A fourth Democrat jumped into the contest for the party’s nomination for the 6th Congressional District on Monday: former Clarke County Del. Wendy Gooditis.
With former Federal Emergency Management Administration official Pete Barlow of Augusta County, Roanoke author Beth Macy and retired military officer Ken Mitchell of Rockingham County already in the race, this may set a record for the number of Democrats seeking the nomination in the state’s second-most Republican congressional district.
Gooditis’ entry into the race likely has nothing to do with the 6th District as it’s currently configured, though. She is almost certainly looking ahead to what districts will look like if Virginia Democrats succeed in redrawing congressional districts mid-cycle to produce a more favorable political map for the November midterms.
In a bid to counter similar gerrymandering in Republican states, Virginia Democrats — led by state Sen. Louise Lucas of Portsmouth — have increasingly been pushing for maps that would guarantee 10 Democratic seats, with Rep. Morgan Griffith of Salem left as the lone Republican. (The state’s congressional delegation is currently six Democrats, five Republicans, so a 10-1 map would represent a pickup of four seats simply through cartography.)
Punchbowl News reported last week that the National Democratic Redistricting Committee had drawn up two maps to show the state’s Democratic House members: a 10-1 map and a 9-2 map that would spare both Griffith and Rep. Ben Cline of Botetourt County, who currently represents the 6th District. Those maps haven’t been publicly disclosed, but Punchbowl reported that the 10-1 map “creates a new deep-blue seat that snakes from the DC suburbs across the state to the Shenandoah Valley.”
That squares with unofficial maps floating around. The only realistic way to draw a 10-1 map is to a) combine Roanoke and Charlottesville and b) “bury” the Republican strongholds of the Shenandoah Valley in elongated districts where the weight of the population is really in Democratic-voting Northern Virginia. Here are some examples:
A possible 10 – 1 congressional map. Shared on X by a user known only as “IISheldonII,” who lists Richmond as his address. 
Another possible 10-1 map widely shared online. This version is shared by Virginia Beach Republican Tim Anderson. 
A possible congressional map that shows just one Republican congressioal district. Widely shared online but orgin unknown. 
This map shows just one Republican congressional district in Virginia. Courtesy of Rep. Morgan Griffith.
This is likely what Gooditis is anticipating. While her campaign announcement twice referenced Cline, she’s probably looking several chess moves ahead — to a Democratic-leaning open seat that includes her home in Clarke County.
That’s not a bad bet. If so, Gooditis would be the second to make a move with new districts in mind. Earlier, Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, said he might run if districts are redrawn. The trick here might be whether there’s a Democratic district emanating out of Northern Virginia that can be drawn that brings in Gooditits’ home in Clarke County but doesn’t include the Loudoun County home of Suhas Subramanyam, the current Democratic incumbent in the 10th District. All the unofficial maps I showed above would put them in the same district. If Gooditis is really anticipating a newly shaped 10th District that would favor her over Subramanyam, or at least gives him a lot of new constituents that would force him to start from scratch, that’s really some high-level political chess.
If Virginia winds up with a 9-2 map where the 6th District looks much as it does now, or somehow winds up keeping the current maps (a possibility if courts intervene or voters reject the proposed constitutional amendment that would allow this redistricting), then how should we assess Gooditis’ chances?
The northern end of the Shenandoah Valley (Clarke County, Frederick County and Winchester) may be fast-growing, but it doesn’t have the same electoral weight as the Roanoke Valley (Macy’s home) or the central Shenandoah Valley (where Barlow and Mitchell are from).
Gooditis launched with a list of endorsements from fellow Democrats, but the biggest names were all from Northern Virginia: former U.S. Rep. Jennifer Wexton, former House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, sitting state legislators Adam Ebbin, Paul Krizek and Dave Marsden. Those names might be significant in a future Northern Virginia-based district, but they won’t hold much sway in, say, Alleghany County. Indeed, all those worthies are from outside the 6th District. Nonetheless, her announcement video plays up her rural roots and shows off a picture of her as a child riding a horse: “Once again, people say we can’t win in rural Virginia but I grew up a country girl, raised my family here, was a public school teacher here.”
Gooditis’ bid makes perfect sense with a new map; less so with the current one, especially since there are already candidates from more populous parts of the district. I wrote Monday about how a 10-1 map would almost certainly force Democrats from Roanoke to Charlottesville to choose between two prodigious fundraisers: Macy and former Rep. Tom Perriello. Now Gooditis enters the race, running in one district but likely with her eye on another that doesn’t even exist yet.
All this just shows how much things are in flux, given Virginia’s uncertain political map. I suspect this is not the end of the maneuvering we’ll see.
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