Elections for all 100 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates are taking place on November 2, 2021. Democrats hold 55 seats and Republicans hold 45 seats. This is the first election cycle since 1999 with Democrats defending a majority in the chamber.
Ballotpedia has identified 22 battleground races in these elections. Sixteen are in Democrat-held districts, and six are in Republican-held districts. Based on analysis of these districts’ electoral histories, these races have the potential to be more competitive than other races and could possibly lead to shifts in a chamber’s partisan balance.
To determine these battleground races, Ballotpedia looked for races that fit one or more of the four factors listed below:
- The 2019 winner received less than 55 percent of the vote.
- The presidential candidate who won the district in 2020 is of a different party than the 2019 winner in the district, and the 2019 winner won by a margin of 10 percentage points or less.
- The presidential candidate who won the district in 2020 is of a different party than the 2019 winner in the district, and the incumbent is not on the ballot this year.
- The presidential candidate who won the district in 2020 is of a different party than the 2019 winner in the district, and that presidential candidate won the district by a margin of 20 percentage points or more.
Top five individual donors by party
Virginia House candidate political action committees (PACs) in these districts raised a total of $14.7 million from Jan. 1, 2020, through Aug. 31, 2021. Democratic House candidate PACs raised $9.9 million, while Republican House candidate PACs raised $4.8 million.
The five individual donors who gave the most money to battleground race candidates of a single political party are shown below.
Top five individual donors to Democratic battleground candidates:
- Sonjia S Smith – $491,800.00
- William W Helsley – $100,000.00
- Lawrence Hess – $88,000.00
- Hunter C Bourne III – $55,000.00
- Scott Adams – $51,000.00
Top five individual donors to Republican battleground candidates:
- Glenn R Davis – $358,423.12
- Richard Baxter Gilliam – $137,500.00
- Rashid Gargrash – $20,500.00
- James Miller – $20,000.00
- Christopher Clemente – $18,000.00
The data above are based on campaign finance reports that active Virginia candidate political action committees (candidate PACs) submitted to the Virginia Department of Elections. It includes fundraising activity between Jan. 1, 2020, and Aug. 31, 2021. Candidate PACs represent individuals who have run for state or local office at any point, including past and present officeholders. This article does not include non-candidate PACs.
This article was published in partnership with Transparency USA. Click here to learn more about that partnership.