Virginia Governor's Race 2013 -Who's Gonna Win?

[BM]

Exactly. McAuliffe is objectively, well, a piece of sh**t. If this is the best that Republicans do against someone like him, they shouldn't be happy about the results.

[The Mikado]

Could we get a map on Obershain vs Herring?  It's not every day you have a statewide race decided by .02% of the vote.

[Keystone Phil]

So why did McAuliffe underperform?

Being Terry McAuliffe didn't help, for one.

[Flake]

Obenshain is ahead by 53 votes.

[Brittain33]

Obenshain is ahead by 53 votes.

According to whom? Twitter and web sites are reporting multiple iterations, some with Herring ahead, all with the difference under a few hundred votes.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Could we get a map on Obershain vs Herring?  It's not every day you have a statewide race decided by .02% of the vote.

http://www.vpap.org/elections/live_results/nov_2013?race=attgen

[Lief 🗽]

Note that in 2009, Republicans won provisionals by only 51-49, while winning statewide 58-41. We won't know the result until later this week at least.

[free my dawg]

Apparently the spin around the right wing (from what I'm hearing) is that Obamacare sunk McAuliffe to the point where the Democrats had to fund Sarvis to siphon off votes.

[IceSpear]

So since McAuliffe only ended up narrowly beating the Cooch, that pretty much confirms Bolling would've won had he been the nominee. But what do you guys think the margin would've been?

My guess:

52% Bolling
46% McAuliffe
2% Sarvis

[Badger]

So why did McAuliffe underperform?

Being Terry McAuliffe didn't help, for one.

And that's an understatement.

[Knives]

I didn't really follow the race but, what made both candidates so unappealing?

[Landslide Lyndon]

I didn't really follow the race but, what made both candidates so unappealing?

McAuliffe is a soulless hack and Cuccinelli is a Neaderthal.

[Keystone Phil]

Ken Cuccinelli won 18-24 year olds by six points.

If that doesn't shoot down some talking points, I don't know what will.

[Rocky Rockefeller]

Ken Cuccinelli won 18-24 year olds by six points.

If that doesn't shoot down some talking points, I don't know what will.

What? How? What? What?!

[Badger]

Ken Cuccinelli won 18-24 year olds by six points.

If that doesn't shoot down some talking points, I don't know what will.

Smells a LOT like standard subsample MoE.

[Pessimistic Antineutrino]

Ken Cuccinelli won 18-24 year olds by six points.

If that doesn't shoot down some talking points, I don't know what will.

Smells a LOT like standard subsample MoE.

I would take that with a grain of salt, but Cuccinelli lost 18-29 year olds overall by 5 points. Since McAuliffe won 25-29 year olds by fifteen points I guess that kind of makes sense.

Sarvis somehow took 15% percent of the 18-29 vote with every other demographic being around 5-6%.

[IceSpear]

The 18-24 vote would make sense if Sarvis took votes disproportionately from McAuliffe, which would also explain the unexpected narrow margin (The Cuccinelli 2nd choice people abandoned Sarvis for Cooch, while the McAuliffe 2nd choice people stuck with Sarvis). Maybe Cooch bringing in the Pauls helped?

[Indy Texas]

Ken Cuccinelli won 18-24 year olds by six points.

If that doesn't shoot down some talking points, I don't know what will.

I didn't see any exit polls. Where are they?

[Miles]

Ken Cuccinelli won 18-24 year olds by six points.

If that doesn't shoot down some talking points, I don't know what will.

I didn't see any exit polls. Where are they?

Here's the PDF report.

[IceSpear]

Ken Cuccinelli won 18-24 year olds by six points.

If that doesn't shoot down some talking points, I don't know what will.

I didn't see any exit polls. Where are they?

Here's the PDF report.

Sarvis got 7% liberal support, 10% moderate support, while only getting 3% conservative support. Seems like Sarvis actually hurt McAuliffe more than he hurt Cuccinelli.

[Fuzzy Bear]

So why did McAuliffe underperform?

Being Terry McAuliffe didn't help, for one.

And that's an understatement.

I predicted earlier that the polls putting McAuliffe out in front at the level they put him were wrong.  I also predicted that the relative unsavory image of McAuliffe would enable Cuccinelli (who, whatever his issue positions, was not considered the sleazebag McAuliffe was in some circles) to mount a comeback, and, while he did not prevail, I believe that this is what happened.

Cuccinelli did not lose because of his social conservatism.  Cuccinelli lost because the national GOP gave up on the race.  Unwisely, I might add, because Terry McAuliffe was a candidate with an absolute slew of weaknesses.  It is a sign of weakness among the national GOP that they could not prevail on Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling to endorse Cuccinelli; this race was important to the national party and had implications beyond Virginia.  Failing to do so left the GOP with a Gubenatorial nominee unendorsed by a sitting Lt. Governor of his own party, who is now damaged goods in future elections because of his failure to endorse Cuccinelli, which weakened the GOP even further.  Cuccinelli was a vocal pro-lifer, but his issue positions weren't so far out of line as to be remarkable for a statewide VA candidate; he was no Todd Aiken and no Richard Murdouck.   The GOP needed to put more money into Cuccinelli's race, and it needed to twist a few arms of key Republicans to, at a minimum, endorse the ticket.  Virginia is steadily trending Democratic; one wonders why the national GOP, by ignoring a winnable race, chose to help that process along.

[Brittain33]

Cuccinelli did not lose because of his social conservatism.  Cuccinelli lost because the national GOP gave up on the race. 

Didn't the national GOP give up on the race because Cuccinelli's social conservatism was leading him to poll so badly?

[Sbane]

The GOP lost in Virginia precisely because of Cuccinelli's social conservatism. Although I am glad if the GOP does not learn that lesson.

[Skill and Chance]

But the fact that Cuccinelli got closer than Romney seems relevant.  Romney = worst possible candidate for rural populist voters and the suburbs didn't swing left as much as many though.  It almost makes you wonder if GOP could have flipped OH and VA in 2012 with a SoCon getting supercharged rural turnout.  Santorum was probably too far out in right field to stay near Romney numbers in the suburbs, but what about Huckabee?

[Brittain33]

But the fact that Cuccinelli got closer than Romney seems relevant. 

One way of looking at is that McAuliffe's margin over Cuccinelli's was smaller. Another is that Romney got 47.28% of the vote, Cuccinelli got about 45.3% (as of now.) The 2013 electorate should have favored Cuccinelli. While he did better than predicted, really McAuliffe did worse than predicted, and McAuliffe was so much worse of a candidate than Obama...