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

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

WULFRIC PROJECTION: GILLESPIE WINS REP PRIMARY

Republican Primary

CANDIDATE   VOTE   PCT.
Edward Gillespie
145,965   43.5%
Corey Stewart
143,708   42.8
Frank Wagner
45,829   13.7
92% reporting (2,366 of 2,561 precincts)

Wow. That was uncomfortably close.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Final Results:

Governor
Democratic Primary

CANDIDATE   VOTE   PCT.
Ralph Northam
303,537   55.9%
Tom Perriello
239,505   44.1
100% reporting (2,561 of 2,561 precincts)

Republican Primary

CANDIDATE   VOTE   PCT.
Edward Gillespie
160,099   43.7%
Corey Stewart
155,780   42.5
Frank Wagner
50,394   13.8
100% reporting (2,561 of 2,561 precincts)

Lieutenant Governor
Democratic Primary

CANDIDATE   VOTE   PCT.
Justin Fairfax
252,400   49.1%
Susan Platt
201,316   39.2
Gene Rossi
60,041   11.7
100% reporting (2,561 of 2,561 precincts)

Republican Primary

CANDIDATE   VOTE   PCT.
Jill Vogel
151,996   42.7%
Bryce Reeves
142,218   40.0
Glenn Davis
61,507   17.3
100% reporting (2,561 of 2,561 precincts)

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Total D vote vs. Total R vote:

Governor:

D: 543,042 (59.7%)
R: 366,273 (40.3%)

Total Turnout: 909,315

Lt. Governor:

D: 513,757 (59.1%)
R: 355,721 (40.9%)

Total Turnout: 869,478

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Anybody know why the Dem primary ended up not being very close?

Fairfax/Arlington/Alexandria fell in love with Northam.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

CS really racked up the rural counties, even Prince William (granted his home county). http://www.vpap.org/visuals/vamaps/number-of-voters/?election=8668 Proves he would lose in a landslide if he was the nom via pop count in rural vs. suburban/urban areas of VA.

Prince William is not a rural county.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

This is a must win for Dems if they want to capture the House, Sarah Comstock must be defeated along with Gillespsie

Uh, this election is happening in 2017, Comstock isn't up for election until 2018. Please review an accurate elections calendar before posting.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Shameless politics 101:

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Virginia Republicans are so cute. That's actually a step down from the 15 debates Cooch proposed in 2013.

I remember reading somewhere that Gillespie mainly wanted to debate Northam in SW VA coal country so he could hit him over the "war on coal". When will the VA GOP learn that that's not how you win statewide in VA these days. Trump probably maxed out the GOP vote share in SW VA already, and still lost statewide by 5% because of his toxicity in NOVA.

Trump did comically worse in NOVA even for a republican. Gillespie will do far better there. Question is if he can match what he did there in 2014, which would be enough to win if he matches Trump in SW VA and matches Romney elsewhere.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Yeah, I watched the first 45 minutes of this thing and Gillespie did really well. He's a fairly strong candidate and a decent fit for a state like VA, which also explains why he came pretty close to winning in 2014.

Yeah, if Dems sleep through this under some 'blue wall' mentality, they will lose. Only reason Warner held on was incumbency.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

VA House of Delegates: The newest excuse to not debate your opponent? "They called me 'Bigoted Bob' " I'm not joking. http://www.fauquier.com/prince_william_times/news/conservative-stalwart-bob-marshall-won-t-debate-his-transgender-challenger/article_e0af2790-99b2-11e7-9610-7bcee4af5d7c.html

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Debate Synopsis Article says no game-changer moment occured: http://wamu.org/story/17/09/20/five-takeaways-virginia-gubernatorial-debate/

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Ultimately there is little to no evidence that the race has changed from where it started: Northam up by a few points. If the final RCP average shows Northam up by 1 or 2, I'd be inclined to give it to Gillespie since Undecided voters broke R in 2013, 2014, and 2016 (Hillary getting <50% was a surprise). But we're not seeing that yet - Northam is currently up 4 in that average, and it has been remarkably stable for months.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Honestly, I've been thinking that a Northam win of +5 - +6 would actually be pretty underwhelming, all things considered. I know it's a pretty standard margin prediction for Virginia, but Democrats like Kaine and Warner were picking up similar margins back in the early-mid 2000s. This was when the state was more Republican-leaning. On top of this, the Democratic Party's base is exceptionally fired up under an incumbent Republican president who is deeply unpopular not only in Virginia, nationally as well. With this in mind, a Democratic candidate really should be able to break double-digits without too much of a sweat.

That being said, I think I might be rather disappointed if Democrats don't score big this cycle, because most of what we know about the VA political environment suggests they should.

The last few elections suggest that Republicans have a solid floor of 46% (or 45% with a strong third party).  Until/Unless Virginia Beach County and Chesterfield county start voting consistently D, that's not going to meaningfully change. The rural constituencies that voted for Warner in 2001 and Kaine in 2005 are Solid R now.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

If this mailer is what's needed to get Loudoun and Prince William to vote Gillespie, so be it.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Very surprised Gillespie decided to run a conservative base campaign on social issues.  What about all of the Obama 2012/Clinton 2016 voters he got in NOVA back in 2014?  They aren't going to like this at all.

My guess is his polling shows he's struggling to get Stewart voters to commit to voting for him.

It sure looks like Gillespie is campaigning as if he thinks the 2016 Dem margins in the suburbs are baked in and the WaPo poll is close to the real state of the race (or, less likely, Northam has unusual rural VA strength).  He's looking for a Hail Mary with rural turnout, which, it should be noted, almost worked for Cuccinelli.  Still, he doesn't have the persona of Cuccinelli.  You would think the low-hanging fruit for him would be in NOVA.

Cuccinelli lost by 56,000 votes. And McAuliffe didn't match 2016 numbers in NoVa - he only won PW 52-44, much narrower than Clinton's 58-37 margin. He only won Loudoun 49-45, much narrower than Clinton's 55-38 margin. And in Fairfax, McAuliffe won 58-36 - nothing wrong with that margin, but it's narrower than Clinton's 64-29 margin.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

United Mine Workers of America has endorsed... Ralph Northam.

They withheld an endorsement in the 2012 and 2016 presidential races.

Wow. That definitely helps him.

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At this point, my confidence level that Northam will win this is about 75%. If you had asked me that question immediately after the primary, my answer would have been more around 60%. Even when the Washington Post poll is eliminated from the RCP average (and is substituted with the sixth most recent poll to keep it at a 5-poll average), Northam's lead is at a fairly comfortable 5.4%, which may not be so great if it's July, but it's just fine for October. It's difficult to see Gillespie pulling this off without an October surprise.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

^ I'm wary of expecting the state to do anything more than a point or two bigger than HRC's 5% margin, seeing as even ultra-extremist E.W. Jackson lost by only 10%, and Gillespie is obviously not comparable to him.  But it's not completely impossible that this is the year where republicans fall below their current floor of 45%.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Debate earlier tonight:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?435325-1/candidates-face-virginia-governors-debate

Northam is getting lots of praise from the left on twitter for asking Gillespie a question about long-acting contraceptives.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

It’s just ridiculous pols are still pandering to coal in VA. Just reading the WaPo article on Gillespie promising to bring back the coal tax credit and Northam continuing to placate coal.

Bashing Coal at a debate held in Coal Country VA would be a very poor strategic move.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Vox said Gillespie could win-should I be worried?
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/10/16439656/virginia-governor-election-explained

There's like a 1 in 4 chance Gillespie pulls it off. Not likely but far from unforseeable.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I also don't see a reason to be confident that Gillespie's getting what he needs in NOVA. Granted, he can probably afford to be a touch behind his 2014 NOVA numbers if he's matching Trump in rural areas, but he does need to significantly outperform Cuccinelli '13 levels, which he may or may not be doing. (which were 36% in Fairfax, 45% in Loudoun, 44% in PW)

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Late Deciders broke Republican in 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016, so I'd expect them to break republican again. Of course, the exact margin republicans get among Late Deciders matters.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Late Deciders broke Republican in 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016, so I'd expect them to break republican again. Of course, the exact margin republicans get among Late Deciders matters.

No, they did not in 2008 and 2012, if you're basing it off RCP. Democrats overperformed anywhere from 2-5 points in Presidential and Senate races.

I really don't understand this silly idea that "since Gillespie and other Republicans overperformed in off-years in the Obama era, he/they'll do it again!" Obama almost inarguably drove GOP turnout and enthusiasm in those off-years. Now we have Trump. Democrats overperformed in the last gubernatorial race under a Republican President. I guess we'll see here in just 3.5 weeks!

Using exit polling.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Wtf why would he focus on abortion over something like education or transportation in NOVA

Because Tom Perez and NARAL go around telling everyone that promoting abortion is what gets dems out to the polls. Of course, if they would actually look at the data, they'd find that Marist found that at least 40% of dems are to the right of the 2016 democratic platform on abortion, or that the Public Religion Research Institute found that just 36% of dems view abortion as a Critical Issue. But as 2016 showed us, Dems would rather listen to Lawrence O'Donnell brag about how awesomely liberal the country is than bother to actually learn what's really going on.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Wtf why would he focus on abortion over something like education or transportation in NOVA

because it's Ralph Northam. This issue is his Tom Perez's baby, so to speak.

FTFY

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Where are the ads hitting Gillespie on his awful tax plan? Forget abortion it’s basically Brownback’s plan and now he wants to bring it to VA.

It's out of the Anthony Brown playbook of course.

Did you not get the memo that abortion is the most important issue facing adult Virginians today? /sarc

According to Tom Perez, who controls all, that statement isn't sarcasm at all.