Episode 10: Elections During Pandemic: What's happening in Virginia's 5th District?

With all the news of the pandemic going on, it's easy to forget that we have elections coming up quite soon.

This episode looks at Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, a huge, gerrymandered region that stretches from the North Carolina border to the Washington, DC exurbs.

Freshman lawmaker Denver Riggleman is the Republican incumbent. But he’s facing a challenge from far right candidate Bob Good. And all this is happening amidst a global pandemic.

Read the Transcript:

Nathan Moore: This is Bold Dominion, an explainer for state politics in a changing Virginia. I'm Nathan Moore.

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Well, with all the news of the pandemic going on, we sometimes forget--or at least I sometimes forget--that we have elections coming up in Virginia--quite soon. Party primaries and conventions for US House races are taking place in June. So Virginia has 11 seats in the US House of Representatives. Before the 2018 elections, our congressional delegation included seven Republicans and four Democrats. But then during the midterm elections two years ago, Democrats swept in some big wins. Now that delegation is seven Democrats and four Republicans. This year those freshmen Democratic lawmakers will have to defend their seats.

In our next episode in a couple weeks, we'll dive into what's at play in Virginia's 2nd and 7th district races. But today we're looking at Virginia's 5th district, a huge gerrymandered region that stretches from South Hill and Danville along the North Carolina border up through Charlottesville and all the way past Warrenton into the Washington, D.C. exurbs. Freshman lawmaker Denver Riggleman is the Republican incumbent, but he's facing a challenge from Bob Goode, a far-right candidate who worked at Liberty University until launching his campaign.

Geoff Skelley: Riggleman really could be in a lot of trouble and could end up losing renomination at this convention, which is very much in Goode's backyard in Campbell County.

NM: That's Geoff Skelly from FiveThirtyEight. We're gonna hear more from him in just a few minutes. But first, with the pandemic going on, primary elections and party conventions have been delayed across the state. We're looking at what voting is going to look like this year and what stands in the way of more widespread voting from home. Peter Galuszka is a journalist based in the Richmond area who's covered Virginia business, politics and news for four decades. 

Well, the primary has been pushed back two weeks to June 23. Why is that and what's voting going to look like this year?

Peter Galuszka: Well, to start off with the story before the pandemic, it was always a little bit screwy because Republicans sometimes have conventions which are just a meeting in a room. The Democrats tend to have primaries where you actually go to a polling place and vote. And so that was messed up. I mean, a lot of the GOP conventions are supposed to have been held in April. Then of course, you know, come February, March to April, pandemic restrictions come in. The state's not prepared to do total absentee balloting just yet, or even online balloting. So everything's been pushed around this way and that and no one knows as we've talked about a lot. Just all the various governors including Ralph Northam, Democrat in Virginia, don't really--they're just going with the flow as the data comes forth.

NM:  You know, Governor Ralph Northam said last week, he's strongly encouraging vote by mail, strongly encouraging absentee ballots. And the rules around absentee ballots have really been--have really become a lot more flexible this year. You don't have to have a witness and that kind of thing this year. What stands in the way for Virginia doing almost exclusively--or at least predominantly--vote by mail or vote online?

PG: Well, I think there's several factors behind that. One of them is that the state has in its consciousness, this idea that people should not be allowed to vote. And this goes way back, this thinking goes back to the old landed gentry people who, you know, pretty much they're the only ones who voted because they owned all the all the plantations. And of course, with African Americans post slavery, the idea was to somehow disenfranchise them after Reconstruction, after the Civil War, and since, you know, was really around the 1880s. And on to Jim Crowe and everything else where you had, they put every practical obstacle they could in front of an African American to vote. And to some extent, poor whites too. And so that's one problem.

Second problem is more modern, in that, for some reason, the hard right of the Republicans and some other groups are really bought into this concept that there's tremendous voter fraud out there and we have to do everything-- you practically have to have, you know, photo ID may not be enough, you may have to do DNA scans or who knows what--and they always come up with some reason to try and keep the voting down. That's to their advantage to do so.

NM: So there's political obstacles to vote by mail or even developing a secure system for voting online. Are there any actual technical issues with it? Or is it just that there's not the political will?

PG: Well, not my expertise, but I will tell you this is that I'm, I live in a county outside of Richmond in the far exurbs and I voted at a church and they get local county volunteers to run the show. And I've been voting here for a number of years, and I'm not encouraged. If they change everything, the voting officials just don't get it. They don't know what to do. The South Koreans, for example, had the same problems we did, a pandemic, and they did it over a period of a couple of days. Did a good job, by all accounts.

NM: South Korea had elections during this pandemic?

PG: Yeah, yeah, of course. They were going through their first wave of it and they managed to have elections. And they made some adjustments such as social distancing at the polling places, such as, you know, spreading it over a couple of days. So that would string out the number of people close to each other.

NM: That's journalist Peter Galuszka.

So I'm recording this in Charlottesville, which is right in the middle of Virginia's 5th congressional district. Four democrats are vying to face off against the Republican and the Democratic primary takes place on June 23. But over on the Republican side, things are a little different in the 5th. There is no primary. Instead, there's a party convention on June 13. That's when party activists will gather to choose the candidate instead of holding a regular primary vote. When a party uses conventions, those party activists tend to be more strongly ideological in their views than the electorate as a whole. So when it comes to the 5th District nominating convention that could spell trouble for incumbent Denver Riggleman. Geoff Skelley is an elections analyst at FiveThirtyEight.

GS: So it's a head-to-head race in the 5th congressional district for the GOP nomination. And you know, in the face of it, you would expect Riggleman to have an advantage being the incumbent, because incumbency usually is helpful. And there are a lot of reasons for that, whether it's fundraising, people knowing you, you know, you're just better known, those sorts of factors.

But Riggleman, it's interesting. I think there are a couple things to keep in mind. Riggleman in the first place, got into this position by becoming the nominee by a vote of the district committee in 2018, after the incumbent, Tom Garrett, who was the Republican Representative of the fifth withdrew from the race. He'd already been re-nominated, he had no opposition, but he decided to drop out. There was there was a scandal with the way his wife had been treating his staffers. Apparently, there was like an ethics investigation going on. And then also, he admitted that he was an alcoholic, while also saying that he wasn't planning to run for re-election now.  And so in that circumstance, because there was already a nominee--Garrett--the Republican 5th district committee had to meet and nominate a replacement nominee. And in the end, Riggleman very narrowly became that choice. It was actually a 19 to 18 vote on the fourth ballot--I think it was the fourth ballot. He didn't win sort of by the standard process, whether it was at a convention, or even in a normal primary. He got the nomination via this district committee picking a replacement, and very narrowly.

So Riggleman goes off, wins in the 2018 general election against democrat Leslie Cockburn, by about six and a half points. The fifth district is a district that Republicans should be able to hold. I mean, Trump won by about 11 points in 2016. But Riggleman also has sort of a libertarian streak. He's conservative, he's a member of the House Freedom Caucus, which is basically the most conservative grouping of Republicans in the US House of Representatives. So he's very conservative in some ways, but he's also got this libertarian streak. He basically is in favor of gay marriage, he's like, "it doesn't bother me." He actually even favors a few exceptions when it comes to abortion, things like endangerment of the mother's life. And in 2019 he officiated a gay marriage. And this--and I believe it was for a former campaign staffer--this caused social conservatives in the fifth district to become apoplectic, really. I mean, they were they were infuriated because at the end of the day, the Republican Party is a party that a huge base of it is social conservatives. People who do not like gay marriage. It polls very poorly among some parts of Republican Party. And in the fifth congressional district, that wing has a lot of power and a lot of say, because while Lynchburg itself is not in the district, many of the counties around Lynchburg--and remember Lynchburg is the home of Liberty University--are in the 5th District, including Campbell County. Bob Goode, Riggleman's opponent, is a former County Supervisor from there and it's a very conservative part of the state.

And so Goode has become--he's basically running to Riggleman's right, predominantly on social issues. And because Riggleman already had this flashpoint over the gay marriage offiliation, there are a few, actually a few small counties, Republican committees in the district censured him over this. There is something for Goode to really go on here. And it looks like Riggleman actually might be in some real trouble at the convention. Goode came out recently in an interview and said that he had support from 62% of the registered delegates at the fifth district convention.

Now I don't know how that would actually translate to votes because the county's votes will be weighted to some extent by how Republican they are, and how large they are population wise. But the fact that you could even say that and if it is true--again, we don't know for sure--if it is true, then Riggleman really could be in a lot of trouble and could end up losing renomination at this convention, which is very much in Goode's backyard in Campbell County.

NM: Not only that, but from what I read, the convention is sort of a drive-thru convention because of the pandemic, but it's actually taking place at Goode's church.

GS: Yeah, same place, at Tree of Ministries Ministries, and I actually did not know that that was Goode's church. But this, this is the sort of thing that has prompted Riggleman to--he released the statement a few days ago, talking about how basically the process was being rigged against them, and that Republican voters were basically being disenfranchised, and that a lot of decisions that the 5th District committee had made were made in favor of Goode and that Goode had done things like..I mean, basically accused Goode practically of bribing the committee--you know, who knows how true that is, but that's essentially what he accused him of--to make favorable rulings in terms of how the process would work, to favor Goode and go against Riggleman.

So Riggleman is outraged, basically. In fact, some supporters of Riggleman were trying to get the party, in the face of the Coronavirus, to try to switch over to a primary. In Virginia, it's good to understand that Virginia is a weird state. It's basically the only one like this, where the local party committee in whatever race you're talking about whether it's a House of Delegates race or US House of Representatives race, whatever the committee that that represents that party in that jurisdiction, decides what the nomination process is going to be. Whether you're going to use the state-run primary, or you're going to use a non-primary method, which usually is a caucus convention sort of system. It's good to understand that the 5th district Republican committee chose to use the convention format, and that they have that option in Virginia, and you don't necessarily have to use the primary.

NM: Why on Earth does Virginia have that system where the the local party for that jurisdiction gets to choose between primary and convention?

GS: Well, it goes back to I think the early 20th century, I think it was 1912. There was basically an optional primary law. And we've been using it ever since. And we're the only state that really has this. Now, to be clear, there are some states where a primary is not necessarily used in the nomination process or the key moment and in the primary is actually at a convention before the primary. But Virginia is really the only one that has this system where the local party jurisdiction makes this decision.

NM: You know, Virginia has all these--like a lot of these little procedural things that, you add them up and it's like, man, it's like a system set up to keep the decision-making to a relatively small number of people in it.

GS: Well, it can work out that way. I mean, the Democratic Party in Virginia has certainly moved in recent years to being very pro-primary. They almost always use a primary. It was actually interesting in 2018--you actually saw a little bit of a fight over this in the 5th congressional district because the Democrats had decided--the Democratic committee there had decided to use the caucus/convention system, which ended up nominating Leslie Cockburn, for that contest. But there was a real push by some of the candidates and a lot of Democrats in the district to say, you know, "We should be using a primary." And this year for the 2020 election, Democrats in the 5th district are using a primary and they have a four-way race for that nomination. So, which will be decided on June 23, since they delayed the primary a couple weeks because of the Coronavirus. So, you actually see that play out a little bit in the 5th but from 2018 when there was kind of a kerfuffle about the choice to use a caucus/convention to now using a primary and statewide Democrats have had a policy for a while now of using a primary for statewide nominations. There was a period before that when they often just used a convention for that.

And now Republicans kind of go back and forth on this statewide. It's it's been a real heated issue at times in past nominations. For example, in 2013, for the gubernatorial contest, initially, the Republicans were expected to use a primary to to nominate their statewide candidates for the 2013 election, but the state Central Committee opted in late 2012 to use a caucus/convention system instead. And that basically helped Ken Cuccinelli clear the field to win the Republican nomination for governor because Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, a fellow Republican, was probably going to run if it was a primary, because he knew he could he could possibly win the nomination in a primary. But in a convention setup, where the people participating are more likely to be more conservative relative to the average Republican primary voter, Bolling knew he couldn't beat Cucinelli in that environment. So that decision, whether to use a primary or a convention has been very heated at times on the Republican side.

NM: Geoff Skelley is an elections analyst at FiveThirtyEight.  Stay with us, we're back in just a moment with more on gerrymandering and redistricting.

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You're listening to Bold Dominion, a state politics explainer for changing Virginia. Find us online at BoldDominion.org. Have a friend who's trying to figure out Virginia state politics? Tell them about this show and then subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever fine podcasts are served up. Bold Dominion is a member of the Virginia Audio Collective, online at VirginiaAudio.org. While you're isolated at home, check out Ask A Wayfinder. The newest episode of the advice and meditation podcast explores how we can get unstuck even during a global pandemic. That podcast and many more at VirginiaAudio.org. 

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So Virginia is carved up into 11 districts in the US House of Representatives. Every 10 years, those district lines get redrawn a little bit based on the latest census figures. Right now we have a map in Virginia where many of those districts are really secure for the incumbents. Often, district lines have been drawn to give the incumbent party a comfortable winning margin while packing the other party's voters to a smaller number of districts. Well, 2020 census year, and how those lines get drawn could be changing soon. Kyle Kondik is the Director of Communications at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. He takes us through the district maps and what voting is going to look like in the middle of a pandemic.

Kyle Kondik: Well, so there's a ballot issue this fall to have a kind of a nonpartisan redistricting system. So if that passes then it would take some power away from the majority party in determining how that happens. But we'll wait and see how that ends up being determined. You know, one other factor is the pandemic is having an effect on the census in that the census is conducted in years that end in zero, and you know, a lot of people will voluntarily self-report online the various Census questions. But a lot of people need coaxing to do that, there's a big advertising and door-to-door effort, you know, those efforts have been delayed. And if the census data is delayed from when it usually comes out, that could really have an impact on Virginia, because Virginia is one of the states that's the first to use new districts because that has State House of Delegates elections coming up in 2021. So Virginia needs to have a map in place in order to you know, in order to hold its election. So that's something--that's something to watch.

Also, even if, you know lots of different states have different considerations for how they do redistricting. But most districts are going to inherently not really feature strong two-party competition. You know, these days, I'd say any district you would draw in kind of Western Virginia--the 9th District, that's a district that had been Democratic in the past or has become overwhelmingly Republican. You know, any district that covers, say, Alexandria and Arlington County, you know that's going to be a Democratic district right.

Now, I will say that, you know that the Hampton Roads congressional seat--or one of the districts out there--is usually competitive, because places like Virginia Beach, and other parts of that area are, you know, highly populated and are pretty competitive. So that's a place that inherently is pretty competitive. But yeah, a lot of the places--a lot of the districts are just inherently not going to be that competitive. And look, if you if you broaden out nationally, no matter how you draw districts, for instance, in like New York City, we know that New York City is going to have several congressional districts and all of them or almost all of them are going to be overwhelmingly Democratic, because New York City is an overwhelmingly democratic place. You're not going to draw competitive districts in say western Nebraska or western Kansas because they're super Republican. You know, again, even if you were prioritizing competition and redistricting, a lot of districts would not be competitive.

NM: There's obviously a global pandemic happening right now. It's pushed the primary elections back two weeks to June 23. Ralph Northam is strongly encouraging vote-by-mail with absentee ballots and there have been some restrictions lifted on how those absentee ballots you know, like that you don't have to have a witness anymore. How do you see this playing out in terms of turnout and participation in elections this year?

KK: Look, a lot of--there are a lot of open questions, I think. And so honestly, we don't know I will say that a lot of us were expecting turnout nationally to be very high, perhaps historically high this November because--basically, in terms of just general interest in politics, it's very high right now. Or at least it was prior to the pandemic. And we also had extremely high turnout in the midterm, which I think was indicative of an engaged electorate. But with the pandemic and, you know, its potential to be a major factor even still in November, that may exert some downward shift in the electorate. How that maybe affects the election? I think it's kind of hard to tell.

I think there's this sort of generic idea that higher turnout benefits Democrats, but honestly, that's not always true, and it differs from state to state. I think in a state like Virginia, higher turnout probably does benefit Democrats, but maybe that's not true in other places. And if turnout is significantly down, maybe that that would, you know, that would change, potentially change the outcome of the election. So I think it's important that states look ahead to November, that they assume that this will still be a problem in November and that they take steps to encourage people to vote and to give people good options to vote and that means both mail-in options, early voting, and the third thing, you know, actually providing polling locations because there's some there's some voters are not going to vote by mail. And again, I think you need to give those people options.

So there are a number of different things--I think the overall result is probably going to be based on the pandemic and also some reforms that Virginia lawmakers are already passed that Virginia voters are going to have an easier--or going to have a larger menu of options for voting than they have now. Which again, I you know, I guess I have a bias in favor of more voter participation as opposed to less. And so I think it's good that there are additional options for voters. But you know, more people will take advantage of those options, given the circumstances.

NM: Yeah, that's a good bias to have. Your whole organization is about sort of civic engagement.

KK: Yeah, that's that's right. I mean, again, we're non-partisan, and I'm not gonna--I try not to to advocate for one candidate over the other, but again, I will admit a bias in favor of participation.

NM: There you go.

KK: And it's something I think we all should be concerned about, given the pandemic, because, you know, the people may need reassurance that their options are going to be safe. Otherwise, they might not show up. And again, I don't think that that's particularly healthy. And we have to make sure that we sort of think about the most vulnerable people, both people who, you know, again, people, people who are homeless people who have health problems--you know, they've got the right to vote too. And you have to have options for them. And so, no, just these one-size-fits-all options aren't good enough, because voters are different, they have different circumstances.

NM: Kyle Kondik is the Director of Communications at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Thanks to him and also to journalist Peter Galuszka and FiveThirtyEight Election Analyst Geoff Skelley. My name is Nathan Moore and I'm the host of Bold Dominion. Thanks as always, to our producers, Aaryan Balu and Sabrina Moore. Find this show online at BoldDominion.org. Go ahead and subscribe--t's just a click away. Keep social distancing, and I'll talk to you again in two weeks.