Wake Up Virginia Republican Party, the Numbers Don’t Lie

This weekend while listening to Patriot Radio, Sirius XM, I heard the national party talk about what it would take to win Virginia. The entire night I heard them hammer the old ideas of, if the Republican Party can just pull Southwest Virginia, we can win this thing. Well, tonight the votes are in and let me tell you, if you are banking on southwest Virginia then the Democrats will be building on their two election streak in the Commonwealth.

See, while watching the Washington pundits show Virginia as this sea of red with these tiny specs of blue in it (click here to see map) I realized they know nothing about our state. See, Virginia is a commonwealth, meaning we don’t have cities within counties like other states. So, what they did not understand is, those specs of blue made up nearly 60% of the Virginia population.

Here are the numbers, unofficial from the Virginia Board of Elections and the US Census Bureau, Ken Cuccinelli Won 2 of the top 10 urban areas in our state. So for the top 10 localities in our state which represents 47% of the state population Cuccinelli could only win 2 of those 10 localities. Oh, but it gets worse. When you look at the top 20 localities in our state, Which represents over 61%

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of the state population, Cuccinelli was only able to win 5 of those 20 localities. Mr. Cuccinelli only began to see improvement in his numbers when you look at the top 25 localities, where Mr. Cuccinelli won 9 out of 25 localities, 4 being in the bottom 25% of the sample.

Now, how can one lose all of the big urban centers but win the election, simple, have huge margins in the localities you win in and close races in the localities you lose in. Problem was in the top 10 localities, Terry McAuliffe won by an average margin of 25%, whereas Ken Cuccinelli’s average margin of victory was 5%. When you look at the largest 20 localities in Virginia, Terry McAuliffe’s margin of victory widens to 26%, but not as fast as Ken Cuccinelli’s margin of victory, 14%. Finally, when you look at the top 25 localities in Virginia, over 65% of the Virginia population, Terry McAulliffe maintains his 26% average margin of victory while Ken Cuccinelli’s margin sees continued improvement, 20% on average. However, a successful candidate cannot lose 16 out of Virginia’s 25 largest localities and lose the margin of victory race also.

Finally, I want to talk demographic shifts in Virginia. Lets start with southwest Virginia. Do you see all that nice looking red down there. Well, all that red represents only a little over 10% of the state population, and falling. So let me pull some discouraging numbers for the Republican Party. From 2000 – 2010, do you see that city down there called Danville, it lost 11.06% of it’s population. Martinsville, where the NASCAR track is, lost 10.35% of it’s population. But the population declines do not stop there. Bland County, -.68%, Brunswick County -5.35%, Buchanan County -10.68%, Dickenson County -3%, Grayson County -13.31%, Halifax County -2.98%, Henry County -6.52%, Lunenburg County -1.76%, Patrick County -4.73%, Pulaski County -.73%, Smyth County -2.64, City of Bedford -1.22%. And where are these conservative leaning votes going? Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Raleigh in search for better opportunity. And with Republicans loosing the largest metropolitan area in that region, Roanoke, southwest Virginia has truly lost it’s political influence.

So, while Southwest Virginia is loosing conservative leaning votes to other states,they are not alone. There is another region of Virginia loosing conservative votes and that region is….Northern Virginia. Since 2000, something has changed in Washington, DC, it has grown more conservative. During the heyday of liberal politics in Washington, Vincent Gray nor his predecessor, Mayor Adrian Fenty would have stood a chance to become mayor of our nation’s capital. So how do these men win in 2000? One reason is gentrification. Washington, D.C. gentrification is painted as these white people, that appeared from nowhere, landing in our nations capital and moving the minority groups into Prince Georges County, MD. Well, let me be the bearer of bad news, those white people came from Northern Virginia; Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax. They were tired of the commute and they wanted to live closer to their jobs. So once the crime in the District subsided and neighborhoods were cleaned up, those former Virginians moved into the city. And with them went a center right voting group.

But the story of Northern Virginia does not stop there. Because the narrative that all of the minority groups moved to Prince Georges County, MD is also false. Yes, the majority of them moved to Maryland, but a significant group moved to Virginia also. So when you have a conservative leaning population leaving the state and being replaced with a more liberal leaning one, over time, you get what we are experiencing now in Northern Virginia.

Lastly, Virginia is also undergoing a serious demographic change. Virginia has had the 6th largest increase in African American population says the Brookings Institute. Metropolitan areas such as Tidewater and Washington D.C. rank 6th and 8th respectively in African American migration growth. These groups tend to traditionally vote Democratic, especially since these groups are migrating from some of the traditionally Democratic strongholds in the north. Couple these numbers with the booming Hispanic population and Republicans have yet another obstacle to their success.

I wrote this to add clarity and put hard numbers on the table. Depending on Southwest Virginia will not work anymore. And looking at Virginia as a atypical southern state is operating blind of the numbers. The truth is Virginia has changed and it is time for the Virginia Republican Party to change also.

Congratulations to Gov. McAuliffe, Lt. Gov. Northam, and Attorney General Mark Obenshain.

http://urbanhabitat.org/files/20040524_Frey.pdf

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/51000.html

http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk

http://electionresults.virginia.gov/resultsSW.aspx?type=SWR&map=CTY