Believe it or not, there are just 58 days until early voting starts (on 9/19) in the 2025 Virginia races for Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General and the entire House of Delegates. Which means that by this point, your campaign should really be starting to crank up – touring the state, raising money big time, rolling out policy proposals/plans, etc. And that’s exactly what the Democratic candidate for governor, Abigail Spanberger, has been doing – raking in money ($15.2 million cash-on-hand as of 6/30), campaigning around the Commonwealth, announcing plans for Virginia’s economy, etc. Good stuff!
In stark contrast, Spanberger’s Republican opponent, Winsome Earle-Sears, is doing much worse on all fronts…and the news coverage certainly reflects that. Just this morning, there are two brutal articles – one in Politico (not exactly a liberal rag, given that its owner, “Axel Springer, has a decades-long record of bending journalistic ethics for right-wing causes.”) and one in The Hill (owned by Nexstar Media Group, a big corporation that’s definitely known for its liberal leanings). A few highlights from these articles include the following:
- The Politico headline and subheader say it all, lol: “Republicans Are Panicking Over the Virginia Governor’s Race: The party is debating how much it can afford to spend on a losing proposition“
- The Hill headline is not better: “Virginia Republicans sound alarm over governor’s race: ‘It’s a disaster’” OUCH!
- From The Hill’s article: ““From my vantage point and the people we’re talking to, it’s a disaster,’ said one Virginia Republican operative who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”
- Also from The Hill article: “One GOP strategist said the developments are emblematic of ‘a lack of experience on Winsome’s campaign right now….It’s disappointing…It’s easy to go win races in wave years, but competitive races take a competitive edge. And right now with Winsome’s team, you’re not getting any of that from her very well-paid consultants. They just don’t seem to have a fire under them. It’s more like a safe-seat race than one where you have to bulldoze your way across the commonwealth to add to the coalition to win a very purple state.’”
- From Politico: “last week’s fundraising disclosures revealing that Democratic former Rep. Abigail Spanberger has more than three times the cash on hand as Sears — $15.2 million to $4.5 million — have Virginia and national Republicans convinced they’ll lose the governorship absent a dramatic and unexpected change in the race…Making the problem worse, Sears is reluctant to make fundraising or even glaringly obvious political phone calls, according to multiple Republicans familiar with her campaign.”
- More from Politico: “This grim outlook has prompted irritation from some leading Republicans about the straits Youngkin may leave the party in on his way out of office… Youngkin, a multi-millionaire, has yet to infuse the Virginia ticket with significant personal money or contributions from his political action committee…he could leave behind a political mess for his own party in Virginia. Youngkin all but assured Sears’ nomination for governor, even though it was widely known she was a weak fundraiser and mercurial figure, and then attempted to torpedo the candidacy of her successor as lieutenant governor, John Reid, after it was alleged earlier this year that he had posted sexually explicit images online.”
- And last but not least from Politico: “Now, Virginia Republicans — who were already swimming against the tide in a blue-tinted state Trump has never won that tends to punish the party in power in Washington — are alarmed their entire statewide ticket may lose and could deepen the party’s minority in the House of Delegates…This sense of dread is prompting an earlier-than-usual political triage, in which the party races to determine who can be saved.“
As for Republicans thinking that they can save Jason Miyares if Earle-Sears loses by 10 points or whatever, good luck with that. Because the fact is, there’s very little ticket-splitting in these highly “polarized” times, so that maybe you could see few-point “dropoff” from Spanberger’s margin to Jay Jones’ margin, but not nearly enough to make up for a 10-point, 15-point Spanberger win. As for the House of Delegates races, again, most likely the results in particular districts will closely mirror how the gubernatorial candidates perform there – for instance, if Spanberger wins a House of Delegates district by 5 points, it’s likely the Democratic House of Delegates candidate there will win by 2-5 points as well. Exceptions to that rule? Only if: a) there’s a super-strong Republican incumbent in that district; b) there’s a super-weak Democratic challenger in that district.
Anyway, the bottom line is that obviously we can’t take anything for granted, but at this point – given a highly unpopular Republican president in the White House, a much stronger Democratic gubernatorial campaign, etc. – you’d definitely rather be the Virginia Democratic campaign than the Republican one. And the media coverage increasingly reflects that fact…despite the media badly wanting a “horse race” and most definitely not having a liberal bias in any way/shape/form.
As if all that’s not bad enough, it seems like every time Winsome Earle-Sears opens her mouth, she says something off message, hurtful to her own campaign, weird, etc. For instance, See here for Earle-Sears praising Trump’s disastrous tax bill as supposedly doing “So Many Great Things.” Wuuuut? Or how about offensive crap like this? Or this? Or this? We could go on all day. For now, though, check out the following video, in which Earle-Sears whines about “who wants to do a bus tour in the summer?” (and, of course, the Spanberger campaign immediately pounced on that one) I mean, what candidate talks like this? Does Winsome Earle-Sears seriously think that doing a bus tour in the summer is a terrible burden or something? Does she think that it’s a privilege to be the gubernatorial nominee to lead Virginia? And does she seriously think she doesn’t have to campaign hard, make her case (not just throwing out false and tired old bullsh*** about how the Democrats are supposedly “SOCIALISTS!” who will “DESTROY VIRGINIA!” blah blah blah)? But sure, whatever, carry on…don’t ever change…and we’ll see how it looks on the evening of November 4! LOL
