Welcome to Virginia Navigate: State Navigate’s new platform in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today’s launch of Virginia Navigate introduces our second of three pilot states, seven weeks after opening up shop in South Carolina. This monumental achievement by the State Navigate team, WhichSide Digital, and the donors powering our mission comes shortly after adding many new features to our databases, including candidate websites, photos, and campaign finance data.
While South Carolina Navigate took three months to launch, our team was able to utilize the tools and methods that they learned from our debut to whittle Virginia Navigate’s time to launch down to less than three weeks’ worth of work! This occurred while our team simultaneously juggled developing new, exciting features. This is a truly encouraging moment, as our organization looks to launch in no fewer than 25 states this year– the foundation laid by our pilot states has paved the way for us to open shop in other states around the country.
In particular, our efforts in Virginia have been paramount to a signature feature at State Navigate; W-NOMINATE is our floor roll call and legislator ideology database tailored to state legislatures. This database and its analysis aims to give our users a unique perspective on where each legislator falls ideologically when compared to their colleagues, rather than simply assigning them a typical “R” or “D” to represent their ideology. This includes data from their voting history on each floor rollcall vote, as well as their calculated probability of voting for or against a certain measure.
Virginia will also serve as yet another cornerstone of the framework of other states, as Virginia is holding elections in 2025 for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and the House of Delegates. With the primaries for this year’s election less than a month away, Virginia will be the first state for which we plan to collect data for an ongoing election. Such data includes candidate filings, websites, photos, received donations, expenditures made, and the first-ever live precinct map of election results at State Navigate.
We also plan to write extensively under the State Navigate title with original reporting and analysis on this year’s Virginia elections– including for the primaries. And, of course, Virginia Navigate will be the first-ever feature launch to carry a comprehensive state legislative election forecast. On June 29th in the Richmond, Virginia area, State Navigate will unveil this forecast to a room of ticket-goers featuring former House Majority Leader and Delegate Terry Kilgore (R) and State Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg (D). The forecast won’t become public until July 28th, 100 days before the general election.
We’re beyond excited for today, and every day going forward at State Navigate. Like fashion, our work is never finished— even beyond the completion of our pilot states and their foundational features, we will continue to find ways to expand our data, analysis and reporting for state governance.
This mission wouldn’t be possible without the work of our brilliant team, of course, but most importantly, it wouldn’t be possible without our donors. They make this work and our mission possible: We want to give this country a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that acts as every voter’s compass for state legislatures, free of charge. We want to recruit you, dear reader, to make this mission a reality. We hope you’ll join us in celebrating the birth of Virginia Navigate by making a tax-deductible donation to our organization.
As always, thank you again to everyone who has already donated, those who donate monthly, and those who plan to donate in the future. It’s through generosity like yours that we may shine a light on state governments and their voters around the country: It simply does not happen if we don’t have folks like you.
Yours in service,
The team at State Navigate
