Posted on 11/02/2013 12:19:51 PM PDT by Kenny
When a new poll of Virginia voters this week found a tight gubernatorial race between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Ken Cuccinelli, it seemed like an outlier. For the past few weeks, surveys in the Old Dominion have shown the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee leading by a comfortable margin, and sometimes by double digits. (The RCP Average has him ahead by 7.5 points.) Such numbers should have been reassuring for McAuliffe, given Virginia’s habit of choosing its governor from the opposing party of the president.
But a four-point race -- the margin that Quinnipiac (which has a slightly lower sample of Democrats than other polls) found this week -- might actually be right where Democrats want it heading into the weekend before Election Day. It’s also where both sides figured the contest would be in this purple state.
For Democrats, a tight race could help mobilize key Obama-coalition members (African-
Democrats emailed supporters on Thursday after the poll surfaced, portraying a high-stakes scenario that called for cash and turnout. “It’s a dead heat,” the email read. “We’ll all be kicking ourselves if we fall short on our opportunity to defeat Ken Cuccinelli and stamp out the Tea Party in Virginia . . .”
<snip>
Democrats, however, see their hopes being buoyed by early voting trends, which they have been tracking the way Obama did in 2012 and using the president’s campaign model for contacting voters and identifying their preferences and primary voting history, according to a party official associated with the coordinated campaign. More than 79,000 voters have already cast their ballots, and Democrats believe McAuliffe is leading by about 6,000 votes heading into the weekend, according to their calculations. They also expect McAuliffe to lead by roughly 1,200 votes among the additional 17,000 voters who have requested ballots.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
So much wrong with this early voting crap.
“Tightened Va. Race May Boost Both Sides’ Chances”
Do they deliberately look for morons to write such incoherent nonsense?
” . . . may boost *both* sides chances”?
Isn’t that a logical contradiction? Only one side can win - that which boosts Cuccinelli’s chances diminishes Mcauliffe’s (and vice-versa).
RCP’s opinion that they think it a good chance both win, that both get over 50%...
This is plausible in the liberal’s mind, where turnout can exceed 100%.
It's good that the Pauls came to support KC too.
Just curious - why don’t Republicans use some of these “early voting” tactics?
So basically they don’t have a clue.
I think they're just trying to acknowledge the obvious, that the race is tightening, without giving Cucinelli any credit.
“So much wrong with this early voting crap.”
I totally agree!
Sorry if I’m appearing uniformed, but I’ve always wondered how they can claim 1 is ahead of another without opening the ballots, which they’re not *supposed* to do until election day, unless they’re calculating the votes coming in from a specific district and such district normally votes x% Dim or Pubbie (and/or they know they’ve stuffed enough ballots and have enough dead people voting for the Dim).
Last poll I saw, Sarvis was pulling 13%!
I’ll be surprised if he pulls in 3%. Pre-election polls always overestimate support for third parties.
The government shutdown helped McAuliffe a lot in northern VA, where a lot of government workers and contractors reside.
But the focus on the Obamacare debacle the past few weeks has boosted Cucinelli who was an early and vocal opponent of the bill.
Turn-out projections from Cuccinelli’s team shows a different picture. From a Cuccinelli campaign e-mail yesterday afternoon:
“Clearly, the momentum is on our side.
“It is showing up in areas outside the polling as well. For instance, we are seeing it in the absentee and early voting throughout the Commonwealth, as well as through our Get Out the Vote (GOTV) operations. When you take a look at Ken’s favorable responses in our GOTV Universe, we started to see a shift on October 26th.
“Nightly responses:
10/31 – 69%
10/30 – 66%
10/29 – 66%
10/28 – 61%
10/27 – 58%
10/26 – 59%
10/25 – 54%
10/24 – 53%
10/23 – 55%
“We have also seen a similar pattern emerge within our daily Absentee Ballot tracking. When we compared the Cuccinelli targeting model to the McAuliffe targeting model, the McAuliffe model had built up a 1,500+ vote lead by 10/25. Starting on 10/26 we started seeing a higher rate of return from within the Cuccinelli model. Over the past six days we have seen the Cuccinelli model significantly outperform the McAuliffe model and yesterday (10/31) – for the first time in the campaign – the Cuccinelli model had more returned ballots than the McAuliffe model. It is a slight lead but a lead nonetheless.
“When you see similar trend lines in this many separate areas of the campaign, it shows that the momentum we have been looking for has finally arrived.”
Don’t know what to make of the conflicting data, but the tightening polls are encouraging. It will likely come down to turnout, and whether the Dhimms can get their zombie voters to the polls.
there is no early voting in VA
Here’s hoping Virginia patriots can make it a good WIN for Cuccinelli! Can’t help much from down here in Florida, but will do what I can! :)
Have been distributing hundreds of flyer and engaging folks in the neighborhoods. Signs for Cuccinelli in James City, York and Gloucester Counties vastly outnumber those for McAuliffe. The pro-GOP signage balance was far closer to even last year. There’s a grass-roots uprising for Cuccinelli... don’t know if it’ll push him over the top, but no way is this election going to be McAuliffe +7 or more.
Another intangible about Cuccinelli... he’s almost legendary in his ability to motivate voters in the last days of a campaign. He’s come from behind before and is a remarkable closer. Hopefully he has another comeback in him.
Obamacare is taking its toll.
Add New Kent County to those with a pro-Cuccinelli ration of signage.
Ration=ratio
From your keyboard to God’s ear! God bless!
he’s almost legendary in his ability to motivate voters in the last days of a campaign.
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