Wow! Warner by 12,000. It was a landslide compared to Mark Herring’s win in 2013. But Warner has always prided himself on being bi-partisan and winning in parts of the state that other Dems like Jim Webb, Time Kaine and Barack Obama could not. But last night the bottom fell out of Warner’s campaign strategy – he faired poorly in strong GOP areas as well as in Democratic portions of the state, but able to pull a win out by the skin of his teeth. Frankly, minority voters turned out in big enough numbers to save his behind.
Clearly, turnout in NOVA sucked.
in 2013, Herring won Loudoun, Prince William, Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria by a whopping 133,000. Last night, Warner won these same areas by only 102,000 – a loss of 31,000 votes. And based on results, it seems that these are white Democrats that didn’t how up at the polls; many of them are under 35 but not all. Clearly the inability of the Warner campaign to run an agressive absentee ballot program in NOVA cost Warner votes.
For comparison purposes, I looked at numbers in the Richmond area to see if the turnout disaster in NOVA was true in Richmond, and surprisingly enough, it was not.
In 2013, Mark Herring won Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico, and Hanover Counties by 19,000 votes, In 2014, Warner carried these four localities by the exact amount – 19,000 votes. Clearly, African American turnout in central Virginia was better than expected. But clearly turnout could have been better.
The folks running Warner’s campaign did a poor job guiding the ship and Warner’s bipartisan message used by Dems in statewide races in the 1980’s, 1990’s, and early 2000’s is basically shot to hell – just look at the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th CD races and you’ll see that.
Warner’s campaign was uninspiring, anemic,and lacked vision and direction. They didn’t seem to understand the mechanics of how to run a campaign the way it was done in 2008, 2012, and 2013, and the results show that.
One last thing – the 7th and 10th congressional races were a factor in the senate race. Tea Partier’s, for the first time, finally got candidates of their choice nominated, and they turned out in droves. Both CD’s had the two highest numbers of votes cast in the state. And that was a bonanza for Gillespie – at least 26% of Gillespie’s total statewide vote came from these two CD’s.
Brat was able to drive the crazies out in big numbers in Hanover, Culpepper and Spotslyvania and he won by HUGE numbers. Not sure what Trammell’s strategy was, but clearly he was unable to win in the suburbs of Henrico and Chesterfield, which was his only clear path to victory. Cleraly, Trammell was a poor candidate who made a lot of poor choices, in a district he was going to lose from the get-go.
Comstock did what she needed to do and that was turn out her base in Frederick, and portions of Loudoun, Fairfax and Prince William. As far as Foust is concerned, he was a promising candidate, but after a series of costly mistakes, he imploded, causing the DCCC to abandon him.
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