areas. The total vote tallies were small, but margins add up. He took Nelson County with just under 60% of the vote — and a 275-vote margin. He took Louisa County with exactly 60% of the vote — and a 146-vote margin. And he took Amherst County with 65% of the vote — and a 282-vote margin. Those rural margins wouldn’t have mattered if Deeds hadn’t run so well in Albemarle (where he took 53.5% of the vote), but running well in Albemarle alone wasn’t enough for him to win.
There might be lots of lessons here that we can debate: Maybe Hudson was too far left for some voters. Maybe some voters were persuaded by Deeds’ seniority. Maybe Hudson waited too late to hammer Deeds’ record on guns, which was probably a more comfortable fit for his former home in Bath County than his new one in a college town. Maybe Deeds wasn’t as vulnerable on guns as Hudson thought.
Geographically, though, there’s this lesson: This is what happens when liberal Democrats can’t appeal to rural voters, even rural Democrats. You’ll notice from the precinct map above compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project how concentrated Hudson’s vote is around Charlottesville; she didn’t fare well in the more rural parts of Albemarle. In 13 Albemarle precincts, Deeds took more than 60% of the vote, topping out at 68.5% in the East Ivy precinct. There aren’t many Democratic votes to be had in some of those precincts but the margins do add up.
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Senate District 4 Democratic primary: White-Boyd’s victory was broad but potentially shallow
Roanoke City Council member Trish White-Boyd won what appears a convincing victory over fellow council member Luke Priddy and newcomer DeAnthony “DA” Pierce. She won every locality in the district to finish with 57% of the vote, to just under 38% for Priddy and 5% for Pierce.
Not surprisingly, White-Boyd ran exceptionally well in Roanoke’s Black precincts — 90% in Eureka Park and 89.5% in Lincoln Terrace, for instance — but she also posted strong numbers in some majority white, blue-collar precincts, such as 64% in Williamson Road and 59% in Preston Park. In the Roanoke County portion of the district, she won both some of the most suburban precincts (58% in Windsor Hills) and some of the most rural ones (61% in Bent Mountain). This was a broad-based win.
The question going forward is: How deep is it?
What’s notable here is how few votes overall were cast: 7,082. That’s the lowest vote total in any of Tuesday’s Democratic Senate primaries. The Deeds-Hudson primary generated 26,027 voters. Granted, that was an epic battle that produced the highest turnout in the state. Still, no other Democratic Senate primary in the state involved fewer than 10,000 voters (the next lowest was 10,371 in Senate District 27 in the Fredericksburg area). It’s not as if this is a weak Democratic district. The district tilts Republican, based on previous elections, but not overwhelmingly so. It’s generally rated as a 52% to 54% Republican district. For whatever reason, this primary just didn’t generate the enthusiasm we saw in other districts (that Fredericksburg district has about the same voting history).
Politically speaking, White-Boyd seemed to leave a lot of votes on the table. She polled 2,411 votes in Roanoke on Tuesday; that’s less than the 3,487 she received when she lost a city council race in May 2016 — and a lot less than the 21,892 she received when she led the balloting in a city council race in November 2020. She will need to figure out how to generate a lot more enthusiasm as she heads into a fall campaign against a well-funded incumbent, state Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County. Given the political lay of the land in that district, she will need to run up a big margin in the city to overcome his advantages in the more Republican-voting parts of the district.
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House District 47 Republican primary: Williams outpolls March (and lots of others around the state)
Our long-awaited Blue Ridge Cage Match between two Republican incumbents paired in the same district didn’t turn out to be much of a match. Del. Wren Williams of Patrick County took just a few decimal points short of 67% of the vote to 33% for Del. Marie March of Floyd County. One of the factors in this reshaped district was that most of the voters were new to both candidates, with more being new to March than Williams. The biggest locality of all was new to both: Carroll County. Local Republican primaries in Carroll also drove up the vote there, accentuating the county’s importance. Carroll, though, didn’t turn out to be much of a contest: Williams took just under 62% of the vote there. The only place he lost was March’s home county of Floyd, but he won his home county with a much bigger share of the vote than she did hers — he took 88% in Patrick, she took 63% in Floyd. For good measure, he also took 87% in a portion of Henry County, which he’s represented in the House. Outside Floyd County, March won just a single precinct: Fancy Gap in Carroll County.
Of note: This race produced more voters than any other Republican House primary in the state — 9,099 — and the third highest overall. Only two Democratic primaries in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area involved more: 11,654 in the Albemarle-centered House District 55 won by Amy Laufer and 12,154 in the Charlottesville-Albemarle House District 54 won by Katrina Callsen.
Not to belabor the point, but all those House districts turned out more voters than the Democratic Senate primary in the Roanoke Valley did, even though Senate districts are, by definition, bigger.
In winning his primary, Williams polled more votes (6,634) than any other House Republican candidate in the state on Tuesday, and also more than all but one Democrat — Laufer took 8,118 in her victory. In fact, Williams even took more votes than some winning Senate candidates. That’s a long way of saying that, statistically speaking, Williams’ victory was impressive. Based on these vote totals, he can legitimately claim to be the most popular delegate in the state, other than all the delegates who were unopposed.
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House District 39 Republican primary: Davis wins almost everywhere
In a battle of Franklin County candidates, Will Davis carried all three precincts over Ron Jefferson, and those three were in Roanoke County. Davis took 83% in Franklin County, 60% in Roanoke County.
Two of the three precincts Jefferson took were around Vinton — North Lindenwood and South Lindenwood — plus Bonsack.
In five precincts in Franklin County, Davis’ vote topped 91%, with Rocky Mount East coming in at 91.88%.
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Senate District 17: Brewer’s base was bigger than Sadler’s. Also, Isle of Wight loves her.
There was a clear geographic split in this district, which the precinct map below from the Virginia Public Access Project makes clear. Del. Emily Brewer, R-Suffolk, won almost everything in the east, while Hermie Sadler of Emporia won almost everything in the west. The problem for Sadler: That more suburban eastern end of the district had more voters than the rural, western end.
Brewer took 58.8% of the vote for an overall margin of 2,835 votes. About half that margin came from Suffolk; she won her home city with 62% and a margin of 1,439 votes.
The key to Brewer’s victory, though, was two rural counties: Isle of Wight and Southampton. Based on geography and their rural nature, both might have been expected to go for Sadler. Instead they went to Brewer, Isle of Wight especially so. Both are localities that she’s represented in the House, which no doubt gave her an advantage there. She took 58% of the vote in Southampton County for a margin of 293. But in Isle of Wight, she rolled up 79.5% of the vote — and a margin of 2,302 votes. Put another way, 81% of her winning margin came from Isle of Wight. That’s what turned a close race into a not-so-close race.
Those were the primaries we at Cardinal covered most in-depth but I’ll throw in two bonus races.
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Senate District 13 Democratic primary: Aird swamps Morrissey; his vote total drops
Former Del. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg, rolled up a big win over state Sen. Joe Morrissey, D-Richmond, taking 69% of the vote. She won every locality, with her weakest one being Dinwiddie County — weakest being a relative term, since she took 58.8% of the vote there. Her strongest was Surry County, where she took 84% of the vote.
There had been some pre-primary chatter (to which I contributed) that a strong early vote in this district meant that Morrissey, if he were to win, would have to do so in a higher turnout environment than he’s faced in previous primaries.
It turns out that wasn’t a factor. Morrissey didn’t lose because he had trouble expanding his base; he lost partly because he couldn’t even match the vote totals he had four years ago. Then he polled 8,741 votes in his primary win; this time his vote total dropped to 6,456. And then Aird racked up 14,605. Only one other Senate candidate in the state received more votes on Tuesday: State Sen. Barbara Favola, D-Arlington, took 20,658 in a landslide victory where she won nearly 84% of the vote.
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Senate District 18 Democratic primary: Portsmouth turns out big for Louise Lucas
Here’s how state Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, defeated state Sen. Lionel Spruill, D-Chesapeake, after they were paired together in a single district: Her hometown liked her more than Spruill’s hometown liked him. Chesapeake accounts for two-thirds of that district, which would seem to have given him an advantage, but Spruill didn’t maximize that.
He won Chesapeake with 54% of the vote and an 803-vote margin. But Lucas took almost 62% in Portsmouth, for a 1,897-vote margin.
Portsmouth also had a higher turnout than Chesapeake did. Even though Portsmouth accounted for 36% of the voters on the rolls in that district, they accounted for almost 45% of the ones who actually voted on Tuesday.
That was the end of the story for Spruill — and also for us today.
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For more election coverage:
House primaries: Del. Williams ousts Del. March; Davis cruises past Jefferson
Senate primaries: Sen. Deeds holds small lead over Del. Hudson; Del. Sadler and White-Boyd win
Local primaries: Incumbents lose in Roanoke County, Botetourt County and Buchanan County
Opinion: Republicans pull back from the brink while Democrats edge further left
Election night analysis: Five incumbents lose, including Senate Finance co-chair Barker