Washington State Legslative Elections, 2018 and 2020

The interactive map below displays the partisan breakdown of the 2018 and 2020 legislative elections in Washington. Going into the 2018 election, Democrats held 50 seats in the House and 25 in the Senate to the GOP’s 48 and 23, with one Democrat caucusing with the Republicans (take it up with Sen. Tim Sheldon). The Democrats appear flipped 7 house seats and 2 senate seats, leaving them with a 57-41 edge in the house and a 27-22 edge in the senate, if you lump Senator Sheldon in with the “not Democrat” members. In 2020, both parties flipped one seat in each chamber, resulting in no net change.

In each year, an incumbent Democrat lost to a Democratic challenger in the general election (Washington has a nonpartisan primary, where the top-two vote-getters face off in the general election, regardless of party). In 2018, Senator Maralyn Chase lost handily to Jesse Salomon in the 32nd LD, just north of Seattle. Two years later, in the southern suburbs of Seattle Zack Hudgins was unseated by David Hackney, also by a comfortable margin.

As of the 2020 elections, most districts in Washington were represented by representatives and a senator of the same party, following a nationwide trend away from positive incumbent effects and split-ticket voting. Three exceptions remain:

• The 42nd district, covering all of Whatcom County save for parts of the southwest, narrowly reelected Republican Senator Doug Erickson in 2018, but elected Democrat Sharon Shewmake in 2018 to the house, then reelected Shewmake and elected Democrat Alicia Rule in 2020
• The 26th district, covering Bremerton and Gig Harbor, elected Democrat Emily Randall to the senate in 2018 but retained both of its Republican house members in both 2018 and 2020
• The 10th district, covering Island County and conservative parts of Skagit and Snohomish counties, elected Democrat Dave Paul to the house in 2018 while retaining Republican Norma Smith. In 2020, all incumbents (including Repulican Senator Ron Muzzall) were reelected

These districts will be the ones to watch in 2022, particularly the 26th and 10th, if history holds and the party that holds the Presidency experiences a midterm backlash.

Virginia Legislative Elections, 2017 and 2019

The map below displays the results from the 2017 Virginia House of Delegates elections and the 2019 House and Senate elections. Incumbency and party flips are determined using results from the last election and are not verified manually to account for mid-cycle special elections.

Note that the 2017 House districts are not the same as the 2019 districts, due to a court-mandated redistricting in 2018-2019. I originally planned to calculate how much of the Democrats' 2019 wins were due to districting, but discovered that precincts (the lowest level at which election results are reported) are not perfectly nested within legislative districts.