Earlier in the year we checked in with an update about beginning of the year fundraising numbers in Virginia. We’re back with more numbers to share from campaign finance reports that were due in mid-April (showing fundraising through March 31).

Today, we’re focusing in on the 13 Democratically-held districts where EveryDistrict has made endorsements. All of these districts flipped in either 2017 or 2019, and if Republicans strongly contest them, will be competitive and require significant investment to ensure Democrats hold the seat.

For most of this fundraising period, these incumbents were barred from fundraising during the legislative session because Delegates cannot fundraise while the Virginia legislature is in session. Despite that, these candidates have made good progress since the beginning of the year. 

We expect that each of these candidates will need to raise at least $500,000 (and likely more) to run a competitive campaign. As of January 1, we were only 10% of the way there to hitting that goal. Now, we’re 25% of the way there.

The below table breaks down Democratic and Republican fundraising in these districts. COH means “Cash on Hand,” the amount candidates had in their bank account at the time the report was filed. Many thanks to VPAP for the data.

Right now, most of these candidates have a healthy fundraising lead over their GOP challengers, as they should given their incumbent status. Most of the GOP candidates didn’t jump into the race until February or March, so these reports don’t give us a great sense of their fundraising capacity yet — and given the lack of contribution limits in Virginia, it’s easy for candidates to raise a lot of money quickly.

On the Democratic side, a few districts jump out. Wendy Gooditis, in HD 10, is facing a strong challenger with deep pockets. This race is going to get expensive quickly. There are a couple of other incumbents whose fundraising was not as strong, and we’ll continue to monitor those districts closely.

The good news is that our candidates have momentum, but we need to ensure they keep up the strong fundraising numbers. Raising more money now will ensure that they can spend more time in the critical summer and fall months talking to voters instead of talking to donors.

You can help by chipping in to support these candidates. 100% of what you give will be split evenly between these campaigns.