I would love to say I agree with their concerns, but I have a hard time seeing it. Had Republican put up someone who could excite the “Trump Base” for lack of a better term, then I could see Virginia flipping... but with an establishment GOPe guy like Gillespie??? I don’t see him motivating those voters Trump connected with... so unless the NOVA democrats stay home, and R turnout in the rural areas far exceeds expectations.. don’t see this one flipping, as much as I may want it to.
I am not on the ground in VA so maybe Gillespie is connecting and motivating voters, I would lay odds that NOVA turnout will almost certainly be lower than during the 2016 presidential election, and default is the party out of power usually is going to do better getting votes in elections not in sync with an national election, so certainly the baseline is the R should outperform 2016... and since the swamp creature not the D.C. Area don’t have their paychecks tied to continuing D rule in VA turnout will almost certainly take a hit in NOVA which further hurts a D in a generic race.
Could the R pull out a win? Yes it’s possible... but will they? If they had gone with a non establishment candidate I would have said almost certainly.. with an establishment candidate... it’s possible, but would say odds are not in the favor of that happening. It certainly won’t be a 5 point win for the D... I’d say best case for the D in this Generic race is 3 points on the high end, probably less when it’s all said and done.
A Gillespie win is possible, but it’s in my estimation an outside chance.
Northam comes across as such a smarmy, snarky guy that Gillespie might get votes just for that. There’s still human nature.