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

[Gass3268]

There are so few Latino voters in VA I am not sure why this group is even getting involved. Maybe a positive mailer would've been more effective than an ad that only generates negative press for Northam.

This ad is geared to "northeastern" NoVa suburbanites that don't like the "racist southern rednecks" that live in the "other" parts of the state and playing up to the fears of the white nationalists from Charlottesville. It's not pretty, but it's a good response to the dirt that Gillespie has run.

You know what, I am so sick of this IDENTITY POLITICS BS from the Democrats that it almost makes me want to vote for Ed. I won't but they need to get off their holier than thou high horse esp come next year and more so in 2020. I am originally from NJ but raised in central VA and moved to NoVA due to a job opportunity and I can tell you not everyone south of PW is some "dumb redneck, herp derp, uhuh!" It is actually quite moderate but some conservative areas but a beautiful part of the state but is suffering economically. But let's ignore that Dems and just keep calling them hicks! Sure, that's a great way to win more votes...

Wait, Gillespie has been running white identity ads on MS-13 and Confederate statues for months, but it's the Democrats that only do identity politics?

What am I missing here?

Both sides are guilty of running these trashy ads as I previously commented here

Unfortunately, they tend to obtain the desired effect. I still don't think this ad is as bad as Gillespie calling Northam a supporter of sex offenders and pedophiles.

[Gass3268]

The only ad I've ever seen sink a campaign was Liddy Dole's ad calling Kay Hagan an atheist. Controversial ads usually don't change anything.

Even Corker’s “Ford is a philanderer of white women” didn’t sink his campaign.

Don't you know that dirty ads only works if you are a Republican? (Not a shot at VirginiaModerate)

[Gass3268]

Reporter thrown down, arrested by police over Gillespie filming

Distrusting disregard for the 1st Amendment by the Gillespie campaign.

[Gass3268]

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[Gass3268]

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[Gass3268]

Northam will have the TV advantage in the last week:

[Gass3268]

Another Ralph Northam supports sex offenders ad from Gillespie

Will their be a chorus of condemnation to this one too?

[Gass3268]

Another Ralph Northam supports sex offenders ad from Gillespie

Will their be a chorus of commendation to this one too?

Chorus of condemnation, you mean? 

Thanks

[Gass3268]

Early vote has surpassed 2013

[Gass3268]

Some good news:

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[Gass3268]

It is way too soon after 2016 for me to draw any conclusions from early voting.

Agreed, only conclusion I can make is that turnout should be higher than 2013.

Virginia is an excuse only early vote / absentee state. One of those excuses is work or traveling out of state on election day, which thousands of people in NoVA do when they head into DC for work.

[Gass3268]

It is way too soon after 2016 for me to draw any conclusions from early voting.

Agreed, only conclusion I can make is that turnout should be higher than 2013.

Virginia is an excuse only early vote / absentee state. One of those excuses is work or traveling out of state on election day, which thousands of people in NoVA do when they head into DC for work.

Is there a regional breakdown available for early voting in 2013?

VPAP has it county by county, but I'm not sure of the date of the 2017 data. It at least up to date as of Monday morning.

Two points of note:

- Early voting is up in Prince William, Manassas City and Manassas Park City. Democrats have tended to struggle in off year turn out here, so this might suggest the opposite.
- Looks like there might be a favorite son effect for Northam in Accomack County on the Eastern Shore .

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/925914771949604864

The story that keeps on hurting.

Already shot down by a legitimate reporter

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/925914771949604864

The story that keeps on hurting.

You really need to stop looking for "worrying signs" of Northam blowing it on Twitter. It's not healthy

Each of these events in particular isn't going to destroy Northam. Its when they build up, controversy after controversy, national media latches on, narratives are formed, campaigns continue to stumble, than it worsens. Basically what happened to Hillary last year.

dude no one give a flyin f**k about this ad outside of people who are twitter politics nerds who already had their minds up. the media is hardly even covering it. you have to look it up. It's not on any main pages of any Virginia news sites. Normal people are only hearing about the terror attack and the indictments.

Yeah, I just did a quick review of the main VA news papers and the stories on this ad is nowhere. I've only seen the big push for it on the rightwing fringes.

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/925914771949604864

The story that keeps on hurting.

You really need to stop looking for "worrying signs" of Northam blowing it on Twitter. It's not healthy

Each of these events in particular isn't going to destroy Northam. Its when they build up, controversy after controversy, national media latches on, narratives are formed, campaigns continue to stumble, than it worsens. Basically what happened to Hillary last year.

From my perch up in Ohio, I can confidently assure you the national media isn't saying boo about this race, much less some dumb ad.

You're right about the coverage on the ad, but there's literally been 65 "democrats panic in Virginia" stories in the past month.

Almost all of this has come from national democrats. Local Democrats think that Northam is up by about 5-6 points (local Republicans have admitted they think Northam is up too, but low single digits).

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/925914771949604864

The story that keeps on hurting.

Already shot down by a legitimate reporter

Hopefully, VA voters stay informed and avoid the Republican party's ridiculous electoral tactics.

More on this

[Gass3268]

Gillespie called northern virginia "enemy territory" at a fundraiser with audio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=2sC0GFSEnqs&app=desktop

Kevin Robillard ✔ @PoliticoKevin
.@American_Bridge is out with audio of Ed Gillespie referring to Northern Virginia has “enemy territory.” https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=2sC0GFSEnqs … #VaGov

Northam needs to go hard on this the last couple days, see if he can get an ad up in the DC market before Tuesday.

[Gass3268]

This closet race in a long time in Virginia,while 2013-2014 were close there polls were not,on average both races had a swing from the polls to Election Day of 6 points that is why Gillespie is going to win.

Are you simple?

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2013&off=9&elect=0&fips=51&f=0

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2005&off=9&elect=0&fips=51&f=0

All I said was that Gillespie would win undecided voters.
Also I didn’t say would get a 6 point swing I have been saying since the beginning of September
48.72% Gillespie and 48.31% northam.

He'd have to win ~70% of the undecided for that to happen.

[Gass3268]

Last 5 Polls (non-junk):

Suffolk: N+4
WaPo: N+5
BRD: N+6
Polling Company: G+2
Christopher Newport Univ. : N+7

Average: N +4.0 (Down from N+ 4.6 before Suffolk Poll)

Polling averages don’t work unless you include the good-faith outliers.

If anything, Kellyanne Conway's poll should not be in any average, especially not in place of a non-partisan pollster.

Skipping over the Kellyanne Conway poll puts the Fox News poll in the average, so either way you get somebody that is not non-partisan.

Fox's polling unit is legit.

[Gass3268]

Last 5 Polls (non-junk):

Suffolk: N+4
WaPo: N+5
BRD: N+6
Polling Company: G+2
Christopher Newport Univ. : N+7

Average: N +4.0 (Down from N+ 4.6 before Suffolk Poll)

Polling averages don’t work unless you include the good-faith outliers.

If anything, Kellyanne Conway's poll should not be in any average, especially not in place of a non-partisan pollster.

Agreed.  I’d rather include Qunnipac and Fox News while removing Conway’s firm (a bad-faith outlier).  It’d be a far more accurate average.  As a rule, removing good-faith outliers defeats the whole idea of polling averages since the average is supposed to take into account that there will always be good-faith outliers.  Wulfric is basically unskewing polls to reflect what he thinks the outcome will be and the statistical science shows that doing so generally produces less accurate results, regardless of what the outcome is in this race.  It’d be like if you tossed every poll showing Trump ahead in Michigan in October 2016.

That Hampton's poll is crazy. 27% undecided and no Libertarian, but I agree it was done in good faith.

[Gass3268]

Fairfox County absentee numbers through 11/1

23132 ballots mailed out, 10580 returned. 
21544 in-person.
TOTAL: 32124

For comparison, 2013 was:

11897 mailed out, 8307 returned.
17495 in-person
TOTAL: 25802

Hopefully this is a sign of increased turnout rather than just more people voting early.

[Gass3268]

Larry Sabato got a good op-ed out on the on VA and NJ. He seems to think that Chesterfield is the county to watch. If Gillespie is in the high single digits he'll be close or might win. Cuccinelli and Gillespie in 2014 got 9% in Chesterfield and still lost.

I read it. I think better indicators might be Loudon and Virginia Beach. Northam claims a strong regional support in the tidewater, and historically had a margin n Virginia Beach similar to his statewide margin. Gillespie has a personal draw in NOVA, and Loudon broke for him in 2014 despite Gillespie losing the state - a rarity in the modern era. If one candidate is winning them both, then they should win in the end. In they are split, I suspect the margins in Chesterfield and early margins in Fairfax/Prince William will be the next best indicators of victory.

Of course all of this is moot if Northam is ahead with 70-80% of precincts in - when most of the state has reported but not much of Fairfax.

The early margin in Prince William is actually an extraordinarily bad indicator. Romney was leading 49-49 in Prince William with about a third of the vote in there, only to lose it 41-57 by the end of the night. Trump was within single digits in the early Prince William numbers, but proceeded to lose the county by 21 points.  Gillespie looked like he was going to win the county for most of election night 2014, only to lose it 48-50 as the final ballots came in.

Chesterfield is great because it almost always reports early.

[Gass3268]

Larry Sabato got a good op-ed out on the on VA and NJ. He seems to think that Chesterfield is the county to watch. If Gillespie is in the high single digits he'll be close or might win. Cuccinelli and Gillespie in 2014 got 9% in Chesterfield and still lost.

I read it. I think better indicators might be Loudon and Virginia Beach. Northam claims a strong regional support in the tidewater, and historically had a margin n Virginia Beach similar to his statewide margin. Gillespie has a personal draw in NOVA, and Loudon broke for him in 2014 despite Gillespie losing the state - a rarity in the modern era. If one candidate is winning them both, then they should win in the end. In they are split, I suspect the margins in Chesterfield and early margins in Fairfax/Prince William will be the next best indicators of victory.

Of course all of this is moot if Northam is ahead with 70-80% of precincts in - when most of the state has reported but not much of Fairfax.

The early margin in Prince William is actually an extraordinarily bad indicator. Romney was leading 49-49 in Prince William with about a third of the vote in there, only to lose it 41-57 by the end of the night. Trump was within single digits in the early Prince William numbers, but proceeded to lose the county by 21 points.  Gillespie looked like he was going to win the county for most of election night 2014, only to lose it 48-50 as the final ballots came in.

I....I'm surprised I don't know that. For the past several VA elections, my focus has always been on the Tidewater cities, Richmond suburbs, Fairfax, and Loudon. I typically pass over the other counties (rurals, independent cities) as reports rise. I seem to recall from past elections that PW reported like Fairfax (small start, big drop, then a triccle of late precincts) though this could be wrong as well.

Yeah, it seems like the more Republican area between the I-95 and I-66 corridors reports first.

[Gass3268]

Does anyone know if early vote numbers look good or bad for Northam? I haven't seen too much about ballot numbers other than the Fairfax post a few pages back.

If I had to guess, they look good for Northam, but we were burned hard last year with the early vote. I really wouldn't put too much stock in it, other than turnout could be up.

[Gass3268]

Kind of an unrelated question, but if I recall CNU has been doing a weekly tracking poll that comes out on Thursday night/Friday... does anyone know if they are going to have  a final poll this week?

It would probably make more sense to delay that until the weekend and release it on Monday.