A bit earlier today, Democracy for America’s “Purple to Blue Project” announced its third Virginia endorsement of 2013. Along with its support for Jennifer Boysko (running against Tom Rust in the 86th House of Delegates district) and John Bell (running against the horrendous David Ramadan in the 87th district), DFA (which has 21,000 members in Virginia and 1 million members nationwide) has now thrown its weight behind Kathleen Murphy (running against the egregious Barbara Comstock in the 34th district).
According to its press release, DFA plans to spend well over $750,000 on its five “Purple to Blue” targeted Virginia delegate races this year. It also says it plans a “robust layered campaign that is highly data-driven and micro targeted,” the goal of which is “firing up volunteer boots on the ground,” as well as “run[ning] a tightly targeted paid field, mail and media program in its five targeted races.”
Also of interest, DFA is releasing polling (by PPP) in the three “Purple to Blue” races it has endorsed in thus far (VA-86, VA-87 and VA-34). See to the right for a screen shot of the polling results from PPP (click to “embiggen”). A few interesting findings are:
*Ken Cuccinelli is wildly unpopular in the 34th and 86th, also not particularly strong in the 87th.
*The Virginia General Assembly has a negative favorable/unfavorable rating in all three districts.
*The Tea Party is viewed very negatively in the 34th and 86th districts, about evenly favorable/unfavorable in the 87th district.
*PPP writes that “voters in the 34th, 86th
and 87th districts are clearly ready for a change in Virginia’s lower house – only 31%, 30% and 32% of each respective district currently has a favorable view of VA state legislature.”
Nick Passanante, “Purple to Blue” Project Director, adds that “voters in our Purple to Blue targeted delegate districts are sick and tired of the tea party extremism they see coming out of Richmond and hungry for change,” and also that “we’re confident our Purple to Blue endorsed candidates have what it takes to tie Ken Cucinelli’s radical, right-wing agenda to their opponents and beat them decisively in November.”
Finally, DFA Chair Jim Dean says (correctly) that “Delegate Barbara Comstock is one of the most virulently anti-choice members of the VA House of Delegates and radically out of step with mainstream Virginia.” He adds that DFA is “incredibly proud to support Kathleen Murphy and…look[s] forward to providing her with the resources and boots on the ground to beat Comstock and bring common sense progressive values back to Richmond.”
Great stuff, thanks to DFA for helping out in the key swing state of Virginia! Now, let’s focus on doing what we need to in order to win these races and elect these three excellent Democrats in November!
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