Gillespie is a good politician. Stewart is not. And there is no Obamacare as an issue this year. In fact, the dems have been very effective in making health care an issue against the repubs this year.
Stewart is a perfect candidate for Virginia 20 years ago, but that time has passed. Stewart is a perfect candidate for Alabama, but Virginia is not Alabama. A good politician understands the voters of their district or state and campaigns accordingly. A case in point is Comstock, who appeared to be losing but at least has made her race competitive in a district that loathes Trump. Trump received only 23% of the vote in Fairfax County in 2016, an astonishingly low percent, but believable because of all the govt workers, hangers on and contractors in the county.
Her 2018 election was considered lost the day after the pres election, but she is smart and even voting with Trump over 90% of the time has come across as more bipartisan.
Perhaps that is what you don't want to hear, but that is the only way a repub will ever win in Virginia again. Virginia is getting bluer by the day and a blowhard won't win in Virginia and Stewart comes across as a blowhard. He loses by 20.
This is a state that rejected the great George Allen twice. This state is gone for good.
Two VA polling outfits did polling in August and September. Quinipiac did polling in may...the others in February june and July. All were undersampling Republicans by 10 points and there were many refusing to give their party affiliations. The Libertarian in one poll was at 4 per cent.
One major Newspaper was saying that while Kaine was ahead,he was still running like an underdog...I believe it. He knows about the undersampling going on in all of the Virgina Universities’ polling outfits and about the Kavanaugh affect and he also knows how Virginians still voted just enough to keep the state assembly in the Republicans column.(I live in the Richmond area) What Kaine has to worry about is if Virginians across the state vote in the same patterns that allowed the assembly to stay in Republican hands then he could still lose in a squeaker since the Senate race is an all over state election. Stewart will do better than expected...with most of the state polls from September to back in May showing 15 to 25 percent respondant refusing to state a candidate preference is very telling. There has nothing been done recently by any national polls so the RCP is still skewed from polls from late last February to mid September.
My Prediction...Kaine by 5 with 4 percent of the vote total going to the Libertarian candidate. Stewart has a very strong “gumba” following that might just show up and surprise folks. Powhatan County tends to vote in percentages way beyond others like it for example and I see a lot of Stewart signs up in Midlothian/Chesterfield...my neighbor for example.
Kaine is working it because he realizes the college student pollsters can be a bit over zealous and that Virginia still voted to keep the assembly still Republican.