Missing Middle advocates are celebrating a win after the Democratic nomination of JD Spain Sr. for Arlington County Board.
Spain was one of two Democratic contenders supporting the Expanded Housing Option in a race partly defined by debate over housing policy. He and the other candidate defending Missing Middle, Tenley Peterson, together captured 56% of first-choice votes in the primary last week.
YIMBYs of Northern Virginia, an organization advocating for additional housing, hailed this outcome — along with the outcome of the Democratic primary in Alexandria — in a press release.
“Spain and [Peterson’s] impressive showing in first-place votes shows the acceptance of pro-housing policies among Arlington’s primary voters,” the organization said. “We look forward to working with all of [the] winners to make Northern Virginia a more
welcoming, affordable, and accessible region to all.”
Natalie Roy, a vocal opponent of Missing Middle who made her stance on the issue a core part of her campaign, made it to the final round of vote tabulation and secured 43% of all ballots — 1,822 votes behind Spain, who garnered 52% of the vote.
Candidates James DeVita and Julie Farnam also opposed the housing policy, which allows for the development of relatively small scale multi-family homes in previously single-family-home-only neighborhoods.
Though the Arlington County Board unanimously approved Missing Middle last year, the policy could return for another vote if the county loses a civil trial over the zoning changes scheduled for next month. If that happens, the winner of the November election could potentially play a role in deciding whether the changes stay in place.
The only outward critic of Missing Middle currently on the Board is Susan Cunningham, who earned the Democratic nomination last year with 60% of the vote.
Despite the prominent role that housing policy played in this year’s primary, data from Arlington’s second ranked-choice vote indicate complexity in voters’ priorities.
Like last year, Arlington voters could rank up to three candidates on their ballots. In the new system, if no candidate gets more than half the votes at first, the one with the least votes is out. Votes for that candidate then go to the next picks listed by the voters and the process repeats until a candidate secures a majority.
Farnam was the first to be eliminated in this year’s tabulation. About a third of her votes — 482 of 1,267 — went to Roy, while the rest were fairly evenly distributed across the other three candidates.
Next to fall was DeVita, another particularly outspoken Missing Middle critic. While 1,118 of his 2,145 votes went to Roy, 443 ballots went to Spain and 320 went to Peterson.
Finally, after the third round of tabulation, about two-thirds of Peterson’s ballots went to Spain, handing him 3,348 votes that buoyed him to victory.
Both Spain and Roy ran for County Board last year, as well. In a race for two open seats, Spain was eliminated with 23% of the vote in the third round, while Roy was eliminated in the fifth round with 31% of all votes.
Ranked-choice voting tends to reward candidates who have broad appeal and disadvantage candidates who alienate specific voting blocs, Jeremy Mayer, an associate professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, told ARLnow prior to last week’s vote.
“The old system measured intensity of feeling for a single candidate best,” he said. “Ranked choice voting allows more complicated preferences of voters to be heard, thus reducing the ‘wasted vote’ problem in which you don’t want to vote your true preference because your candidate has little chance.”
In an exit poll of 344 Arlington voters by Exit Polling Strategies — and supported by FairVote, a group that advocates for use of ranked-choice voting in American elections — 67% said they would like to use ranked-choice voting in the future and 88% found the process “easy.”
Spain credited his win to a “grassroots, community-led campaign.” In November, he is set to face off against Republican candidate Juan Carlos Fierro, independent candidate Audrey Clement and Forward Party candidate Madison Granger.
“I’m excited about where we are,” Spain told ARLnow. “But, you know, we still have a general election to run in, so I’m not taking anything for granted.”
