A funny thing happened on the way to Republicans overturning the 10-1 Virginia congressional map: a new forecast from former FiveThirtyEight data analytics guru G. Elliott Morris has the midterms solidly going 8-3 Dems in November, with a decent shot at a 9-2 finish.
That would mean – all that money thrown at trying to get us to vote the other way in the April 21 referendum, then spent trying to get judges to overturn the result, would end up saving one guy: Ben Cline.
Yeah, unfortunately there, Morris, on his FiftyPlusOne blog, still has Cline as an overwhelming favorite in the Sixth District, which the MAGAs on the Virginia Supreme Court, in their 2021 court-ordered redistricting, made into a reliable and safe MAGA district.
The people who had signs in their front yards about the need to prevent the steal are likely just blissfully unaware that the congressional districts we have in place now were drawn up not by elected state lawmakers, but by unelected Republican judges.
Because, you know, if they knew, they’d reveal themselves to be hypocrites, making a big issue out of specious gerrymandering just because it was about to go the other way.
Anyway, Beth Macy can still pull the shocker on Nov. 3, sure, but even if she doesn’t, we’re looking, at the least, at 8-3 – with Dems flipping the First (Rob Wittman) and Second (Jen Kiggans).
Morris has Shannon Taylor at a 59 percent shot of winning in the First, and Elaine Luria at an 87 percent chance of winning in the Second.
Next door to us in the Fifth (John McGuire), Morris gives Tom Perriello a 19 percent shot of winning.
Our other six congressional districts are all Safe Dem – 99 percent plus in the odds.
Push Perriello across the finish line, we’re 9-2, Macy scores the knockout in the final 10 seconds of the 12th round, we’re at 10-1.
We can get rid of empty suits John McGuire and Ben Cline, and get back to where we were going to be anyway, before the unelected judges got themselves involved.
It’s up to y’all, on either side of the Blue Ridge.
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Chris Graham
