Martinsville-Henry County will soon have a state legislator again. Here’s how the region’s politics have evolved.

When the General Assembly convenes Wednesday, it will have something it hasn’t had in more than a decade: a legislator from the Martinsville area.

Whether that legislator is Republican Eric Phillips of Henry County or Democrat Melody Cartwright — a matter that will be decided in Tuesday’s special election — is immaterial to this analysis. Either one would be the first legislator from Martinsville-Henry County since Del. Ward Armstrong and state Sen. Roscoe Reynolds, both D-Henry County, lost their reelection bids in 2011.

The return of a Martinsville-Henry County legislator to Richmond presents an opportunity to look at the political evolution of that part of the state. Two significant things stand out. First, for part of the 20th century, Martinsville-Henry County wielded a disproportionate political influence on the state, producing multiple statewide officeholders and speakers of the House. Second, Henry County was one of the last rural areas to realign from Democrats to Republicans, which raises the question of why Democrats were able to hold on so long there and whether there’s any residual Democratic strength left there that the party might someday resuscitate.

Before we look at the political history of the region, though, we must first look at the economic history, because the two go hand in hand. Here’s the main thing to know: In 1950, the Martinsville-Henry County area was the wealthiest part of Southside Virginia and one of the wealthiest in Virginia. Martinsville’s median household income of $2,517 put it ahead of every city in Hampton Roads (the most affluent was Newport News at $2,290) and just a few dollars behind Richmond at $2,555. Surrounding Henry County stood at $2,228, which made it more than twice as affluent as many rural counties in the state. Floyd County’s median was $980, Fluvanna County’s was $921. Cumberland County was the poorest county in the state at $886.

The reason for the 1950 affluence in Martinsville-Henry County was the region’s manufacturing base in textiles and furniture. Today that’s almost all gone, and instead of ranking near the top in the state, Martinsville-Henry County ranks near the bottom. I hate to use the word “poorest,” but today Martinsville ranks as one of the least affluent cities in the state, and Henry County’s median household income, instead of being the highest in Southside and one of the highest in the state, is now the lowest in Southside, and one of the lowest in the state. The Census Bureau puts Henry County’s median household income at $43,684. By contrast, Cumberland County — the state’s poorest locality in 1950 — now has a median household income of $56,497.

Those on the left who continue to be mystified by the appeal of Donald Trump would do well to look at these figures. If your community was once one of the wealthiest in the state, and now ranks as one of the poorest, wouldn’t you be susceptible to a politician who promises to “Make America Great Again”? Democrats may want to ponder why they didn’t come up with that slogan first, but I’m getting ahead of things.

When Virginia was run by the conservative Democrats of the Byrd Machine, Southside was its bastion and Martinsville-Henry County produced many of the machine’s lieutenants. Thomas Burch of Martinsville served 15 years in the U.S. House in the 1930s and ’40s and then was appointed to fill out an unexpired term in the U.S. Senate. Thomas Stanley of Henry County was speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates in the 1940s, then served in the U.S. House before being elected governor in 1953. Long after the Byrd era, Martinsville-Henry County continued to produce state leaders. A.L. Philpott of Henry County was speaker of the House from 1980 until his death in 1991; his successor in the House, Armstrong, went on to become House minority leader. Patrick County next door had ties to multiple state leaders, as well. (Updated, 7:08 p.m Monday: It’s been pointed out to me that a Pittsylvania County legislator — Del. R.O. Reynolds, who served from 1955 to 1977 — was vice chairman of House Appropriations during part of the era, putting him close to the state’s pursestrings. He’s yet another example of Southside’s overall power.)

It’s difficult to pinpoint a precise year that Henry County tipped Republican. Like many rural areas in Virginia, it moved there faster in presidential elections than in state ones. 

Virginia started voting reliably Republican in presidential elections starting in 1952 with Dwight Eisenhower’s first election, but Henry County stayed Democratic until 1968, when third-party candidate George Wallace carried the county with 44.7% of the vote. (While Wallace’s campaign was dominated by his opposition to integration, it’s notable that his platform that year also contained planks that might be considered liberal today, such as more federal aid for health care, support for labor unions and the development of high-speed passenger rail.) The Richard Nixon landslide of 1972 isn’t a good indicator of party preference (Nixon carried all but one locality in Virginia that year). By 1976, Henry County was back to voting for Democrat Jimmy Carter for president and stuck with Carter even in 1980. From 1984 onwards, though, Henry County voted for a Republican in every presidential year, by increasingly large margins. By 2020, Donald Trump netted 64.1% of the vote in Henry County, the largest share for a Republican presidential candidate in the county ever. That also shows how out of sync with the rest of the state Henry County has become, since Virginia has now voted Democratic in four straight presidential elections. (To be fair, it can be argued that it’s not Henry County that’s changed, but the rest of Virginia.)

Henry County moved more fitfully toward Republicans in state elections. 

When Linwood Holton in 1969 became the first Republican since Reconstruction to be elected governor, Martinsville and Henry County stuck with the Democratic nominee. It seems particularly telling that in 1973 — when former Byrd Democrat Mills Godwin ran as a Republican and populist Democrat Henry Howell ran as an independent — Henry County went overwhelmingly (57.3%) for the more liberal Howell. Martinsville that year went with the overall winner Godwin, which shows just how much things have changed, because today Martinsville, with its large Black population, is strongly Democratic while Henry County has become reliably Republican.

Four years later, though, Henry County voted for Republican John Dalton over Howell, who was the official Democratic nominee. It swung back to Democrats with Chuck Robb in 1981 and Gerald Baliles in 1985 but then, starting with the 1989 governor’s race when it went for Republican Marshall Coleman over Democrat Douglas Wilder, Henry County shifted toward Republicans through the 1990s. The collapse of the textile industry around 2000 was a traumatic experience that produced 20% unemployment in Martinsville and a backlash against then-Gov. Jim Gilmore. Armstrong wanted to raise unemployment benefits in high-unemployment areas to $100 a week; Gilmore wanted $38. It’s not surprising, then, that in 2001 Mark Warner reclaimed Henry County for the Democrats with 61.4% of the vote, a higher percentage than any Republican had ever achieved. Democrat Tim Kaine held onto Henry County with 50.8% of the vote in 2005, but since then the county has gone strongly Republican in gubernatorial years, with Glenn Youngkin rolling up 69.6% of the vote.

The Martinsville-Henry County legislative delegation in the General Assembly remained Democratic until 2011. That was the first election year after a redistricting. Republicans controlled the House redistricting then and naturally drew lines to benefit themselves — Republicans took strongly Democratic Martinsville out of Armstrong’s district and assigned it elsewhere; instead they drew him into a district where the political weight was in Franklin County. That political chicanery aside, we also see an underlying realignment.

In 2009, Armstrong had taken 58.2% of the vote in the part of Henry County he represented. In 2011, he narrowly lost virtually the same parts of the county (and the election) to Republican Charles Poindexter of Franklin County.

We see similar movement in the state Senate district that covers that area. In 2007, Democrat Roscoe Reynolds carried all eight localities, including 63.9% in Henry County and 74.0% in Martinsville. In 2011, Reynolds faced Republican Bill Stanley in a redrawn district. This time, he lost Henry County — polling just 43.8% of the vote — as well as losing all but one of the localities that he’d previously represented. Only Martinsville stayed in the Democratic column, with a reduced share of 56.5%.

What accounts for that sudden shift? Certainly Poindexter and Stanley were stronger Republican candidates than the ones that Armstrong and Reynolds had faced before; both were also incumbents, which further strengthened their profile. There’s also one other thing that had changed between 2007 and 2011: Barack Obama was elected in 2008. When we look more broadly, we see a lot of rural areas across Virginia (and the nation) that sharply realigned after his election. Was that a reaction to his race? Or a reaction to a Democratic president — and one who seemed more liberal than previous Democratic chief executives? Or was this simply a case of local races finally catching up with national trends? 

Feel free to speculate as you see fit, but election results seem to suggest the latter option. Republican presidential candidates sporadically did well in Henry County where there were national landslides going on, but it wasn’t until George W. Bush in 2000 that Henry County began consistently giving a majority of its vote to Republican presidential candidates. The vote share did not change appreciably in either of Obama’s elections. Instead, the two realigning elections appear to be 2000 (Bush vs. Gore) and 2016 (Trump vs. Clinton). How much of that was the nature of the candidates Republicans nominated versus how much of it was the type of candidates Democrats nominated? 

Here are the Republican numbers in Henry County and Martinsville for every presidential year since 1932:

Here’s another way to visualize these trends. First, here’s how Henry County has voted in presidential elections from 1932 to 2020:

You’ll also see that up until the end of World War II, Henry County was strongly Democratic. The Republican vote rose under Dwight Eisenhower’s two campaigns in the 1950s but not enough to win a majority. Henry County reverted to large Democratic majorities under John Kennedy in 1960 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964 — then from 1968 through the 1990s the parties bounced back and forth. Starting with George W. Bush in 2000, however, Henry County has consistently voted Republican by large margins. You’ll also notice that Obama’s two campaigns had no real effect on vote share, so Obama was not a realigning factor in Henry County. Instead, Bush was (or was it Gore who drove the realignment, in reverse?). Trump was another driver of realignment. The Republican and Democratic vote shares, which has been pretty consistent through 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012, diverged again with Trump’s two campaigns, with Republicans gaining and Democrats falling.

Now let’s look at the vote in Martinsville during those same years.

Here we see a pattern that starts the same but ends differently. Martinsville, like most of Virginia, was strongly Democratic until after World War II. Through the 1950s until the 1980s, Martinsville went back and forth in terms of party preference. However, Martinsville for a time was far more Republican than Henry County. The county stuck with Democrats, however narrowly, in the 1950s, while Martinsville voted for Eisenhower both times, giving him a landslide margin of 59.7% in 1956. While Henry County strongly backed Kennedy in 1960, Martinsville even went narrowly for Richard Nixon. One way to think of that is in the classic political affiliations of that era — managers lived in Martinsville and voted Republican, workers lived in Henry County and voted Democratic.

Since then, a lot has changed in terms of politicial affiliation. Starting with Bill Clinton in 1992, Martinsville has always voted Democratic in presidential years, with the Democratic vote share increasing almost every cycle. While Obama wasn’t a realigning factor in Henry County, he was in Martinsville — in Democrats’ favor. The Democratic vote share in the early-2000s was in the mid-50s. Once Obama came along, it jumped into the low 60s, where it’s remained ever since with the exception of Hillary Clinton in 2016 when it dropped to 59.8%. Even so, those more recent Democratic vote shares are the highest in Martinsville since the Roosevelt years. One factor that helps make Martinsville Democratic today: The city is 45.4% Black and 44.6% white, while Henry County is 74.2% white and only 22% Black. 

As for why Henry County continued to vote for Democrats for the General Assembly long after other rural areas stopped doing so, that’s harder to explain. My personal guess is the power of incumbency. In 2009, when Armstrong was winning reelection, so were Democrats Joe Johnson in Washington County and Jim Shuler in Montgomery County. In time, both retired and were replaced by Republicans. In any transition, something will be first and something will be last — Henry County just happened to be one of the last rural counties where Democrats lost their grip. 

Thought experiment: If Gilmore had reacted differently on the question of higher unemployment benefits during the 2000 textile shutdown, might Henry County have gone Republican even earlier? How much did that event, where Democrats championed Henry County workers, extend their lease on the electorate? And now for another thought experiment: What kind of political or economic event would be necessary to shake the current Republican hold on the county?