With the Democratic primary for Governor of Virginia over and done with, the state now proceeds to the general election and a question that will be heavily examined by national media: Is this one-time Republican stronghold now going to continue being a state that is up for grabs or perhaps even leaning to the Democrats — or could it snap back to the GOP?
Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine is unable to run for re-election (this is the only state left where governors are limited to a single term at a time) and the nominees now are Democratic state Sen. Creigh Deeds and Republican former Attorney General Bob McDonnell. This is in fact a rematch from 2005, when McDonnell defeated Deeds for Attorney General by 323 votes out of about 1.9 million. (McDonnell resigned as Attorney General this year to become a full-time candidate for governor.)
For now at least, immediately post-primary, the new Rasmussen poll gives Deeds a lead over McDonnell of 47%-41% — a number that seems broadly in line with the trend of high-profile contests in Virginia since mid-decade.
The state has become much friendlier to Democrats since 2005, giving them three additional House seats, both Senate seats, and of course delivering their 13 electoral votes to Barack Obama after continuously voting Republican since 1968. Democrats will be trying to consolidate those gains and nail down this state as blue territory. Republicans will be trying to win the crowd back and rebuild their party at both the state level, and as a sign of a national comeback. In the background, the race is likely to be seen as proxy for President Obama’s continued popularity or lack thereof, almost a year into his presidency.
Asked yesterday about the overall playing field in Virginia, state party leaders focused on setting expectations in favor of their candidates.
“Well, Virginians are a pretty independent breed. We’re sure that they tend to be more conservative than not,” Virginia GOP communications director Tim Murtaugh told TPM. “And I think you’ll see, regarding what happened in Virginia over the last few election cycles, sort of reflected the national trend.” So how can the Republicans win this crowd back? “I think we have to still be true to what we always really have been,” said Murtaugh, “and I’m not sure we’ve always made the argument successfully, but we’ve got to do it again this year — we’ve got to convince people what we’re for.”
Jared Leopold, communications director for the Virginia Democrats, told TPM that they very much see the state as still being a toss-up. “I think the state has voted more Democratic because Democrats are the ones who have provided more solutions over the last few years,” he said. “Obviously there have been some demographic shifts, you’ve seen some growth with tech and the government sector. And obviously that’s helped accelerate the process of Virginia becoming a very purple state. But we don’t see it as a Democratic state, we see it as a deep-purple state.”
In his victory speech Tuesday night, Deeds indicated in part that his campaign will go after McDonnell as a George W. Bush Republican — continuing the pattern also seen in this year’s New Jersey gubernatorial race, where the Dems will also be going after the GOP on the Bush legacy. “Tonight, Virginia, we move into the general election,” he said, “where there’s a very stark choice of whether Virginia continues to move forward in the tradition of Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, or whether we move backwards with the disastrous economic and social agenda of Bob McDonnell and George W. Bush.”
On a conference call with reporters yesterday, I asked McDonnell’s campaign chairman Ed Gillespie, who was also chairman of the Republican National Committee for a period during the Bush years, to respond to the Democrats’ decision to tie McDonnell to Bush. Gillespie said that McDonnell’s campaign is focused on positive issues like education, transportation and jobs. “Folks can try to distract from that all they want,” he said. “From a political and tactical perspective, I think I can understand why they want to, but that doesn’t give much credit to the voters here in Virginia.”
State Republican chairman Pat Mullins closed the conference call by asking reporters to cover the race as a referendum on the Obama presidency: “The whole country is watching to see whether Virginia’s gonna be the first state that says no to the policies going on in Washington and Richmond, or whether it’s an affirmation on the Democrat side of what they’re doing.”
