For those of us who follow politics like sports, Christmas has come early.
This past week has brought us news almost every day, much like all those squawking birds in “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
Here’s a quick recap of all our gifts, news-wise:
1. Democratic leaders in the General Assembly made it clear they’re seriously looking at drawing new congressional maps — gerrymandering is another good word — that eliminate all but one Republican House seat. That would leave Virginia with a congressional delegation of 10 Democrats, one Republican. I wrote a column earlier this week about how the key to a 10-1 map is where Roanoke winds up. A 9-2 map would put Roanoke in either a Republican-dominated 6th or 9th district; a 10-1 map would likely draw it into an elongated district that connects blue islands in Radford, Blacksburg, Charlottesville and possibly Harrisonburg.
2. In anticipation of that, Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, said Sundayhe will form an exploratory committee to look at a congressional run depending on what new districts look like. That could potentially pit him against Roanoke author Beth Macy, who has already announced a congressional bid in the current 6th District and gotten off to a fast start by raising almost as much money in one day as the Republican incumbent, Ben Cline, had in the bank at the last campaign finance report. New maps could also potentially put both Macy and Rasoul into competition with some of the already announced 5th District Democrats, three of whom live in Albemarle County and Charlottesville.
3. On Tuesday, a big-name Democrat from Albemarle County announcedhe’s running in the 5th, as presently drawn: former. Rep. Tom Perriello, who represented a differently configured 5th District for a single term a decade and a half ago.
4. In response to Perriello’s entry into the race, one of the six Democrats seeking the party’s 5th District nomination immediately exited and endorsed Perriello. That was Lynchburg business owner Kate Zabriskie.
5. More 5th District action, or, perhaps, inaction: Former Republican Rep. Bob Good, ousted last year by John McGuire in a primary, said he’s waiting to see what districts look like before deciding whether to seek a rematch.
6. On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine endorsed Macy for the 6th District nomination, lending some establishment cred to her already well-funded campaign. “She might just be Virginia’s best listener,” he said.
7. Later Wednesday, two more 5th District Democrats dropped out of the race, with one of them endorsing Perriello, who sure seems to be consolidating support. “When I woke up yesterday morning, I believed that I was the best candidate to fight for and flip Virginia’s 5th District,” Adele Stichel said. “By last night, I knew that I would be ending my campaign to endorse Tom Perriello.” She added, “Why him and why now? Because, quite simply, this is not the time to [bleep] around.” (Her release included the [bleep].) In the evening, Paul Riley said he was suspending his campaign but did not include an endorsement.
If we were going by “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” we’d be up to the seven swans a-swimming — and have 77 birds in all, plus enough rings for every finger and half my toes (or maybe one in my nose and two in each ear). Let’s try to corral all these birds and make at least some temporary sense of what’s happening.
Democrats see an opportunity, even without redistricting
Congressional midterms generally favor the party out of power, so historically this has always been likely to be a Democratic year (which was what inspired Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional lines to create five new Republican seats, a gerrymandering process that has now spun out of control and may not wind up benefiting Republicans after all).
Democrats are so fired up that we’re seeing an unusual number of candidates, even in strongly Republican districts.
With Perriello’s entry, and the exit of Riley, Stitchel and Zabriskie, there are now four candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in the 5th. I have a hard time seeing all four make it to a primary (if we have one; more on that to come). However, in the whole history of the 5th District going back to 1789, there have only been two Democratic primaries, according to the Virginia Department of Elections. Those were in 2020, when there were four candidates, and 2024, when there were three.
In six of the past 24 elections in the 6th District, there were no Democrats on the ballot. In other years, when there was a Democratic nominee, there was no real contest for the nomination. Now there are three candidates seeking the nomination in the district as currently drawn: Macy, Pete Barlow and Ken Mitchell. For now, I’m putting Rasoul in a separate category since he’s looking at what a different district might look like.
In the 9th District, the state’s most Republican congressional district, the Democratic nomination has been so lightly valued that only once has there been a Democratic primary. The party’s usually been relieved if anyone stepped forward. At the moment, there are two candidates in the mix: Adam Murphy of Roanoke County and Joy Powers of Bedford County. (Fun fact: If nominated, she’d be the first candidate from east of the Blue Ridge to run in the 9th District since it was drawn as a Southwest Virginia district after the Civil War).
Congressional midterms are usually pro forma affairs on this side of the state, given how bright red our districts are. All the action is elsewhere. I can’t speak to next year’s results — I laid out the math Tuesday that shows how hard it is for Democrats to win in some of these districts even in a good year — but the activity we’re seeing is unprecedented.
A 10-1 map is a real possibility
There are no official maps yet, but lots of unofficial ones are floating around the internet; with the right software, they’re easy to draw. I showed off some of the 10-1 maps in Monday’s column. Since then, I’ve come across two others, shown above. The bottom one is unusual because it gets to 10-1 without drawing Roanoke in with Charlottesville. I wouldn’t bet on this version; it just seems too crazy — but once we abandon geographical compactness and aim for partisan advantage, anything is possible.
The key thing to know for now is that the prospect of a 10-1 map has emboldened Rasoul — and could embolden others.
Contrary to popular belief, I don’t spend all day trolling Twitter/X (actually, I rarely go there). So let’s crowdsource this: If you see a proposed redistricting map I haven’t shown yet, please send it my way at dwayne@cardinalnews.org.
Perriello is a strong candidate for the 5th District Democratic nomination
This is just stating the obvious: Any time a former member of Congress enters the race, he or she should be taken seriously unless there’s evidence to the contrary — and there’s none here. Perriello was popular among 5th District Democrats when he served. When he made a fairly late bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2017, he lost statewide but ran exceptionally well in his former congressional district. He topped 70% of the vote in most of the counties, hitting 80.3% in Charlottesville, 83.4% in Pittsylvania County and 88.3% in Danville. Perriello was exceptionally popular among Democrats in his old congressional district, even when the choice was the sitting lieutenant governor.
Perriello begins with such a strong advantage that three candidates exited the race almost immediately. None of the remaining Democratic contenders for the 5th District is well-known outside Albemarle and Charlottesville; two have been so silent they’ve barely made a peep. The third, Albemarle Supervisor Mike Pruitt, has been active at announcing endorsements, but they’ve largely been concentrated on his home turf. Perriello begins with district-wide contacts and name recognition. On Tuesday, Pruitt tweeted: “I didn’t get into this race because it would be easy.” That prompted longtime Democratic strategist Ben Tribbett to post: “Why does it take these guys so long to figure out when the campaign is over?” Translation: Perriello’s got this.
Because of his prior time in Congress, and his service as a diplomat in the Obama and Biden administrations, we should assume that Perriello would have national contacts for fundraising that the other candidates simply don’t have. Perriello might even be able to persuade the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to do something it hasn’t done: designate the 5th as a targeted district. When Zabriskie called me to say she was dropping out because she felt Perriello had a clear path to victory, I told her I couldn’t argue with her math.
The 5th District math is still challenging for Democrats in a general election
Now, for more math that Democrats may not like so much. Fifth District Democrats remember Perriello fondly, but come next year, it will be 18 years since he won that upset race in 2008.
The district has also changed shape several times since then. Gone are two localities he carried — Brunswick County and Martinsville. Added are a bunch of Republican-voting counties: Amelia, Goochland, Louisa, Nottoway, Powhatan and part of Hanover. The district is more Republican than the one he won with just 50.1% of the vote in a presidential year where Barack Obama helped drive the Democratic turnout.
The Democratic vote in many of the 5th District counties has also shrunk over the years, while the Republican vote has grown. In 2008, Perriello won 4,562 votes in Nelson County — and carried the county. Last year, Kamala Harris won 4,298 votes in Nelson — and lost the county.
Perriello also carried Buckingham County, with 3,446 votes. Last year, Harris took 2,988 votes in Buckingham and lost the county.
The figures are even worse (for Democrats) in counties Perriello didn’t win in 2008. That year, he picked up 11,025 votes in Pittsylvania. Last year, Harris managed only 9,599.
Democrats would be mistaken to think that just because Perriello won before, that he will win again — it’s a very different district, politically speaking. If he’s the nominee, he will have to win back a lot of voters who have abandoned his party in the years since.
Good and Rasoul need different redistricting outcomes
Both say they’re waiting to see if the maps change, but for different reasons. Rasoul needs new maps; Good needs the current one. If Democrats succeed in redrawing the lines, they’ll make the 5th into a Democratic district that may look nothing like the one now. Good might be able to win a Republican nomination in one of those configurations, but the whole point of new lines is to make it harder for Republicans to win. His best chance is if the lines stay the same as they are now and he’s able to do in 2026 what he couldn’t do in 2024: defeat McGuire.
In Good’s case, he has a network of supporters he can likely activate if he decides to mount a campaign, so I understand why he wants to wait. In Rasoul’s case, though, I do wonder whether waiting makes sense. Party activists are making commitments now; people in politics like to choose a side. Will he wait so long that he’ll be boxed out by other candidates? Conversely, if you’re a Democratic activist, do you like Rasoul so much that you wait it out to see what the field actually looks like?
Kaine just gave Macy a big boost in the 6th District nomination contest
Macy had an impressive campaign kickoff (the crowd spilled out of Roanoke Fire Station No. 1 and into Century Plaza across the street) and made an impressive haul of money (more than $350,000 in the first 24 hours). However, I cautioned at the time: Roanoke is not the 6th District. People in Roanoke have an outsized notion of their importance in that district. I remember decades ago, when I was with The Roanoke Times, arguing with an editor who thought it was ridiculous that then-Rep. Jim Olin had sought a seat on the House Agriculture Committee. The editor didn’t see what good that did in Roanoke. I tried to explain to him that there were actually more voters in Augusta and Rockingham counties, which are very much agricultural counties. Olin understood the math. Back then, the district stopped in Rockingham. Now it includes all of the Shenandoah Valley, making it even more rural — and more Republican. The most populous locality in the 6th isn’t Roanoke, it’s Frederick County, around Winchester.
Macy may be a celebrity in Roanoke — and nationwide — but that may not automatically translate across the 6th District. In fact, it might actually hurt. I speak now as someone who grew up in Rockingham County: Macy can talk up her blue-collar roots in Ohio all she wants, but if people see her as a city slicker celebrity, she’s in trouble (and in the context of the rural parts of the 6th District, Roanoke is both a big city and also very far away). Kaine’s endorsement goes a long way toward giving her backroad credibility (the rural version of street credibility) with Democrats across the 6th District: “Much of our present political divide stems from a simple fact of human nature — people don’t feel listened to. And when they don’t, they often turn against their leaders and each other,” Kaine said in a statement. “I’ve known Beth Macy for a long time and, while all admire her pathbreaking writing, I think she might just be Virginia’s best listener. She hears the stories behind the stories, the people behind the headlines and the communities behind the statistics.”
Now, for the caution: That applies only to the Democratic nomination. A general election in the 6th District, our second-most Republican congressional district, is quite a different matter. We need to remember that Kaine didn’t carry the 6th District even against Republican Hung Cao, who spent part of his campaign dismissing the rural communities he needed. Also, even in this year’s Democratic landslide in the governor’s race, the Republican candidate still won 58% of the vote in the 6th District, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. The incumbent, Republican Ben Cline, has never won less than 60% of the vote. Last year, he won 63%.
Much of this won’t matter if we have new districts
Let’s assume Virginians vote for new lines (i.e., a vote for Democratic gerrymandering) in the spring special election, something we’ve never had before for a constitutional amendment. And let’s assume the courts don’t find reason to strike down the new maps that come from that. In that case, we’ll probably have a 10-1 map that draws Roanoke into a Democratic-leaning district with Charlottesville.
Suddenly, Perriello and Macy are in the same district — and Rasoul would be in a district more to his liking. We might have other candidates in that mix, too — remember those other Democratic contenders from Albemarle and Charlottesville. Who has the advantage then? As I’ve noted before, there are a lot more Democratic voters in Albemarle and Charlottesville than there are in the Roanoke Valley, so the initial advantage would go to the candidate strongest on that side of the Blue Ridge. Beyond that, all I can say for sure is that would be a spectacular primary — if there’s a primary.
The push for redistricting runs up against the state’s election calendar. Candidates are allowed to start circulating petitions Jan. 1 to get on the ballot, but they might be collecting signatures in districts that won’t exist. That’s just one of many procedural complications, but let’s skip over that. The real complication is that state law calls for primaries in June, specifically the third Tuesday in June (that would be June 16). State law also calls for 45 days of early voting — which means a May 1 start date. There may not be enough time to hold a referendum for a constitutional amendment, certify those results, enact new maps and then hold a primary, especially if candidates don’t know until April or even May what those new maps are. There are ways to sweep away these requirements, but the easiest is to simply not hold state-run primaries for congressional nominations. Instead, parties could be allowed to use party-run “firehouse primaries” — the same process Democrats are using now to pick nominees in some special elections for the General Assembly in the Richmond area.
These events, formally known as an “unassembled caucus,” put a premium on organizational ability. At some point, all campaigns are an organizational test, but a low-turnout firehouse primary is even more so. In 2016, Roanoke Democrats held a firehouse primary to pick a nominee for mayor. There were two evenly matched candidates, but one had an advantage: buses. The lines to vote were hours long; it was an organizational embarrassment. Many of David Trinkle’s supporters melted away because the lines were so long. Sherman Lea’s didn’t — because Lea’s campaign had bused them in and those Lea supporters couldn’t leave until the buses did.
That’s an event I lived through, but I’ve heard many similar stories over the years. One former General Assembly candidate told me he thought he had won his party’s nomination until the other side rolled up a fleet of buses from the local retirement home. The point is, firehouse primaries are open to all sorts of, umm, shall we say, innovation. The things that make someone a good candidate in an open primary may or may not transfer to a firehouse primary.
If you consider politics a fun sport to follow, this is going to be a fun year ahead. Now I’m just waiting for my eight maids a-milking to arrive, which I’m sure they will any time now. If only I had some cows.
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