Ballotpedia identified 23 Virginia House of Delegates districts as general election battlegrounds. Democrats are favored to win seven battleground districts that Republicans represent heading into the election. Republicans are not favored to win any Democratic battleground districts. The Virginia House is one of two state legislative chambers with elections in 2025.
Off-year elections in Virginia are often studied as a forecast of the broader political trends to expect from the following year’s national elections. State Navigate‘s Chaz Nuttycombe wrote, “The Commonwealth has typically been seen as a catalyst for how the party out of power from the White House should go forward in its messaging in the following midterm elections, and a barometer for public opinion on the incumbent President.”
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and Republican State Leadership Committee both announced ad campaigns ahead of the elections. DLCC Director Heather Williams said, “Opportunities to move policy and build power aren’t happening in Washington – they’re happening in the statehouses. State legislative races are the most immediate opportunity for Democrats to defend and build sustainable power, and Virginia will be the highest profile, most data-rich election of 2025.
The RSLC said, “The RSLC PAC, in coordination with the Virginia House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC), today launched a new digital ad exposing how Virginia House Democrats are breaking their promises to voters by pursuing an out-of-touch agenda in Richmond this legislative session. The ad will be backed by a six-figure buy on digital platforms throughout the state and highlights how Virginia House Democrats are blocking tax cuts and efforts to lower electric costs, as well as refusing to crack down on dangerous illegal immigrants.”
The elections will influence whether legislatively referred constitutional amendments passed by the Democratic Virginia General Assembly in 2025 are likely to appear on the ballot in 2026. Constitutional amendments in Virginia must pass the Virginia General Assembly in two successive legislative sessions. That means the General Assembly’s 2025 proposals to amend the state constitution to include a right to reproductive freedom, remove the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, and provide that felons be entitled to vote following their release from incarceration must be approved by the body again in 2026 to appear before voters. Legislative approval of the amendments in 2026 may depend on whether Democrats maintain control of the House in the 2025 elections.
Heading into the 2025 elections, Democrats have a 51-49 majority in the House. The House has changed partisan control in every election since 2019, when it changed from Republican to Democratic control. Republicans regained the majority in 2021, and Democrats regained the majority in 2023. Click here to read more about the House of Delegates’ political history.
These are the first legislative elections to occur following the passage of HB2020, which gave absentee voters the opportunity to participate in party primaries. The Virginia Mercury’s Markus Schmidt wrote, “This requirement has effectively eliminated firehouse primaries, mass meetings, and conventions as nomination methods in Virginia, as these processes would make it impossible to accommodate absentee voters.” The primary was June 17, and the filing deadline was April 3. In the 2023 primaries in Virginia, Ballotpedia identified 55 districts that held non-primary nominating contests, all of which were for Republicans.