On Saturday, March 2, 2019, the DPVA Central Committee met in Richmond to decide which plan the DPVA would use to apportion delegates for the 2020 State and DNC Conventions.
The Committee had to choose between two formulas for calculating how many delegates would be allocated to each Congressional District: one formula looked at the percentage of votes obtained by the Democratic candidates in recent elections; the other formula looked at both the percentage of votes obtained by the Democratic candidates in recent elections and the Congressional District’s population. Here is a link breaking down the way delegates would have been apportioned under each plan: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xDLfVFD07hWDlm1IGiohZ3reqOpXWIOUcZt_0ebqkXE/edit#gid=0
As you can see, different Congressional Districts received an advantage or a disadvantage under each formula. Ultimately, the Central Committee voted in favor of the population formulas, resulting in delegate allocation numbers for the 11th Congressional District Democratic Committee consistent with the 2016 allocation. Three members of the 11th CDDC voted for this plan in both votes: George Becerra, Paul Davis, and Lainie Singerman. The other 16 members in attendance voted for the plans that would have given more delegates to the Northern Virginia Congressional Districts.
So, what does all of this mean?
Virginia has a set number of delegates that it gets to send to the DNC Convention in 2020. This number is determined by the DNC and includes a certain number of “base” delegates (the ones that we as Party members elect) and, on top of that, elected officials, like our Members of Congress, etc. Now, following the 3/2/19 vote, we know how many base delegates each Congressional District gets to pick.
