Election Wrap Up
Money seemed to carry the day, or did it? And the path to a better tomorrow lies not in the next election, but in our next connections.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Sometimes, it would appear, money is enough.
Eugene Vindman brought a $15 million-plus war chest to the 2024 CD-7 race, and that ultimately proved too much for Derrick Anderson to overcome.
As the Advance had projected, Spotsylvania and Stafford counties would prove decisive.
With Prince William and Fredericksburg solidly in the Democratic column — Spanberger carried Prince William by more than 2-to-1 in 2022; Vindman did nearly as well this year winning by a hair under a 2-to-1 margin — Vindman’s path to victory hinged on his maintaining the margins that Spanberger put up in Spotsylvania and Stafford in 2022.
That year, Spanberger’s Republican rival Yesli Vega carried Stafford County by a miniscule 0.21%. A stunning achievement considering that two years earlier when Stafford was in CD-1, Republican Rob Wittman carried the district by almost 10 percentage points.
In Spotsylvania County that same year, Spanberger lost the county by 7 percentage points. Two years earlier, she had lost it by 12.
Vindman did not improve on those numbers, but he didn’t do significantly worse. In Stafford County, Vindman lost by just 0.63%, and in Spotsylvania he lost by just under 10 percentage points.
The Spotsylvania born-and-raised Anderson’s inability to improve significantly on Vega’s performance two years ago ultimately doomed his bid for Congress.
Blue 7th?
If there was a surprise in the CD-7 race Thursday night it was this — that the contest proved to be as close as it was.
Vindman outspent Anderson by a 7-to-1 ratio. With that kind of bankroll, one would have expected a better showing. (The final margin of victory was 50.94% for Vindman and 48.79% for Anderson).
To put that in perspective, Vindman spent over $68 per vote; Anderson spent $11.50.
Through the lens of money, Vindman underperformed and Anderson overperformed. Why?
The obvious place to look is the campaign.
Vindman’s messaging throughout was heavy on stopping MAGA extremists and defending a woman’s right to control her own health care, and relatively light on policy solutions to the issues that affect people who live in the 7th.
Spanberger, by comparison, was from her first election to Congress to her last specific about policies for the 7th District, and she displayed a deep working knowledge of those policies — especially agricultural and technological, which are critical to a significant portion of the district.
Vindman’s personality on the campaign trail also lacked the Spanberger’s natural effervescence. A career Army officer, Vindman is understandably somewhat reserved. Spanberger, by comparison, is effervescent, and she commands any room that she ventures into.
These are hardly fatal flaws — Vindman, after all, isn’t Spanberger. He’s also new to politics, and it takes time for a person to hit their stride. Expect Vindman to improve as he grows into his new job.
Did Vindman stay close to numbers in Spotsylvania and Stafford that Spanberger put up in 2022 because of his campaign’s deep pockets? Perhaps, but the results from the presidential election results suggest that something else is at play.
Consider Stafford, where Vindman won almost exactly as many votes as Vice President Kamala Harris did in her failed bid to win the White House: Harris earned 39,616 votes; Vindman earned 39,290 votes.
The story was much the same in Spotsylvania: Harris earned 34,755 and lost to Trump by just over 9 percentage points; Vindman earned 34,472 and lost to Anderson by just over 9 percentage points.
People were likely voting down party lines and Vindman benefitted from Harris, or vice-versa.
But this answer doesn’t fully satisfy. As one would still expect that sort of financial advantage to translate into a wider margin of victory.
The answer may well lie in the changing political demographics of the two counties.
Both Spotsylvania and Stafford have realized significant population growth, and an explosion in their Hispanic populations.
Between 2010 and 2022, the Hispanic population in Spotsylvania doubled, according to USA Facts. Today, it accounts for 12.7% of the county’s population; in 2010 it was just 7.7%.
At the same time, the population of non-Hispanic whites has fallen from 72% of the population in 2010 to 62.9% in 2022.
A similar trend appears in Stafford, where the Hispanic has grown from 9.3% of the population in 2010 to 16.3% in 2022. At the same time, the population of non-Hispanic whites has fallen from 68% in 2010 to 54.4% in 2022.
As these two counties diversify and become more urban, it would appear that a red-to-blue shift is ony? in the 7th’s second and third largest counties.
The Big Picture
Leaving the Anderson watch party late Tuesday evening, I walked out with a Republican friend to my car where we spent probably a half hour discussing the race. (Nota bene: the friend was not Shaun Kenney; rather another player in Richmond I’ve come to know over the past year.)
At that point the election had not been called for Donald Trump, and Harris still had a clear, if narrow, path to victory. That race, however, was not the subject of our discussion. Nor was the Anderson-Vindman race which by that point was all but formally settled for Vindman.
Rather, the discussion was how to heal a fractured society where one of the first things people try to discern when they meet someone is their political orientation. Of the same party? A friendship can bloom. Of the opposing party? Possible, but the odds are against us.
The answer, it turns out, isn’t all that complicated.
Consider:
Biden promised to heal the nation, and more than half the nation felt ignored.
Trump is promising to heal the nation; given his rhetoric count me skeptical he will win over those who didn’t vote for him.
Together, we are looking to the wrong people to heal a nation that we all know is wounded.
We are looking to the next election, the next Moses to lead us from the wilderness, the next King to ignite in our souls an appreciation for the equality of humans.
What we should be looking to is our neighbor.
America is broken, argues sociologist Robert Putnam, not because of anything we have done, but because of what we haven’t done — getting to know our neighbors.
We do this by joining groups like the Scouts, churches, Kiwanis, bridge clubs, book groups, choirs, dinner groups, professional groups, local political groups, bowling leagues, the PTA, and thousands more groups like them.
It’s in these places that we not only meet people unlike ourselves, but we learn to live with them.
At a time when we are too addicted to our phones to talk with our own children over dinner, giving up several hours a night every week for a club meeting may seem to be asking a lot.
But look at what fifty years of abandoning these organizations has gotten us.
The path forward runs not through the battleground states, but through the front door of local organizations where we come together as a people.
E pluribus unum. From the many, one.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to report on a Spotsylvania School teacher arrested for bringing drugs onto campus.
First to report on new facility fees leveled by MWHC on patient bills.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Provided extensive coverage of the cellphone bans that are sweeping local school districts.
And so much more, like Clay Jones, Drew Gallagher, Hank Silverberg, and more.
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!