Virginia 2009 Megathread

[Badger]

It's all within the margin of error. How fun! I love divisive primaries!

The only divisive result would be McAuliffe winning. He has high unfavorable ratings from Democrats, which could lead to a significant number of Democrats sitting out the election. Moran probably can't win anyway, he's not the right statewide candidate for Virginia.

Actually, according to the Kos poll, all three candidates have virtually the same Favorables/Unfavorables.

Yeah, but Deeds can recover support he's lost from this divisive primary easier than Moran or Mac. Moran and McAuliffe's supporters tend more from the Democrat base which will be likely to fall in line behind Deeds by November. Deeds has the best chance by far of gaining and holding moderate/conservative and white rural support.

Put another way, who here doesn't think McDonnell is rooting for anyone but Deeds to win the primary (not that he's necessarily shaking in his boots over a rematch with Deeds, but he knows it'd be his toughest challenger by far).

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North Virginia loves their Washington Post?

Uneducated half-ass guess: The WaPo endorsement matters to a sizable percentage of the type of NOVA Democrats who actually vote in a 5-10% turnout primary.

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I have a friend who has been involved in Democratic politics for some time in Northern Virginia. Worked for Kaine, voted for Obama and Warner, against the Gay Marriage Amendment, and a straight democratic ticket in 2005. He is wavering and strongly considering McDonnell.

I really can not comprehend why someone like that would vote for MCDONNELL.

Agreed. I have a hard time believing the vast majority of such base voters won't come home in November.

That said, McDonnell clearly has an advantage at this point and Deeds post-primary momentum has obviously stalled.

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Some ridiculous news out of Virginia Beach...

First, Del. Bobby Mathieson (D-21) has accused one of his aides of embezzling campaign money.

Second, Mark Hardman, the challenger for Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorney is homeless and unemployed:

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If that's truly the reason he was fired, I can't help feeling bad for the guy.

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Deeds is just digging himself further and further in.

Well, I hope he loses too. Hopefully Virginia Dems learn a lesson and next time don't nominate another blue dog idiot just because he got a newspaper endorsement.

To be fair, I fully believe McAuliffe and Moran would have been squashed as well.

And probably worse than Deeds.

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Yeah that's true.  You spend your days furiously reloading Atlas instead.

I'm sorry but that excuse isn't going to fly.  Tender Branson or persons xyz are always over here right away if the result is favorable to Democrats.

Man, I´m from Europe. When that poll came out I was sleeping ...

That's obviously no excuse whatsoever! He caught us dead to rights, folks. My shame is palpable.

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Based on the Exit poll:

- party id: Rep: 37 % dem: 33 % I: 30 %

No surprise...

- Obama job approval: 48 %

And not 57 % like wapo poll gave one week ago... it's very similar to the RAS daily track poll.

-full time working woman (28 %): have vote at only 51 % for McDOnnell. Probably the incidence of the thesis...

-16 % black. It's a little more than predicted. And Mc Donnell is weak with them: only 9 % of the vote. I would be curious to see the latino vote but the poll doesn't give this infirmation.

Also worth noting that the reported presidential vote of VA voters yesterday according to that same exit poll was 51-43 McCain. Obviously a lot of Obama voters were not inspired enough by Deeds (imagine that) to come out and vote this year. Anyone assumes those same voters will stay home when Obama is back on the ballot in 2012 does so at their own peril.

Also HIGHLY worth noting is that 1 in 5 McDonnell voters approve of the job Obama is doing, compared to only 1 in 20 Deeds voters who disapprove of the President's job. (The numbers for NJ, FWIW, indicate over 1 in 4 voters who approve of Obama's job performance didn't vote for Corzine.)

One of the most insightful comments I've read on the forum is Spade's note that all 50 governors offices can be considered "open seats" in terms of party competitiveness. Federal races obviously are much, MUCH different in that regard. At the risk of over-extrapolating too much in the other direction of the MSM's common wisdom this morning, I see Owens's upset win in NY-23 as far more indicative of 2010 midterms than 2 governors races (but still admittedly only a tiny glimpse).

[Badger]

Based on the Exit poll:

- party id: Rep: 37 % dem: 33 % I: 30 %

No surprise...

- Obama job approval: 48 %

And not 57 % like wapo poll gave one week ago... it's very similar to the RAS daily track poll.

-full time working woman (28 %): have vote at only 51 % for McDOnnell. Probably the incidence of the thesis...

-16 % black. It's a little more than predicted. And Mc Donnell is weak with them: only 9 % of the vote. I would be curious to see the latino vote but the poll doesn't give this infirmation.

Also worth noting that the reported presidential vote of VA voters yesterday according to that same exit poll was 51-43 McCain. Obviously a lot of Obama voters were not inspired enough by Deeds (imagine that) to come out and vote this year. Anyone assumes those same voters will stay home when Obama is back on the ballot in 2012 does so at their own peril.

Also HIGHLY worth noting is that 1 in 5 McDonnell voters approve of the job Obama is doing, compared to only 1 in 20 Deeds voters who disapprove of the President's job. (The numbers for NJ, FWIW, indicate over 1 in 4 voters who approve of Obama's job performance didn't vote for Corzine.)

One of the most insightful comments I've read on the forum is Spade's note that all 50 governors offices can be considered "open seats" in terms of party competitiveness. Federal races obviously are much, MUCH different in that regard. At the risk of over-extrapolating too much in the other direction of the MSM's conventional wisdom this morning, I see Owens's upset win in NY-23 as far more indicative of 2010 midterms than 2 governors races (but still admittedly only a tiny glimpse).

Be careful in reading too much into who people "say" they voted for.  If they're unhappy (or embarrassed), they often lie, especially to exit pollsters (and most pollsters in general).

Totally agree, Sam, and I took that into account in that at least 6% of voters claimed to have voted for someone else or not voted. Even extrapolating that VERY hard towards people falsely claiming they didn't vote for Obama, at worst that corresponds to the 48/51 job approval/disapproval numbers from the exit poll. A more reasonable extrapolation, buttressed by African-Amercian turnout being down to 16% from 20% last year IIRC, and that 48/51  result being somewhat lower than most other VA polls in the last month (notwithstanding the WaPo poll, as I know your opinion on their polling) ;-) is that a good number of Obama voters were not sufficiently enthused by Creigh Deeds to come out and vote this year. Assuming they'll remain so when Obama's on the ballot in 2012, or even to a lesser degree for next year's congressional races put Obama and national issues in the forefront.

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Color me skeptical on this. If I'm justifiably reluctant to view either governors race as a referendum on Obama or the national parties, I'm extremely reluctant to draw that conclusion from state legislature results. If anything it merely shows VA voters are willing to back the GOP and reject the Democrats regarding control of the state government, I question how well that translates to congressional races next year.

Put another way, I see the VA GOP's success in assembly races to be indicative of coattails from McDonnell's gargantuan win, which in turn had little to nothing to do with a referendum on Obama or the Democratic Congress when, again, 1 in 5 McDonnell voters approve of Obama's job performance (compared to 1 in 20 Deeds voters who disapprove).

[Badger]

It's a little facile to assume that all the Republican wins in the House of Delegates were solely the result of McDonnell's coattails. In the 3rd district, Dan Bowling basically didn't run a campaign; I don't know if he just expected to be handed a third term or what, but he let himself be outspent 2-1 by the Republicans. In the 32nd district, Dave Poisson never managed to build a base of support; he beat a far right-wing incumbent in 2005, then only managed a 6-percent win over a candidate he outspent 2-1 in 2007. He lost by 15% against a terrible candidate, while Deeds lost the district by 22%; I'm not sure he would have won unless Deeds had won the district (and he hadn't in 2005, so that was unlikely). In the 83rd, Joe Bouchard barely beat Chris Stolle in 2007, a good Democratic year, and he just had no chance to overcome the Republican lean of the district.

The 23rd, 34th, 51st, and to a lesser extent the 67th (Caputo had the same problem as Poisson, winning against a wingnut then barely beating an opponent he outspent 2-1) were definitely the result of the McDonnell wave, though.

The 21st, of course, is still outstanding, and had the same problem as the 83rd, being on McDonnell's home turf, but Mathieson ran a smart campaign, hitting Villanueva early and hard, and was helped by Jody Wagner's presence on the ticket -- she only lost the district by 47-53. A slightly better performance statewide and he would have pulled it off.

My point exactly. The GOP's gains in the VA Statehouse had jack squat to do with Obama or Congress, but rather over local issues and personalities.

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If Obama's approval (according to exit polls) is 48% among a voting population that would have elected McCain in 2008, doesn't that mean that among registered voters (or presidential likely voters), his approval would be somewhere in the 50s?

Also, I hope Virginia dems learn from this election to never nominate a fucking blue dog, moderate hero, rural Virginian again. That's not how we win this state anymore and you'll just end up pissing off base Democrats. Deed's campaign was pathetic and he was a pathetic candidate. He did worse than a liberal, black, possibly Muslim, Chicago politician in rural Virginia and coal country. Christ. And now your state has a theocrat running it for the next four years. Idiots.

True dat. I'm continuing my rant on this. We're so used to the usual southern Democrat strategy of having to keep their national candidate/president at arms length to reinforce their moderate/ conservative cred, just not so much to alienate the (largely black) base. This doesn't apply to VA's results at all. Let's keep this straight: OBAMA IS VASTLY MORE POPULAR THAN DEEDS (and Corzine for that matter). Deeds could only have been helped by unabashedly wrapping himself around Obama the way Corzine did.

Don't believe me? Consider the numbers: What if Deeds had done so and managed to cut in half McDonnell's share of voters who approve of Obama's job performance from 20% to 10, even if his own share of votes from those disapproving of Obama was likewise halved from 5% to 2.5? That alone would've resulted in an at least respectable 54-46 loss.

In addition, the nonwhite share of the vote dropped from 30% in 2008 to 22% (African-Am from 20% to 16). By contrast, the share of nonwhite voters in NJ remained the same (27%) from last year. What if Deeds had tied himself enough to Obama to energized black and Latinos to maintain the same 08 turnout levels (percentage-wise) like in NJ? (Yes, I know there's a huge difference in terms of the GOTV machine between NJ and VA.) At his and McDonnell's share of the nonwhite vote, that calculates out to a split decision tie.

Yes, this is a highly implausible stretch and even as a best case scenario only gave Deeds a 50/50 shot at victory. But even falling short it could've likely avoided such a humiliating smackdown, and the underlying point is clear. The conventional wisdom of the NJ and VA races being some sort of mini-referendum against Obama's policies are utterly misplaced. I'm usually not a fan of the "energize the base" strategy to win elections, though conservatives certainly seem enamoured of it in recent years. In this case however it isn't just the base, but anywhere from a strong majority in blue states like NJ to about even numbers in purple states like VA that like Obama's job performance. As Deeds proved, there's no real reason to distance oneself politically from the President in battleground states. Heck, Corzine trying to run practically as Obama's running mate carried him to a close race despite being only slightly more popular than tile grout and chlamydia since before Obama was even elected!

Despite Corzine being a mediocre governor, I was tepidly rooting for him. Partially because I don't entirely trust a former Bush appointee, even a purported relative moderate like Christie, in the countless day to day decisions and appointments that largely avoid media scrutiny, not to mention redistricting. But the biggest reason I preferred to see Corzine win is that I damned well knew that, contrary to all facts and the most basic analysis, I knew the lazy sheeplike nature of the MSM would inevitably turn Christie winning plus McDonnell's inevitable victory into a running narrative of "Obama and Democrats suffer setback; GOP resurgent".

Sure as hell that as a 47-46 Corzine win combined with NY-23 would've changed the entire narrative to something like: "Electorate uncertain; Public not willing to abandon Obama yet, but GOP not dead". But of course the NJ results we got have been spun even beyond the Fox crowd and other right wing talking heads as a "defeat" for Obama, notwithstanding he had a friggin' 57% job approval among those very Jersey voters supposedly trying to "send the White House a message"! And now that myth is in danger of turning into a self-fullfilling prophecy, reality be damned.

About the only real question this election raises is how well Obama's popularity is transferable to Democratic candidates in federal congressional races next year, both in terms of support and turnout. I submit that such races make national issues and opinions on Obama much more relevent than in state gubernatorial races. No president can entirely transfer their popularity to local congressional candidates, and Obama will be no exception. But I don't expect anywhere near the level of 20-27% defections Corzine and Deeds suffered. Even nonpolitical junkie voters understand their vote for congress or senate matters much more to supporting/opposing Obama than their vote for a governor. There obviously may be exceptions for a particularly personally unpopular incumbent like Corzine (e.g. Dodd), but don't expect to see wholescale support of Republicans by Obama supporters like we saw Tuesday. And it was exactly that support that turned NJ into a win and VA into a landslide for Republicans.

That's it folks. No other lesson to be taken from Tuesday regardless of what the national media tells us. After all, regardless of whether the story is pro-Obama or anti-Obama (excepting Fox, of course) it's better for business that they have some story to report on rather than having to admit there's really no story here at all, right?

Okay, rant (finally) off.