Posted on 08/02/2009 3:31:01 AM PDT by Kaslin
WINCHESTER, Va. – Virginia will be the center of political attention this fall, thanks to the first statewide election in a battleground state since the 2008 presidential election.
“Here we go again,” said Larry Larsen, an independent voter accustomed to the national attention that Virginia races attract.
November’s gubernatorial race matches former state attorney general Bob McDonnell, a Republican, versus state senator Creigh Deeds, a Democrat.
A SurveyUSA poll last week gave McDonnell a 15-point lead. RealClearPolitics shows McDonnell as 6.3 percentage points in the lead, based on aggregate polling data.
“If McDonnell were to win this, the message it sends back to Washington is to slow down,” said John Morrison, a Deeds supporter.
Morrison was busy planning a fundraiser for his candidate last week while taking orders at Piccadilly Print Shop, a business he has owned for more than 25 years.
Larsen, a stockbroker and father of six, leans Republican. His issues, not surprisingly, hinge on the economy: “My income is not what it was last year, and right now it seems that none of the spending solutions are working.”
Both Virginia and New Jersey will hand a report card of sorts to President Obama and the Democrats controlling Congress with their governor’s races this fall. Both are leaning toward Republican wins, but in politics, anything can change.
For about 40 years, since Richard Nixon's 1968 run, Northern Virginia favored Republicans until it began shifting to Democrats in 2004, 2006 and 2008.
Located near Washington, D.C., it is home to lots of tech companies and their employees, along with a healthy proportion of people who work in government (and government has been expanding since Obama became president) and who lean left.
The Virginia Beach and Richmond areas also have favored Republicans since Nixon. Unlike their northern cousins, people in those areas have become redder.
Obama's victory in Virginia was hugely related to high black voter turnout, especially in the Virginia Beach area. If that voting bloc does not show up for Deeds, he is in trouble.
It does not help him that the nation’s first elected black governor, Virginia’s Douglas Wilder, is cool to him – so much so that Wilder told the Washington Times last week that Deeds risked becoming a “me too” candidate. Wilder then complimented McDonnell for reaching out to Virginians who don't traditionally vote Republican.
Despite a push from the White House, Wilder is miles from endorsing Deeds. While McDonnell has made numerous calls on the former governor, Deeds will have his first meeting with Wilder sometime this week.
McDonnell is well-positioned as a state official. He beat Deeds for the attorney general’s job by about 300 votes in 2005, in what was a more favorable year for Democrats. (Hurricane Katrina had hit and wiped out Bush's approval ratings, just as the Iraq War’s unpopularity heated up and Social Security reform fell apart).
Obama’s 2008 victory in Virginia, while impressive, was many years in the making, built on demographic changes and the election of three Democrats – U.S. senators Mark Warner (also a former governor) and Jim Webb and Gov. Tim Kaine. They were successful because they built a new brand for Democrats, one that was fiscally responsible and focused on improving people’s lives rather than on divisive social issues.
That begs a question: With a healthy party brand and three popular Democrats in statewide leadership, why is Deeds languishing in the polls?
“Washington’s policies, plain and simple,” said Philip Charles, a retired D.C. firefighter from Front Royal, Va. “Obama’s charisma won this state last fall. His policies may cost his party a seat in the governor’s mansion this fall.”
Charles, another independent, is both under- and overwhelmed by what Congress has put on the table since January: “It is too much. People wanted change – well, they got it, and now they want to stop it.”
With its counter-cyclical election, Virginia is poised to serve as a check on government’s role in everyday life, its expansion and its spending.
Part of Deeds’ problem is that voters are exhausted after 2008’s “change” hype and discouraged because they don't feel that things are getting better – changing – fast enough.
The 2010 mid-term elections will hinge on the economy and on spending. Either the economy roars back and Democrats can claim they made the difference or 2010 could be another 1982, when Ronald Reagan took a mid-term hit because the economy had not yet pulled out of its recession.
One thing is certain: No way will the economy be better this November, when Virginia and New Jersey vote – and when it comes to the relationship between politics and the economy, jobs matter more than all other measures.
Where did I sit my popcorn?
I agree with your analysis 100%!
Virginia ping.
NJ is always disappointing, and VA is most unreliable too.
I wished you were a little more optimistic. You know things do change
I prefer to remain cautiously optimistic about November.
An incorrect statement. The economy was already in recovery, but the official gov't numbers and reports on the STATE of the economy weren't released until AFTER the election, for which would've likely changed the outcome had they been released beforehand. It also didn't help matters that Dem Governors and legislatures gerrymandered districts all over the country to pad their numbers for 1982, with the most grotesque example being in CA. Had the lines been favorable, the GOP would've either held firm or gained seats. A good example was the Senate, which was a wash.
With a healthy party brand and three popular Democrats in statewide leadership.....
I wonder if they are still popular after the cap and tax bill an with the health care proposal, or if their #’s have started to fall.
“Could shape up to be a bad few months for the President (healthcare, cap and trade and losing two gubernatorial bastions for the Dems). Virginia is the lynch pin though (Jersey would be the windfall). Lots have been looking to 2010 to change the political landscape, but I think these two races could definitely change the tone “
I would absolutely revel in the Ds losing both these seats. Hopefully this would be the beginning of a sizable conservative wave for 2010 and doesnt peak here. If Christie wins in NJ he may have some powerful coattails or rather Corzine have some negative ones and bring some solid conservatives to state legislative seats that can be prepped to run against some Fed congressional seats in the near future. I hope that the same effect can happen in VA as well
Where did I sit my popcorn?
Forget your popcorn, and watch out for the acorns.
"Fiscally responsible" my sweet Aunt Fanny. All they did was raise taxes. MWarner was particularly unaccomplished as governor and Gov. Gridlock (Tim Kaine) has major problems with VITA and the appearance of coverups with the Tech massacre. Raising my taxes hasn't improved my life one iota.
Not to worry. Teddy is Virginia's own Droopy Dog of Gloom.
1894!
I really hope the GOP sweeps all 3 statewide races. All 3 candidates lok great.
McDonnell could be a rising superstar if he wins. For months, we are told by pundits that the GOP must shift left. McDonnell is being villifed as the Pat Roberston candidate. If McDonnell wins, then he will be proff that you can be conservative and reverse the disturbing trend in NoVa.
Yeah, like 1920, one of the highest water-mark elections for the GOP (due to the Panic of 1893, blamed on Cleveland). I noticed some Southern states swept in Republicans, but due to rodent fraud, claimed “Dem wins”, but were overturned, though many weren’t seated until near the end of that Congress (states like KY, for example, elected a 6R-5D GOP majority, and then no GOP majority again until 1928, and then after that until 1994).
I noticed a many of the GOP congressional victories in Southern and border states back in the late 19th/Early 20th were “contested”.
I agree 100% with your analysis.
Well, remember, even after the Democrats were “restored” to power, there was still GOP strength in some areas (especially where there were Blacks or anti-Confederate Whites). The two Republicans that won in AL in 1894 (who happened to be brothers, the Aldriches from NY, Truman and William), one, Truman, won from the district that contained Selma (which had a sizeable Black presence, likely accounting for the one brother’s win), and the other, William, represented the district including the booming Birmingham (which he likely won because a lot of non-Southerners flooded the area, and he won it three times, but it took over a year to seat him each time).
Interestingly, William chose not to run in 1900, which was the year Jim Crow officially took hold, since George White in NC (the last Black Republican to win in the south to date) also didn’t run that year, either, so the Black-White GOP coalition collapsed. Republicans from then on had to rely exclusively on Whites to win Southern districts, for which they won only a handful until 1964. As I said, had Blacks been enfranchised during the entire period, there would’ve been consistent Southern GOP presence in Congress.
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