VA-GOV 2017: Utter Panic and Doom (General election: Nov 7th)

[Deblano]

And here we see the tradeoffs of Gillespie, we can get more centrist independents like Deblano here, but we lose people further to the right like Mr. Reactionary, question is how many of each group are there.  I tend to think there are more of the former, but i'm not a Virginian so i'd defer to the natives on this.

Mr. Reactionary-types are unlikely to actually vote for Northam. Most right-wing edgelords like him will vote Gillespie anyway or just stay home.

People with ideologies similar to Deblano exist in relatively large numbers but it remains to be seen whether they support him as strongly as they did in 2014.

I'd say more "centrist independents" voted for Warner in 2014 instead of Gillespie, based on my hunch. However, this election may be more evenly divided among centrists.  

EDIT: I would also add that there may be a percentage of people with ideologies similar to mine (centrist, somewhat libertarian) who are relatively apolitical and are less like to engage politically or even vote.

[Deblano]

not even a majority of black voters support getting rid of Confederate monuments.
Tell me again why Democrats see pushing this as a political winner?

While it is a noble cause, I do agree that this is turning into a petty wedge issue.

Our roads are crumbling, our civil liberties are weakening, and the executive branch continues to get more powerful. I could give a rats ass about statues.

[Deblano]

Gillespie could still win parts of NOVA. He could win some of the ancestral Republicans that are still there and could win some Independents as well.

This race is Tilt D/Tossup. Gillespie is not Cuccinelli.

I think Vogel being the LG pick could help Ed in NoVA.

However, the president is very unpopular, and this will hurt Gillespie regardless.

Gillespie has been in a "pick your poison" moment since he nearly got beaten by Stewart. He can either go through the barest motions of keeping Stewart/Trump voters in line, and risk alienating moderates in NoVA, or he can go relatively NeverTrump (as he was somewhat essentially until he became more neutral) and risk alienating Stewart voters and those lose by a comfortable margin. As someone who will likely vote for Gillespie, he has a very difficult choice at his hands that could easily doom his campaign either way.

I'd say Gillespie is trying to muddy the waters for now and hope for the best in November.

[Deblano]

https://medium.com/@brendanlilly/heads-up-an-impending-disaster-in-virginia-99a67afaa8a4

Here's the link to the article; which basically says that Northam's campaign has absolutely no message beyond being a 'nice guy who's a doctor' and that he's getting hammered over his record at the state development agency. I did think that at least Perriello had some fight in the primary (and had some decent campaign ads) whilst Northam's seemed to be 'I worked with X democratic interest group'.

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I think you kinda hit the nail on the head about why Northam kinda rubs me the wrong way. He's a nice man IMO, but he seems to have even less of a vision/message than Gillespie (Gillespie's message is about being pragmatic and spurring economic growth). All I know about Northam is he's a nice guy who is a doctor and also has a hobby horse about removing statues. This is why I put the race as a toss up. I'm sure Northam will do decently as governor even as someone like me who is voting for Gillespie, but he's just pretty bland as a candidate.

[Deblano]

Trump just tweeted:

"Ralph Northam,who is running for Governor of Virginia,is fighting for the violent MS-13 killer gangs & sanctuary cities. Vote Ed Gillespie!"

Kiss of Death.

[Deblano]

I remember last year's GOP "Hillary is ahead in Indiana and Missouri!!" internals.

Unless they release the full poll with methodology, I'm not going to believe it.

I'm putting the race as Tilt-D at this rate (I think Northam will end up winning), but I haven't trusted a poll since Mark Warner vs. Ed Gillespie back in 2014.

What a crock of doo doo that was.

[Deblano]

Well, my threshhold for a blowout in Virginia is at 7 points or more. I'd think Northam has a decent shot at getting that margin. If he's winning by 7+ points statewide, I'm guessing he'd be winning Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, doing about as well as McAuliffe in southwest VA, getting just shy of HRC's NOVA margins, and Chesterfield County being a coin flip.

The CW now seems to be that Gillespie is getting what he needs in NOVA but lagging behind Cuccinelli and well behind Trump in rural VA, hence Gillespie's relentless focus on driving rural base turnout.

If the CW is that Gillespie is fine in NoVA, then, I am astounded. NOVA is very likely to have insanely high turnout relative to 2013, and that's largely a function of them hating Trump. Sure, Gillespie may be a better fit for there than Cuccinelli, but I highly doubt that he will manage to hit the 40% in Fairfax that he needs to win. And he'd need to come very close to winning Prince William and Loudoun, if not win them outright. Frankly, he'd be doing well to hit 45% in each of those counties in this environment. This is the hotbed of anti-Trump rage.

Maybe I'm wrong and he does as well in NOVA as he did in 2014. But given the intense Democratic enthusiasm nationwide that wasn't there in 2014, it'd probably be a miracle.

Or turnout could be reasonably strong still in NOVA to cause a bit of a cancel out effect, which puts importance back into places like VA CDs 5,6, and 9.

And in such a case, skipping the Buena Vista Labor Day Parade is the nail in the coffin for Northam.

Either way, I can't imagine a blowout for either side really happening.

Northam spending time in Harrisonburg is a better use of his time then Buena Vista.

The problem is that skipping Buena Vista would get a lot more publicity than attending a campaign thingy in Harrisonburg.

[Deblano]

Also preparing my "Don't Blame Me, I Supported Perriello" signature.

No one cares.

You cared enough to reply. Sorry you keep supporting boring losers over the smart choice.

Every race cannot be turned into a proxy war over the last Democratic presidential primary.

Oh, but it can my dear friend.

In a multiparty system, the "Sanders Wing" and the "Clinton Wing" could go their separate ways as different parties while forming a center-left coalition. However, since we have two major, big-tent parties, both wings will continue to have catfights every election as they play the blame game every primary and general election. This will continue until we see a "compromise candidate", which is one that I believe does not exist at the moment.

[Deblano]

Over on the house of delegates side, Sabato has released a map of the competitive seats:





The Safe R seats are 47 in number, and the Safe D seats are 31 in number. Thus, 22 seats are competitive. The dems are clearly on a narrow path in terms of taking back the HoD, but it's not impossible.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/underneath-it-all-elections-for-the-virginia-house-of-delegates/

I'm surprised the 34th District is competitive this year? What happened there. I know that Kathleen Murphy beat Craig Parisot twice by the skin of her teeth, but I would have expected her seat to be a bit more safe since then.

[Deblano]

Can we lock this thread until Election Day

I did not expect the thread that I started a year ago to go off the rails into hysteria-town.

I'm....honored? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯