Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Advertisement
ON THE TRAIL
Virginia Democrats Play The Numbers Game
Gubernatorial Primary Candidates Have No Historical Roadmap To Follow As They Navigate The Commonwealth
What can a rainy day with some bony fish in Wakefield, Va., tell you about the state of the Democrats in the Virginia governor's race? More than you would expect.
There was probably a time when the spring Shad Planking was the political event of the year. How candidates did among this southern Virginia crowd could tell you something about their chances in the fall campaign. Today, it feels pretty insignificant. The average age at this year's edition on April 15 was probably 60 (not counting the candidates' volunteers). There were few undecided voters there, and reporters almost outnumbered them.
And, most important, a muddy field in the middle of Sussex County in Southeast Virginia where beer's served up in cups adorned with a confederate flag isn't exactly the kind of venue where Virginia's suburban residents -- the true swing voters in the commonwealth -- or Democratic primary voters in general would feel at home.
Any public polling on this race should be taken with a very big grain of salt.
So, what were Democrats Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran doing there? And why didn't Creigh Deeds join them?
This gets to the heart of the problem for Democrats trying to game out the June 9 primary. At first glance, it seems like a pretty easy race to handicap. In a campaign where, in the last public polling, 41 percent of Democrats were undecided, resources matter more than anything. There's one guy who has more resources than any other Democrat: McAuliffe. And the Shad Planking was an opportunity for McAuliffe to show off that bounty. He had thousands of signs, lots of cheery, T-shirt-clad staff, even a guy in a chicken suit wearing a diaper to emphasize his plan for turning chicken waste into energy.
Yet, it's almost impossible to know just how many Democrats are going to turn out. There have been very few statewide Democratic primaries in recent years, meaning that there's no historical roadmap for the candidates to follow. Here are two really important numbers to remember: 155,784 and 986,203. The first: the number of people who voted in the 2006 Senate primary between Jim Webb and Harris Miller. The second: the number of Virginians who voted in the February 2008 Democratic presidential primary. This means that the number of people voting in this year's primary is somewhere between 150,000 and 1 million.
This makes polling and targeting very, very difficult. Any public polling on this race should be taken with a very big grain of salt. After all, no one has any idea just how "likely" these "likely voters" will be.
Given the real lack of sizzle this race has produced thus far, and the fact that none of the Democratic candidates is particularly well known, it's more likely that turnout will be in the 150,000-to-170,000 range. And the lower the turnout in June, the harder it may be to re-energize those Obama voters in November. Obviously, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner ran and won in the pre-Obama era. But this will be the first real test of how engaged '08 voters will be in off-year elections. For example, 160,000 people voted in Fairfax County in the presidential primary, an almost fivefold increase from the 2006 Senate primary (35,500 voters). In Loudoun County, turnout was almost eight times higher (35,000 in '08 to 4,000 in '06).
We also know that Northern Virginia is the heart of the primary vote. In '06, 33 percent of the vote came from the 8th District (Arlington and Alexandria) and the 11th (Fairfax). Throw in the 10th District (Loudoun) and the 1st (Prince William and Stafford), and that's a little more than 50 percent of the vote.
That brings us back to the southern part of the state and Deeds. As the only candidate in the primary from southern Virginia, he benefits if Moran and McAuliffe split up Northern Virginia. And, with $1.2 million in the bank, he's got enough money to have an impact. This is probably why you didn't see him at the Shad Planking. It seems he made the decision that he's going to hold on to every dollar until the end. Why spend money on signs and T-shirts to try and sway a handful of (committed) voters in Wakefield when you need every dime (and more) to raise your profile and get out your message to truly uncommitted Democrats?
But this is where the money piece becomes instructive. If McAuliffe were only a Northern Virginia guy with limited cash reserves, he'd have to worry about where to concentrate his resources. Instead, he'll have the money to play all parts of the state. He's already up on TV in Hampton Roads. Meanwhile, given what I saw at the Shad Planking, his campaign is not likely to skimp on the ground effort, either.
However, given what's likely to be a small number of voters, the law of diminishing returns is a real consideration here. McAuliffe's detractors point to his upside-down favorable/unfavorable ratings in some polling as a sign that spending more money doesn't necessarily win over more voters. However, McAuliffe's favorable ratings among Democratic voters are in line with the other Democratic candidates.
The numbers game gives McAuliffe every advantage. And he hasn't made any mistakes. But given the uncertainty about turnout, and historical evidence that shows the best-funded candidates don't always come out on top, it's still not a slam dunk for the Macker.