Ghazala Hashmi
In 2015, it was Chesterfield County that determined the outcome of the 10th District Senate race between Republican Glen Sturtevant and Democrat Dan Gecker, favoring Sturtevant by 3,500 votes. Political experts say it’ll be the deciding factor again this November in Sturtevant’s re-election bid against Democratic challenger Ghazala Hashmi.
The district also comprises Powhatan County and part of Richmond, but Chesterfield is its largest locality, and since 2015, it’s become increasingly competitive for Democrats. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, Hillary Clinton lost the 10th District’s Chesterfield section by only 187 votes in 2016, while Ralph Northam carried it by 916 votes in 2017. In 2018, the second year of “blue wave” elections in Virginia, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine won 5,466 more votes than his opponent, Corey Stewart.
Glen Sturtevant
Powhatan is reliably red. Bob Holsworth, a political analyst and former Virginia Commonwealth University professor, says, “Hashmi has to believe there’s going to be a 5,000-vote deficit between her and Sturtevant in Powhatan.” In the Richmond part of the district, she’ll likely meet or exceed the performance of Gecker, who was favored by roughly 7,000 votes, he adds. If the Chesterfield shift holds, it spells trouble for Sturtevant, says Holsworth.
Sturtevant is a first-term incumbent, which makes him more vulnerable than a better-established politician. Richard Meagher, an associate professor of political science at Randolph-Macon College, says he’s been in office just long enough to have a record that Hashmi can target. Meagher and Holsworth see Sturtevant's opposition to a Richmond School Board rezoning proposal that would increase racial diversity as symbolic and strategic.
“This is his effort to reduce his deficit in Richmond,” Holsworth says. “The solution as he proposed it, to force a referendum or delay for a new School Board election, is highly unlikely. He’s trying to capitalize on a local controversy, and it probably won’t be effective.”
A political newcomer, Hashmi doesn’t have the record that Sturtevant has, freeing her to attack him on his votes. During a recent candidate forum broadcast on Virginia Public Media, Hashmi positioned herself as the candidate of school funding, health care and gun safety, highlighting where she thought Sturtevant had fallen behind.
She chided Sturtevant for a previous rezoning plan, when he served on the Richmond School Board in 2012, which decreased racial diversity at city schools. When he criticized her for not opposing the new rezoning plan, dismissively referring to the involvement of an outside consultant, she noted that the same consultant was engaged for the earlier plan. On his time in the General Assembly, she criticized his opposition to Medicaid expansion and implied his support for “red flag” laws (which would temporarily restrict firearms from people deemed dangerous) was disingenuous; Republicans ended a special session on gun control this summer without discussion by voting to adjourn until Nov. 18.
Sturtevant has defended his record on moderate issues, particularly on education, where he proposes increasing teacher salaries to meet the national average. He’s taken pains to distance himself from his party, calling himself an independent voice who would remain nonpartisan, while criticizing Hashmi for accepting a $25,000 donation from Gov. Ralph Northam, whose resignation she called for after the discovery of a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page.
If some of their points sound like the national debate, Holsworth says that’s no accident. “The campaigns are consultant-driven now,” he says, especially in “off-off” election years when no statewide races are held and few other states have notable elections. For the Republicans, that means, “linking local figures like Hashmi with [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and socialism.” For the Democrats, it’s “guns and health care.”
In June, the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University found that Virginians overwhelmingly support background checks regardless of political party, and that a slim majority of Republicans favor more restrictions than are currently in place. A more recent legislative election survey found that the national issues Holsworth mentioned were primary factors for most voters in Virginia, and that Democrats had an advantage both in enthusiasm and on issues like gun control and health care. A survey released Monday by the Wason Center found that a majority of voters in four competitive state Senate districts, including the Richmond-area 10th and 12th districts (in the latter, Republican incumbent Siobhan Dunnavant faces a challenge from Democrat Debra Rodman), expressed a generic preference for Democrats over Republicans, and for Democratic control of the legislature.
“These districts could tip control of the Virginia Senate, and these voters’ views suggest how the competition is going statewide as we approach Election Day,” Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center says in a release of the survey.
In the Hashmi-Sturtevant race, Holsworth says he thinks health care might resonate, but he says gun control is a trickier subject. “In 2015, Everytown for Gun Safety spent a lot of money, and it didn’t work in Powhatan,” he says, “For an off-off year, they had a very large turnout.” He thinks the $700,000 the group spent attacking Sturtevant actually might have hurt Gecker by alarming the GOP base in Powhatan. And despite Sturtevant’s focus on Northam — his campaign photoshopped an image of Hashmi holding the racist yearbook photo for a negative ad — Holsworth thinks that’s a risky strategy, too.
“Republicans thought it would be a slam dunk, but it’s largely blown over,” he says. The Wason Center survey on this election supports his view, showing a rebound in Northam’s popularity since the incident came to light.
More than specific policies and legislative history, Holsworth and Meagher both say the race will come down to turnout.
“In these off-off-year elections, Republicans historically do well,” Meagher says. “You have programs like voter ID that suppress minority voting, and Republicans have a better infrastructure to turn their base out. Either the [blue wave] trend continues, or the typical low-turnout cycle reasserts itself, which would give Sturtevant the advantage.”
Holsworth says on Election Night, voters will be able to predict the outcome early if they focus on Chesterfield. He says, “The Chesterfield numbers come in first, so look at Sturtevant’s margin there.” If the incumbent can increase his 2015 margin of victory, he’ll likely retain the seat. But if the county votes like it has over the past three years, analysts say, overcoming the Democratic firewall in Richmond will be out of reach, and Democrats may gain control of the General Assembly for the first time in more than two decades.
