The scale of the task. The delegate contest draws fewer voters than the top of the ticket. In 2024, 14,167 votes were cast for delegate; in 2022, 16,563. Sarauw's 4,913 primary votes represent roughly a third of recent delegate-race turnout, so a November majority requires support from independents, Republicans and residents who did not vote on August 1.

The one prior test. The only time Sarauw has appeared on a territory-wide general election ballot was 2022, as Kurt Vialet's running mate. That ticket took 38.07 percent. It led on St. Croix and trailed on St. Thomas–St. John, and was behind by roughly 2,800 votes in early voting. Given that 71 percent of this year's primary ballots were cast before election day, the early-vote period is where a general election is now decided.

What that comparison does not capture. A lieutenant governor candidate runs on another candidate's ticket. This is the first time Sarauw has headed a territory-wide ballot line in her own name, and she did so as the highest vote-getter of the August 1 primary.

Historical context. Only five people have held this seat since the first delegate election in 1972. Just two delegate races have gone to a runoff, in 1994 and 1996. This is only the fourth open-seat contest — after 1978, 1994 and 2014 — and three of those four opened because the incumbent left to run for governor, as Stacey Plaskett has. Turnout in the delegate race has fallen substantially over that period, from roughly 31,700 votes in the 1994 first round to 14,167 in 2024.

Read it this way. In the 32nd Legislature, 54 of her 86 filings — nearly two-thirds — died without ever receiving a bill number. By the 34th, that had fallen to 15 of 62. Her filing volume dropped while her strike rate roughly doubled.

But the whole chamber moved with her. Between the 32nd and 33rd Legislatures, conversion went from 50 to 91 percent for Kurt Vialet, 51 to 97 for Novelle Francis Jr., and 50 to 95 for Marvin Blyden. Three independent members, near-identical jump. That is a change in how the Legislature recorded and processed bill requests, not three senators improving at once. Sarauw's own rise over the same span — 37 to 65 percent — is real, but it is not evidence of personal growth on its own.

What is hers. She began roughly 13 points behind her peers on conversion and ended within 11 of Vialet. Her strongest term was her last: a 53 percent law rate in the 34th Legislature, ahead of Francis Jr. at 47 percent, behind Vialet at 70, Blyden at 65 and freshman Alma Francis Heyliger at 62. The 32nd is also the term she entered six months late after the court fight, which depresses that first column.

She trails the other three-term members on every cumulative measure. Vialet and Francis Jr. each turned roughly 400 filings into more than 220 laws. Sarauw filed 248 and passed 90. Blyden sits between them. On law rate she is last of the four, at 36 percent against a peer range of 47 to 61.

The gap narrows sharply by her final term. In the 32nd she converted 37 percent of filings against a peer band of 50 to 51. In the 34th she converted 76 percent against 72 to 91, and her 53 percent law rate that term put her ahead of Francis Jr. Her weakest showing was the 33rd, a full term in which she passed 34 laws while Francis Jr. passed 138 and Vialet 109.

Caucus position does not explain the gap — it points the other way. Contemporaneous reporting establishes where she sat. In the 33rd Legislature she chaired Rules and Judiciary, the committee every bill and every gubernatorial nomination passes through. That is the term her law rate was lowest: 34 percent, against 74 for Novelle Francis Jr. and 73 for Kurt Vialet. In November 2020 a ten-member Democratic majority formed for the 34th Legislature without her, and the Rules chairmanship was stripped. Vialet, Francis Jr. and Blyden were all inside that majority; Sarauw sat with the minority. The 34th was then her strongest term — a 53 percent law rate, her highest of the three.

So the obvious explanation fails. She performed worst while chairing the chamber's gatekeeping committee and best after being removed from the governing coalition. Whatever accounts for the gap, majority standing is not it. VIIQ is not asserting an alternative cause. The gap is the finding; the explanation is not in this data.

October 29, 2020. Governor Albert Bryan vetoed three measures aimed at the Water and Power Authority — one establishing oversight of the utility, one altering its board structure, and one changing the Public Services Commission board — arguing in his transmittal letter that legislative intrusion into the executive branch would erode the separation of powers doctrine.

Sarauw, then chair of the Committee on Rules and Judiciary and a primary sponsor of the oversight bill, responded that "he coddles the utility company and refuses to hold them accountable." V.I. Consortium · October 29, 2020

Three of four eventually passed. The board-composition and Public Services Commission provisions vetoed in 2020 became law in the 34th Legislature. The oversight committee itself — the measure that would have created standing legislative review of the utility — was reintroduced word for word as Bill 34-0022 and never received an Act number.

Why this matters for the counts. Her 33rd Legislature law rate was 34 percent, against 74 percent for Novelle Francis Jr. and 73 for Kurt Vialet. At least part of that gap is legislation stopped at the governor's desk rather than legislation that failed to move. A count of enacted laws cannot distinguish between the two.

A note on the data. The Consortium identified Sarauw as a primary sponsor of the WAPA oversight bill. The Legislature's own tracking system records no primary sponsor for Bill 33-0346 at all — independent confirmation that the primary-sponsor field cannot be used to establish authorship.

Airtime did not predict the outcome. Hansen spoke the most and finished last. Smith spoke 50 percent longer than Sarauw and lost to her by 1,906 votes. Sarauw had the second-smallest share of candidate speech and took an outright majority two weeks later.

Her closing made no policy commitments. Three of the four candidates used their final sixty seconds on character and biography rather than policy; Helenese was the exception. Sarauw's closing was a character argument — that she would outwork and outprepare the field — and she was the only candidate to acknowledge an error made during the debate itself.

The general election field is not yet settled. Certification of the August 1 primary is scheduled for August 11, and the Elections System has not published a final general election ballot listing. VIIQ is not naming a field until it does. Third-party aggregators currently list contradictory and stale information — Ballotpedia states that it is combining all declared candidates into a single general election heading, which is why Stacey Plaskett still appears there despite running for governor.

What is known. Community advocate Rashida Francis has said she is running as a write-in candidate. Several people who filed for the seat were removed before the primary: Jed JohnHope was disqualified 97 signatures short on his St. Croix petition, and James Webber III was disqualified by the Supervisor of Elections. Alexander "Shelley" Moorhead, Ida Smith, Brett McClafferty and Antonio Emanuel also did not reach the ballot. Whether a Republican or independent candidate is certified for November remains to be confirmed.

She won cheaply. As of the last verified filing, Sarauw had raised under $7,000 and spent about $2,500. She went on to take 4,913 votes — the highest total of any candidate or ticket on the August 1 ballot. Even allowing for spending after March 31 that is not captured above, this was not a race won on money. Plaskett, who left the contest, had raised roughly ninety times more.

Why that matters for November. A general election electorate roughly twice the size of the primary's, contested against candidates whose finances are not yet on the record, is a different spending problem from a low-turnout party primary. VIIQ will update this table as FEC filings post.

The Legislature's bill tracking system carries a voting field on every bill record. On every record VIIQ examined, across four legislatures, that field returns empty. Floor votes are recorded — they exist in the session journals — but they exist on paper, in an office, available on request.

That means no Virgin Islander can look up how their senator voted on any measure from the 32nd through the 36th Legislature without physically requesting documents. Sponsorship is public and searchable. Voting is not. For a body of fifteen members where sponsorship lists routinely run to a dozen names, sponsorship is the weaker signal of the two.

Nothing on this page describes how Sarauw voted on measures she did not sponsor, because that information is not published. VIIQ is pursuing the session journals for the 32nd through 34th Legislatures. If they are produced, this page will be updated — and the territory will have its first searchable roll-call record.

Vetoes are a second blind spot. Fifty-four of her introduced bills never received an Act number. That pool mixes bills that died in committee with bills the governor vetoed, and the Legislature's downloadable export omits the status column that would separate them — the Governor's-number field marks transmission, not rejection, and appears on bills that became law. Contemporaneous reporting fills part of the gap: Governor Bryan vetoed three of her WAPA and Public Services Commission measures in October 2020, and two of her 34th Legislature bills are marked vetoed on her member page — Bill 34-0388, raising the minimum salary for government employees, and Bill 34-0272, empowering the Taxicab Commission's executive director to hire. A complete list requires reading the status column off the tracking system directly, which VIIQ is compiling.