Hypo: Republicans pour more money in VA, Warner still ignores race

[moderatevoter]

Senate NC Yankee is right on the money here. tmthforu94, I remember reading that the final Gillespie internal had this race within a point.

Warner was sitting on $8 million CoH. If NRSC had moved in $1 million or more (which they didn't have, by the way), Warner and the DPV would have known something was up. Warner would have unloaded his arsenal (he's also worth $75 million, so if needed, he could have written himself a check).

I always felt there were two routes for a Republican to have a shot against Warner:

1) Go completely scorched earth, similar to North Carolina. In my own experience, I've noticed there are plenty of Republicans who "like" Warner, but can't really say why. A lot of people remember him as Governor, but can't really point to anything he did in the Senate (or they didn't know he voted for Obamacare, for example). So there was some room to define him. Gillespie did this to a degree. His 97% ads and Pucketgatte ads probably tarnished some of Warner's previous bipartisan appeal. However, to effectively run this strategy, it would have taken a lot of money. When there were so many states which looked like better pick up opportunities, why would anyone want to spend the necessary money here? I believe Virginia is even more expensive to advertise in than North Carolina, and Warner basically had whatever resources he needed. So this strategy wasn't really an option.

2) Complete stealth strategy, where you catch your opposition napping. I kind of see this as similar to the strategy Brat ran against Cantor in the primary. Gillespie followed a similar playbook, and it nearly worked. He ran some, but not too many ads (some positive, some negative), but mostly spent resources on the ground game. He kept the race at a lower profile, which meant that low propensity Warner voters wouldn't see the need to vote -- they thought Warner was safe.

There were no competitive House races or any kind of race, really, to draw turnout. Even though I always thought it was an overrated race, VA-10 was supposed to be competitive. Comstock ended up turning that into a rout (and her field game was so strong, it might have had upward coattails for Gillespie). Similarly, I think people were just so sick and tired of politics after getting pummeled with ads in 2012 and then the horrible 2013 Governor's race. There might have been some fatigue and a "hangover" which depressed interest and turnout.

On an entirely anecdotal note, Virginia doesn't have voter registration by party, but in party databases, I believe it identifies you based on primaries you've voted in. My parents don't really vote in primaries, so my household is identified as a "swing" household. Gillespie staffers knocked my door three times in October alone. Warner's team didn't come by once.