The filing deadline has come and past in Virginia. With that comes a few small updates to our ratings. I’m not going to go fully in-depth in this one. That’ll be saved for the update post-fundraising update in about a week and a half. We have two race ratings changes for you all this week, both in favor of Democrats.
Ratings Changes
- HD-02 (Likely Democratic > Safe Democratic) – This was a move we were going to do after the filing deadline or not. With no discernible proof that Republicans are gaining any ground in NOVA, plus the fact that this seat was already leaning towards Democrats before the re-alignment. Moreover, no one filed for this seat, showing low confidence in any GOP chance here. With that in mind, we’ve moved HD-02 off the board.
- HD-72 (Leans Democratic > Likely Democratic) – In a similar situation to HD-02, no Republican candidate officially filed here. This was a big surprise though. This seat, based in the Richmond suburbs, was and still is considered quite competitive. The incumbent Democrat only won by five points in 2019, and while it is a seat that has zoomed away from Republicans it is still competitive. Now, Democrats are not unopposed here yet. Local Republicans can still select a candidate before June 8th. So we aren’t moving this seat to Safe Democratic, and it could quickly find itself back in the Leans column by the summer. With no candidate filing though, we’ve decided to move this seat to Likely Democratic.
Post Fundraising Deadline
As I said, there will be a much more in-depth update coming after the upcoming fundraising deadline. So, thank you for following and we will see you in April.