VA-BRD: Northam +6

[Virginiá]

Ed Gillespie is his own person Hillary’s emails is different then Russia.

Is this your first election? This isn't really a Democrat or Republican thing. Presidential politics and national events/issues can bleed substantially downballot, particularly in lesser known partisan races. Whether it's a demoralized base that doesn't end up voting, or people get so fed up with their party due to one or more issues that they vote against them all, or use it as a proxy to punish the president, it's not exactly a new thing.

In this case, the effect is more likely to be a widened enthusiasm gap and perhaps some undecideds being pushed by national politics. Virginia doesn't have no-excuse / in-person early voting, so it's not like the effect can be mitigated somewhat due to votes already being cast.

I don't know if the VA race will see such effects or to what degree but this stuff does happen often to the president's party.

[Virginiá]

While I don't see Gillespie winning I doubt today's indictments will end up having a major factor on the race. For one they don't really show anything that people don't really know about #russiagate (I suspect most people have already made up their minds on the investigation and nothing short of a smoking gun is going to change peoples minds and no today's developments do not constitute a smoking gun.) Secondly in a week this will be old news and likely not have as much of an impact on the race (for individuals that this is a big deal for are probably voting Northam anyway. Most of those voters are strongly partisan dems. ). Thirdly today's news will probably not do a lot to hurt the reputation of the Republican party as a whole as the individuals indicted were either fairly obscure or completely unrelated to the current goverment and #Russiagate. I also take exception to the notion that Governors races are low profile; millions are still spend on advertising as well as loads of local TV coverage of the election   to the point that I would expect by now most voters have at least some idea of what they think of both candidates. I also doubt that Republicans are honestly going to stay home just because Manfort was indicted. That is not to say I don't expect that Northam isn't going to win but don't just expect a major over performance of the polls; of course Republicans shouldn't count on the revere from happening either. 

I wasn't trying to suggest that the Governors race is low-profile. I was just saying that people's views dominate choices in partisan races the lower you go downballot. There are even studies for this. When people don't know who the candidates are, or don't know what they've been up to, they let their default opinions guide them, and those are pretty much what they think of the president these days.

As for the Russiagate stuff, I disagree with a few of your points, for instance, I think actual indictments like this represents a new step and there are still plenty of soft supporters out there who might be more malleable now that the investigation is more than just leaks on various things, BUT there is also no real way to argue for or against the idea that it will depress turnout, except to pay attention to Trump's approval ratings. If they see a sustained drop that is not within his normal polling numbers, then it is probably having a negative effect. That and maybe having some relevant exit poll questions on election day.

[Virginiá]

You know this constant accusation that liberals "own" or "dominate" the media would be easier for me to work with if it was more nuanced in its description from people who insist on parroting that line. Fox News and the constellation of conservative blogs and smaller outlets are certainly not owned by liberals, and they cater to a wide conservative audience. But even aside from that, I watched THE LIBERAL MEDIA a lot in 2016 and boy, for a totally liberal-dominated industry, they sure talked about Clinton a whole lot. They were obsessed with the email story and they frequently prioritized it over almost any of Trump's individual scandals, even at times when Clinton desperately needed the focus elsewhere. If liberals really had the kind of kung-fu grip on them as conservatives frequently say, I would expect it to get the "Fox News treatment," like Russia/Mueller is getting now, where instead of talking about Trump's campaign manager literally getting indicted, you just redirect to hamburger emojis, how Millennials hate Halloween, and why Hillary Clinton Mittens Romney is the real problem. The biggest cable news outlet is basically pretending all is fine in Trump land and that he and former admin./campaign officials aren't under investigation by a special counsel.

Perhaps just try "a decent bit of the news is influenced by liberal thinking."