Trump's unconventional candidacy has transcended the usual "red-blue" divide in national elections and turned it into an establishment vs. anti-establishment affair.
And more of the wealthiest, (and most likely to back the establishment status quo), voters are now backing Hillary Clinton. In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney beat President Obama by 10 percentage points among voters earning $100,000 or more per year. Most polls now show that has completely flipped to an eight-to-ten point lead for Clinton. And Virginia is now home to the top two counties for median income in the entire country.
And so much of that growing wealth and attachment to the status quo in Virginia is because of the government. Thanks to lucrative D.C.-area lobbying jobs and the rock-solid job security Virginia's large number of federal government workers enjoy, the state is chock full of residents who rely on Uncle Sam. And with the federal government still growing robustly over the past decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations, that establishment base is getting bigger.
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But his relative weakness in the Virginia polls tells us a significant portion of the population there doesn't like the sound of this outsider threatening their way of life. Imagine if Trump came into Michigan and bashed autoworkers, or showed up in Florida and bashed Social Security? Bashing the government and insiders in Washington has a similar effect for a lot of Democrats and Republicans in Virginia.
Well, I don’t know. Cuccinelli was running double digits behind McAuliffe and lost by 2.5. Gillespie was running way behind Warner and lost by a split point.
It’s probable that Trump will outperform his polling numbers here, especially if Democrats think it’s safe. OTOH, maybe presidential election models are more predictable. OTOH, the last 2 prez elections had a black guy on the ballot, so are Tidewater blacks really going to turn out?
It is hard for me to believe that the vast majority of voters in Virginia work for the government.