DISTRICT PROFILE
When House of Delegates Speaker William Howell (R) decided to not seek re-election for the seat he had represented for a quarter-century, all hell broke loose in the Stafford County Republican Party.
The center-right wing of the county party and arch-conservative right were at each others’ necks during the first Trump presidency. In 2017, there was a contentious primary for the open race in HD-28, which mostly comprised parts of eastern Stafford County. Stafford County Board of Supervisors member Bob Thomas (R) of the George Washington District (located in the southeastern part of the county), a center-right Republican, emerged victorious in a battle against the more conservative candidate, Stafford County Board of Supervisors member Paul Milde of Aquia (located in the northeastern part of the county).
Milde ran again for the Republican primary for what was a highly competitive district in the 2019 House of Delegates elections, and bested Thomas by a knife’s edge. Milde would go on to lose the seat to Democrat Joshua Cole, who narrowly lost to Thomas. In 2021, both the center-right and arch-conservatives were united under the banner of Republican Tara Durant and flipped the seat during the 2021 cycle.
Milde went effectively uncontested in 2023 when he won the new HD-64, which comprises the heart of Stafford County, a county where roughly 15% of those with jobs work for the federal government. He won by 9% with a massive turnout advantage from fired-up rural voters coming out and minority voters staying home.
In 2024, President Trump won this seat by 1.9%. This area has seen an explosion of housing development over the last decade, leading the seat’s shift from reliably Republican in its 2016 partisanship to a hotly-contested one as younger families moved in and its racial composition diversified, especially with an influx from Hispanic communities.
With President Trump in the White House, layoffs of federal government workers, and an ongoing federal government shutdown, Virginia House Democrats have locked onto the 64th as a top-tier target. Democrat Stacey Carroll, a certified public accountant (CPA) and veteran, is giving Milde his first competitive race in six years. Despite recent efforts by local Republicans to try and throw Carroll off the ballot over a residency complaint that would prove unsuccessful, Carroll is within fighting distance of pulling off an upset here.
The 64th is now a uniquely mixed district in demographics compared to the first year of the Trump presidency: According to our demographic profile of the seat, a majority of residents lack a college degree despite being in proximity to places in Northern Virginia where voters with a college degree are ubiquitous. Black voters in this seat actually outrun the percentage they make of the overall electorate, which is ahead of the average Black turnout rate in Virginia; despite being 18% of the district in 2020, the district’s 2024 electorate was 21% Black. Ensuring Black turnout is a must for Democrats’ path to an upset here, and they’re hoping Carroll, who is Black, can seal the deal.
Carroll has heavily outraised and outspent Milde, who previously used to self-fund his campaigns but hasn’t done so this year. Carroll has raised $2,290,502 to Milde’s $539,613 throughout the cycle, and spent $2,164,502 to Milde’s $555,617. On the airwaves, Milde is getting enormously outspent by Carroll, even in comparison to his Republican colleagues in other competitive seats. Carroll, a veteran, has mostly hit Milde over veterans’ benefits in the ads in a seat with a large veteran population.
Top Republicans believe Milde is in a comfortable position to win, but could find out Tuesday night that they’ve been asleep at the wheel. In the current State Navigate House of Delegates forecast, Milde has a 57% chance of retaining his seat with a projected 1.3% margin of victory.
DISTRICT POLL RESULTS
From Sunday through Tuesday this week, State Navigate went into the field with a poll of likely voters in the 64th that shows, unsurprisingly, a highly competitive race with a slight Republican edge.
The only Democrat leading in the State Navigate HD-64 poll is Abigail Spanberger in the race for Governor, with a 1-point lead. The remaining races show narrow leads for Republicans, with the narrowest being the actual House of Delegates contest between Milde and Carroll, where Milde has a 1-point lead: He trails John Reid’s performance in his district despite being an incumbent Delegate.
OTHER QUESTIONS AND DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS
Spanberger’s doing only slightly better than Harris in this seat which is chock-full of federal workers impacted by the ongoing federal government shutdown. Our electorate in this survey was weighted to a tied result in the 2024 presidential election, and Spanberger leads by 1%. Early voting in this district suggests a slightly more favorable electorate than 2024, but not by much. This seat voted for Trump by +1.9% in 2024, but the electorate this year in the 64th based on early vote returns thus far will likely have broken more evenly in the presidential election last year.
Interestingly, in comparison to yesterday’s poll in HD-73, Miyares isn’t gaining many crossover voters. While there was a 10-point difference in HD-73 between the gubernatorial result and the Attorney General result, there is only a 5 point difference here. The likelihood of why this may be is because this seat has a less college-educated population and more racially polarized. Miyares is pulling off Democrats with a college education, but not Democrats without one.
We asked voters two questions related to the government shutdown: Who they blame for it, and how big of an impact it will have on their vote in the upcoming election. A plurality of likely voters blame President Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, with 43% blaming them vs. 38% blaming congressional Democrats.
When we asked voters how big of an impact on a 1-5 scale the ongoing federal government shutdown will have on their vote in the upcoming election, the numbers largely broke evenly. 40% said the shutdown will have either the biggest impact or a large impact on their vote, 40% said the shutdown will barely have any impact or no impact at all on their vote. When examining the party affiliation (with leaners), 60% of Republicans said it’ll have no impact at all or barely any impact, with 25% saying it will have either a large or the biggest impact on their vote. Among Democrats, it is unsurprisingly inverted: 58% say it will have a large or the biggest impact on their vote, while 18% say it will have either no impact at all or barely any impact.
In a twist, Carroll is pulling a considerable number of Republicans. In the leaned Party ID, Carroll is pulling 5% of Republicans, whereas Milde doesn’t have any support from Democrats. That’s similar to the gubernatorial result where Abigail Spanberger is pulling 6% of self-identified Republicans. When compared to how people voted in last year’s presidential election, it shows a slightly different result. 2% of Trump voters say they are voting for Stacey Carroll, and 2% of Harris voters say they’re voting for Milde. In the race for Governor, 2% of Trump voters say they’re voting for Spanberger, and 1% of Harris voters say they’re voting for Sears. Potential reasons for Carroll gaining this crossover support as a first-time candidate include her status as a veteran, launching negative attack ads against Milde alleging a lack of support for veterans, residual bad blood from the Stafford County Republicans’ civil war during the first Trump presidency.
It could also be that Milde is too conservative for the district. 40% of respondents identify as ideologically moderate, and Carroll is winning that group by a 2-to-1 margin. According to State Navigate’s WNOMINATE analysis, which calculates the ideology of incumbent legislators based on every floor rollcall vote, Milde is the 15th-most conservative member of the House of Delegates, putting him right of the median House Republican in their 49-member caucus.
We broke down the 64th into three regions: the eastern section (Aquia), central section (I-95 Corridor), and western section (Rural West). Milde’s strongest region is, of course, the rural west, where he enjoys 69% of support from likely voters. The I-95 corridor is Carroll’s strongest region, where she enjoys 62% of support. The most competitive region is in the east, where Milde’s home is: 48% of likely voters support Carroll to Milde’s 47%.
This poll overall is arguably a mixed bag for Republicans. Spanberger is only doing 1% better in an electorate weighed to a tied result, but Carroll seems to be peeling off Republican-leaning voters at a similar rate Spanberger is, and Miyares isn’t doing much better in this district than Trump, potentially showing a problem for him with non-college voters and/or in Northern Virginia. Our forecast and poll suggests a tight race for the 64th; this is anyone’s game.
Full toplines and crosstabs for this poll can be found here.
