Here’s one caution to keep in mind before you read today’s column: Geography doesn’t vote, people do.
That’s important because today we’re going to be talking about a map. Maps have a lot of utility: They can help us visualize things that are difficult to describe. But when it comes to politics, they can sometimes distort reality.
After a statewide election, we often see maps of Virginia that are colored mostly red for Republicans when the Democrats in blue actually won (2021 being a notable exception, of course). That, of course, is because there are a lot of people squeezed into a small place.
Fun fact: Henry County is about the same size as Fairfax County, geographically speaking — 382 square miles for Henry, just under 391 for Fairfax. Fairfax, though, has 22.5 times more people than Henry.
Another fun fact: Highland County is slightly larger than Fairfax County, geographically — 415 square miles for Highland to that near-391 figure for Fairfax. Fairfax, though, has 515 times more people than Highland.
That blue dot for Fairfax counts a whole lot more than the red one for Highland.
With that long caveat, we’re about to look at a map — a map I’d never seen before until I created it.
This map shows which localities are represented in the General Assembly by legislators from a single party — and which ones are represented by legislators from different parties.
Before we talk about what this might mean, let’s first explain the different ways in which these splits might happen.
In some cases, this happens because there’s a House member of one party and a senator of another. That’s the case in Roanoke, where Democrat Sam Rasoul represents a House district that consists of most of the city, which votes strongly blue. Senate districts are bigger, though, so all those blue precincts in Roanoke are part of a larger Senate district that trends red — and in November that district was won by state Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County.
We have a similar situation in Amherst and Nelson counties. All of Amherst and part of Nelson is in a strongly Republican House district that elected Republican Tim Griffin. Those two counties are also part of a state Senate district that includes strongly Democratic (and much more populous) Charlottesville and Albemarle County. That Senate district elected Democrat Creigh Deeds.
Note that Nelson is split between two House districts, one of which went Republican (for the aforementioned Griffin), the other of which went Democratic (for Amy Laufer of Albemarle). My mapping software only allows me to color in whole localities, not pieces of them, so Nelson gets colored purple, even though only part of the county is purple while another part is all blue. That comes into a play a lot in Hampton Roads. Norfolk and Portsmouth are both quite Democratic but get colored purple because small pieces of those localities are in districts represented by Republicans. Likewise, Loudoun County is included in seven different districts: two Senate districts, five House districts. It’s represented by six Democrats and one Republican, so while Loudoun is purple, it’s a very blue shade of purple. On the other hand, if you’re a local government or some other countywide or citywide organization that wants something in Richmond, it means you need to talk to legislators from both parties.
Despite all those imperfections, the result is a map that shows three things pretty clearly:
1. Most of the state’s localities are represented entirely by Republicans.
2. While Democrats now control both chambers of the General Assembly, there are only a handful of localities that are represented completely by Democrats — although most of those are quite populous localities, such as Fairfax County. If you’re counting, there are just 11 completely blue localities: Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax city, Fairfax County, Manassas and Manassas Park in Northern Virginia; Charlottesville and Albemarle County; and then Richmond and Charles City County.
3. Most of the localities that have split representation are in the urban crescent.
Viewed like this, it’s another way of understanding why most of the closely contested races in the past election were in the urban crescent: That’s where we find localities that are more closely divided along partisan lines.
In some ways, it’s a definite advantage for a locality to be in the purple category: No matter which party is in power, that locality has someone in Richmond in the majority. Those that are either all-red or all-blue run the risk of being shut out if the other party is in the majority. When Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the governorship for the last two years of Ralph Northam’s administration, most rural localities were locked out of power because they tend to vote overwhelmingly Republican. They’re a little less locked out now because there’s still a Republican governor, who was elected on the strength of a strong rural turnout. However, if you represent some interest group in one of those red counties, the hard reality is that now you don’t have a legislator in the majority party you can go to.
If a closely divided locality has legislators from both parties, well, that’s to be expected. On the other hand, I’m always intrigued by “trapped” populations, where an area dominated by one party is stuck in a district that votes overwhelmingly the other way. I wrote about that last year in a different way, pointing out that Democratic Blacksburg is “trapped” in a Republican-voting state Senate district that runs to Tazewell County, while Republican-voting precincts in Roanoke are “trapped” in a House district that’s otherwise strongly Democratic.
This map helps us visualize “trapped” populations in a different way, although it takes a little understanding of Virginia political history to read the map. Let’s look at Amherst County. This is a county that voted 68% for Republican state Senate candidate Philip Hamilton and 69% for Republican House candidate Griffin. Those Amherst voters will get their way with Griffin; they didn’t with Hamilton. Deeds won that Senate district, so Amherst is now represented by this political odd couple: a freshman Republican in the House and a senior Democrat in the Senate. If there are groups in Amherst that hold the traditional “meet the legislators” events, they will get two very different accounts of what’s going on in Richmond. One example: Griffin wants to do let Virginians carry concealed handgun without a permit; Deeds wants to restrict ammunition for assault weapons. That’s the most unusual imbalance I spotted in this analysis, although at some level, any locality with both Democratic and Republican legislators will have some sort of odd couple pairing.
For the legislators who find themselves in these situations, I gently offer some advice: Look at how the Roanoke Valley legislators comport themselves. They come from different parties but they also get along. Yes, they will vote different ways on bills of an ideological or partisan nature — that’s to be expected. News flash: Most bills in Richmond aren’t ideological or partisan. They are often quite technical and whatever disagreements there might be split in a myriad of other ways. One of those ways is regional, and this is where there are opportunities for legislators to work across party lines. In last year’s session, Rasoul lined up support from other legislators in this part of Virginia — Republicans — for his proposal to use Catawba Hospital in Roanoke County as a recovery center for substance use disorder. These legislators have figured out ways to work together on the things they can agree on.
I still remember the sight I saw a few years ago when the Senate Finance Committee met in Roanoke. The meeting room at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center was packed. I noticed Del. Joe McNamara, R-Roanoke County, sitting in the front row. He had saved the seat beside him. Later, I saw who it was for: Rasoul.
They come from two very different points of view and cancel out each other’s votes on all those ideological or partisan bills — but for other things, they’d figured out a way to work together.
That may make some partisans see red, or feel blue, but sometimes the most important color is purple.