From American Bridge 21st Century:

This morning on the John Fredericks show, Cuccinelli reiterated his refusal to return or reimburse the $18,000 value of the gifts he received from Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams. Running through his excuses, Cuccinelli said the one item of tangible “stuff” he received, $6,000 in food supplements, came “out of the blue.”

John Fredericks: Mr. Attorney General, here's my question. Why not just got to a bank, borrow the $18,000, pay it back and get this issue off the table?

Ken Cuccinelli: Well I'm not in the Governor's category. He got cash, he got loans, he got a watch, got clothes, and I didn't get tangible stuff. I didn't get stuff like that. The one item of stuff I got was totally out of the blue and it was these food supplements and what do you do with that? I just gave it away. 

by Paul Goldman

Being the only one who has predicted the first Democratic sweep since 1989, the new poll from the highly respected Quinnipiac University folks showing McAuliffe up a statistically significant 6% – the second biggest margin for a winning Democratic candidate at this stage of a GUV race in the modern era (Warner led by more, Robb was about the same, Wilder/Kaine/Baliles were less) should be signs that my crystal ball is a lot better than Professor Sabato’s. But is it?

Historically speaking, the Q-Poll is making a bold statement: namely, the Virginia is a now a Democratic state, “blue” as they say, no longer “purple” having left “red” in the rear view mirror. Why? If you dig into the poll just a little – indeed it is clear from the first set of numbers to anyone who knows VA politics – the pollsters are predicting that contrary to all previous history, the 2013 in an off-year GUV race will match the presidential year turnout model for 2008 and 2012. THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE, NOT EVEN CLOSE.

For example: In 2009, the exit polls showed that the voting electorate contained 4 percentage points MORE Republicans than Democrats, fueled by the turnout of Evangelical Christian voters according to the way the pollsters use demographic stats (like it or not, in the polling business, everyone is part of a least one subgroup, and for understandable reasons). What are the understandable reasons?

Like it or not, the overall choices of voters is NOT THAT HARD TO PREDICT if you know what you are doing. This is why polling works so well: it can slice and dice all of us into groups, and then predict how we are going to vote  based on how those in that group are trending.

Thus, since most of the electorate is easily put into a group that STRONGLY TRENDS ONE WAY OR THE OTHER in a two-way race, polls can take a small sample of a huge state – and the Q-Poll actually uses close to double the sample of most polls – and magically predict the outcome within a rather small margin of error. It is quite magical at least to me, fascinating since I first read about it and became enamored with statistics of all kind (I also got into national trouble by writing a column predicting how many freshmen women were engaged in a certain type of sexual practice based on my mathematical model). In that case, for reasons of tabloid journalism, I confess to have screwed with the numbers a little due to the sample size. But I was trying to make a larger point, which had to do with censorship and other things not relevant. But it taught me the power of statistical equations.

It also taught me their key limitation when it comes to the 2013 VA GUV race: The pollsters’ projected turnout model. Or in English: Who the heck will actually show up and vote this November for GUV, LG and AG. According to Quinnipiac’s poll today, Democrats will make up 7 percentage points MORE of the electorate than Republicans. Independents will make up nearly 40% of the electorate.

But you say: It was 4 percentage points more Republican in 2009, why should it be 7 percentage points more Democratic in 2013? Moreover, this 7 percentage-point Democratic advantage tracks the 2012 presidential turnout, yet this is the off-year election cycle when historically the presidential year model has NEVER APPLIED. How cam this be?

That’s a fair question. But let’s remember that in 2012, GOP voting statistic gurus predicted the 2008 presidential turnout in Virginia – which was 6 percentage points more Dem than GOP – couldn’t be duplicated.

What happened? The 2012 exit polls, as indicated, said the VA presidential turnout was 7 percentage points more DEMOCRATIC, which means on a math basis, they were statistically the same in terms of party ID at that macro data level.

THUS THE QUESTION: If the Q-Poll is correct, and the PRESIDENTIAL turnout model is now the GUBERNATORIAL turnout model, this is not only fascinating to those of us who like stats.

It is, to borrow the title from the book,  A Virginia GUBERNATORIAL GAME CHANGER.

Why? SIMPLE. If you look at the Q-poll, basically ALL self-identified Dems and GOPers are voting for their respective party’s GUV nominees, although Cuccinelli is approaching a critical mass of party defectors at this stage of a race. But as of right now, on a math basis, there isn’t sufficient data to say with statistical certainty that it will definitely hurt.

Meaning: If the Q-poll has 7 percentage points more Dems than Republicans, and the top line of the poll says McAuliffe leads Cuccinelli by 6%, you don’t need to be Dr. Sabato or Not Larry Sabato to do the math: all other things being equal, Terry should have a 6-7 percentage point lead in the poll depending on how you round off the data.

Or put another way: The $20 million or so that has been spent TO DATE by the candidates attacking each other HAS NOT MOVED A SINGLE VOTER on a collective basis.

The Partisans – Dems and GOPers – are doing what they always do, back their respective candidates. At this stage of the race, those who consider themselves INDEPENDENT, are basically split as is often the case when you have a race that is seen as overwhelmingly negative, since these voters are the most repelled by the partisan he said/she said part of the game.

INDEED, if you presume that the 2009 turnout model will prevail again, then the Q-Poll would have Cuccinelli up by 4 percentage points with the same numbers.

INDEED # 2, IF YOU STUDY THE Q-Poll, the normal markers of a VA GUV race make it a DEAD EVEN RACE. Why?

The normative turnout on election day would not be either +7 Democrat or + 4 Republican. It would be closer to +2 give or take depending on what happens in the last month of the campaign.

If you look at the Q-poll, I defy anyone to predict how the large block of independents still undecided will break: unlike the partisans, the independents don’t seem to be getting, on a collective basis, any of those Beach Boy “good vibrations” from the political system here in Virginia these days.

MEANING: If independents split roughly 50-50, then this election, despite all the gazillions spent on negative ads, etc, will be based in large measure on THE TURNOUT OF PARTISANS. That is to say, will be electorate look more like 2009 or more like 2012 on a DEM v GOP basis?

So, the Q-Poll raises this question: Has President Barack Obama changed the politics of Virginia in a fundamental way, creating a new electorate of likely voters in a GUV year election? The Q-Poll says: YES, at least based on their math. But does it do so based on the politics of 2013?

There are at least 3 reasons – 2013 specific – to suggest that while the Q-Poll seems to predict a brand new off-year turnout normative equation for Virginia, this might not be the case, it might actually only be a reflection of the unusual circumstances of this year’s election.

(1) MCDONNELL’S SCANDAL WILL KEEP REPUBLICANS HOME THIS NOVEMBER.

There is plenty of statistical history correlating, or at least seemingly so, a “depressed” turnout for a scandal ridden chief executive’s party at the polls. The Q-Poll has the number of Republicans way, way below any number I have seen in all my years of looking at Virginia polls. We are talking numbers that are below the bedrock. The Q-Poll had a large sample. It was weighted, meaning the pollsters had some statistical model they felt comfortable with using. AND IT CAME OUT A PLUS 7 DEMOCRAT, unheard for a GUV year. Based on other data, you can not attribute this amazing stat to any quality of either major party candidate for Governor [in that regard, Q-Poll didn’t include the Libertarian party dude. It would be interesting to see a three way for analysis purposes, in the end the guy will get a small percentage if that, and so not likely to be a factor unless you have the type of recount margins for say John Warner in 1978 or Doug Wilder in 1989 or of course McDonnell v Deeds in 2005].

SO: Is the McDonnell Scandal factor real, is it going to lead to a silent “no show” GOP protest vote? Or is it spurring a “show up” protest DEM vote? As I say, history suggests that the Republican Governor’s problems – imagine if the guy gets indicted or resigns – are likely to keep a good number of Republicans home UNLESS the Cuccinelli campaign changes its course assuming Q-Poll is correct.

2) THE CUCCINELLI FACTOR IS REALLY ENERGIZING DEMOCRATS

The Q-Poll poll basically shows an amazing stat: near universal support of self-identified Dems for McAuliffe. If it were to hold precisely as in the poll, it would surpass anything ever seen in VA politics on a purely statistical basis. This can only happen with a huge negative energy: there is no positive vibe that can do it. The negative Cuccinelli energy among Dems is confirmed by what seems to be an unprecedented negative energy among a cadre in the GOP who while agreeing with Cuccinelli on most issues for most of their careers, seem to have turned on him with a vengeance never before seen in a VA GUV race at that level. Thus, it is a 2013 specific event, not something one would build into a normative model.

3) MONEY

The money gap between TMac and KennyC is going to be more favorable to the Democratic candidate than anytime in the modern era for a statistically competitive race. Warner had a big lead over Earley from jump street and 9/11 froze everything at the very moment an underdog would try to make his move. Earley never was “in” that race on a statistical basis. Truth is, he would have lost if the money gap was reversed.

THUS: In 2013, Cuccinelli faces the 100-year flood type of situation on the money. He has enough to be “competitive” in terms of the dictionary definition of the term. But in reality, the type of campaign he is running can not be competitive in reality over the long haul to election day. He is like the British in WW2, under attack from the German air force. He can’t win unless the (a) the Germans fail to figure out how to use their advantage in material things; and (2) the RAF figures out some brilliant strategies to offset the material advantages not to mention the courage of their pilots.

CONCLUSION

The Q-Poll could be an “outlier” in terms of the turnout. There is no way, now or perhaps even after the vote in November, to know for sure. A 7-percentage-point Dem over GOP advantage on election days in a GUV year would defy the statistical history of Virginia in the modern, two-party era except during the transitional phase when former Democrats where moving over to the GOP.

But that era is over: this is clear from all the polls including the 2009 McDonnell landslide. He got a small slice of the Democratic vote, enough to win an otherwise 50-50 race, but at the same time, you don’t get that slice in a 50-50 race, the dynamics are far different.

SO are the Q-Poll boys right, have we entered a new era where VA has to be considered a “blue state” due to demographic changes?

Good question, but I don’t have the answer, at least statistically. However, the 7 percentage-point Democratic advantage in the Q-Poll suggests to me the following:  right now, this is a scandal-driven election, which means it is an election to be decided by the CHARACTER ISSUE, NOT by the SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES.

“Would we have won a character fight?” famously asks Michael Douglas, playing a President seeking re-election, to his chief political guy, played by actor Martin Sheen (who would go on to be elected President himself, Hollywood wise, in the TV Series The West Wing).

A “character election” for GUV is unusual for Virginia if not unprecedented. A case can be made that 1981 was a character election for Governor, in terms of the dominant theme/issue. As for the others, one or more issues, often hot button, proved decisive in terms of how it played out.

So far, there is no substantive issue that has dominated this election because in large measure, they are playing out by the campaign strategies as character issues by and large.

The Q-Poll gives statistical support for this analysis: and for this being the likely arc of the campaign.

In this regard, a “character issue” election might be logical this year, since it is overdue on a statistical basis and would more likely occur in a scandal-driven situation, none more high profile than now in the history of the state.

The Q-Poll then says the following: net, net, all things being equal, a scandal-driven election favors McAuliffe over Cuccinelli, and should likewise play down the ballot.

This suggests the following to me in closing. Cuccinelli has made a HUGE BLUNDER in NOT RETURNING THE WILLIAMS GIFTS or, in the alternative, NOT AGGRESSIVELY TELLING VOTERS ABOUT being cleared by a Democratic prosecutor as a legal matter (only the voters can clear you as a political matter). It is a blunder worthy of losing an election.

Likewise, Democrats have made a mistake in allowing the GreenTech Auto stuff to get the traction it has IN WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN TANGENTIAL AREAS. But by sitting on their lead, they have opened themselves up to stuff THAT THE KAINE ADMINISTRATION WARNED THEM ABOUT IN 2009. This is a totally unforced error in my book.

So while I think the Q-Poll turnout model is not yet proven, the Q-Poll tells me to stay out on the limb for longer, indeed buy up all the seats. Right now, the Democrats are headed for a sweep, although I am surprised that the Q-Poll has independents tied in the horse race. I suspect this might indicate that the McDonnell Scandal has made a certain percentage of Republicans embarrassed to so identify, thus they are calling themselves “independents” but in reality will vote a straight GOP ticket.

But right now, the Democrats are more eager and motivated to vote. And I believe true independents are more disgusted with McDonnell – and thus his party – than the Governor and the GOP high command seems to want to admit.

Indeed, the Q-Poll may reveal a Freudian slip among the pollsters. Based on what I saw, they DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER TO ASK A SUBSTANTIVE QUESTION, it never struck them as important. Personally, I don’t believe this is correct, I do believe issues are important this year. But it may be that the issues that will move voters are, as indicated, those that make character statement, as opposed to something else.

So the Sweep Lives, you heard it here first.  

The other day, I came across an article entitled, A New Study Says Twitter Can Predict US Elections. The gist of it?

…the study found a correlation between the number of times a candidate for the House of Representatives was mentioned on Twitter in the months before an election and his or her performance in that election. The more a candidate is mentioned on Twitter, the better.

In other words, the Hollywood adage, “no publicity is bad publicity” would seem to apply to politics as well. Of course, I’m not sure I agree with that adage (or others like “death is a career move”), but then again, what do I know about Hollywood?

Anyway given that I spend a ridiculously (pathetically?) large percentage of my life these days using social media – Twitter included – I was intrigued by the claims made by this study. I mean, it would be cool if we could skip the pollsters and just use Twitter to figure out who was going to win an election. On the other hand, this seems way too good to be true, so in the end I was very skeptical. It didn’t help matters that the quantity and quality of claims made for social media’s supposed influence, power, etc. are often far out of proportion to their actual influence, power, etc.

Still, I thought it might be worth looking into this a bit, and specifically whether it could be applied to the Virginia governor’s race. So, I emailed the authors – Joseph DiGrazia and Fabio Rojas of Indiana University – to see what they thought. I introduced myself, told them who I was and what I was interested in, and they graciously responded almost immediately with information on how to keep a count of Twitter mentions (don’t ask: it’s highly technical, definitely not fun for liberal arts majors like me). Instead of doing all that, I decided to just do an easy test case: count the number of Twitter mentions of each candidate in August. After doing that, I wrote a follow-up email Monday afternoon:

FYI, I just counted the number of tweets in August for the words “Cuccinelli” and “McAuliffe.” I got 130 for McAuliffe, 81 for Cuccinelli. I haven’t done any further tweaking of the data, such as adjusting for the fact that Cuccinelli is an incumbent (albeit in a different office – Attorney General – than what he’s running for – Governor) or how positive or negative the tweets were. Based on your research, would you say these results mean anything?

Here’s the response from one of the researchers, Joseph DiGrazia:

Well, assuming the results of our analysis of house races also hold for gubernatorial races, it would imply that McAuliffe has more buzz and is more likely to win. However, it’s important to remember that this isn’t deterministic and there are instances where tweet shares and vote shares don’t line up.

Interesting, but…does any of this really mean anything? I suppose it’s possible, but again, I’m highly skeptical. I became even more skeptical after reading this:

The researchers could predict the outcome in 404 out of 435 races – an astounding prediction rate of 92.8 percent.

But there’s a catch… and it’s a big one.

What the paper and its co-author Indiana University sociologist Fabio Rojas failed to take into account (or at least acknowledge in all their press on the topic) was simple statistical probability. In 19 of the past 23 elections, 90 percent of incumbents ended up winning re-election.

So the researchers improved on our existing prediction base by 2.8 percent. Not exactly newsworthy when put into that sort of perspective.

Hmmmm… In addition, what’s really weird about all this is that it seemingly doesn’t matter for the model results whether the content of the tweets is positive or negative, or even if the negative “buzz” is coming from a particular candidate’s opponent (e.g., in this case, Cuccinelli’s campaign has been relentlessly tweeting negative crap about McAuliffe, accounting for a significant percentage of the tweets about T-Mac in August). I don’t know about you, but that definitely runs smack into my “common sense screen.”

Of course, in the case of Virginia 2013, there’s really no “incumbent” per se, as neither Ken Cuccinelli nor Terry McAuliffe is currently governor. Still, does any of this make any sense, intuitively or in any other way? Again, I really have no idea, but my inclination is to be highly skeptical, certainly until we have a LOT more data, thorough examination of alternative explanatory variables, etc., probably several years from now. For the time being, I’d just chalk this one up as “potentially interesting,” and leave it at that.

P.S. It would be interesting to test these guys’ theory across various elections. Anyone interested?

The first legitimate public poll (Roanoke College “polls” are a complete joke) of the Virginia governor’s race since Public Policy Polling came out with one in mid-July has just been released, by Quinnipiac University. Here are the highlights:

*”Democrat Terry McAuliffe has a 48-42 percent lead over Republican State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in the race to become Virginia’s next governor, according to today’s Quinnipiac University poll, the first survey in this race among voters likely to vote in the November election.”

*”Voters are divided on McAuliffe as 38 percent say he understands and 42 percent say he doesn’t. By a wide 51-37 percent margin, voters say Cuccinelli does not understand.” (Wait, just because Cuccinelli wants to slash taxes for rich people, devastate education and transportation, and tell you what you can NOT do in your bedroom?)

*”McAuliffe carries Democrats 92-1 percent while Cuccinelli wins Republicans 90-6 percent. Independent voters are divided with 42 percent for McAuliffe and 44 percent for Cuccinelli.”

*”The candidates break even 45-46 percent among men while McAuliffe takes women 50-38 percent.”

*”Cuccinelli wins white voters 50-42 percent, while black voters go Democratic 74-7 percent.”

*”Voters have a 41-35 percent unfavorable view of Cuccinelli and disapprove slightly, 46-42 percent, of his performance as attorney general. They have a split 34-33 percent favorable/ unfavorable opinion of McAuliffe.” (I’m truly astounded that science-denying/gay-bashing/women’s-rights-denying Cuckoo’s even got 35% viewing him favorably. Who ARE these people who view him favorably, and what is wrong with them?!?)

*”With less than three months until the election, the candidates for attorney general and lieutenant governor are unknown to the vast majority of voters.” (That’s truly pitiful, a failure of both the media to report and the public to pay attention. At the bare minimum, voters should know who EW Jackson is by this point, as he’s gotten tons of – really bad – publicity for his lunacy. But noooo. Ugh.)

*Q-Poll’s party breakdown is Democrat 30%, Republican 23%, Independent 39%. This compares to PPP’s registered voter poll, which had the partisan breakdown as Democrat 37%, Republican 32%, Independent/Other 31%. Q-Poll thus has Dems lower than PPP by 7 points, Republicans lower by 9 points, and Independents higher by 8 points.

Anyway, the bottom line is that this is pretty good news overall, with a 6-point lead among likely voters for Terry McAuliffe, just 2 1/2 months until election day. I’d love it to be 10 or 15 points over an extremist nutjob like Kookinelli, but sadly, there are a lot of people who will just blindly vote for anyone with an “R” by their name. Also, even sadder (and scarier), there are a lot of people who agree with the “Extreme Team” in their bigoted, intolerant, ignorant, screw-the-middle-and-working-class views…

P.S. Just for comparison purposes, in 2009 at this time, Bob McDonnell was up 7-15 points over Creigh Deeds. Thus, Terry McAuliffe now being up 6 points over Ken Cuccinelli represents a swing in Democrats’ favor of 13-21 points over 4 years ago at this time.

UPDATE: UVA Prof. Larry Sabato tweets: “Party defections low, but still big difference. McAuliffe losing 1% of Ds, Cuccinelli 6% of Rs;” “Q-Poll persists in not naming Libertarian Robert Sarvis, also on ballot. Questionable practice;” “Enthusiasm gap favors Rs but not massively. 27% of voters very enthused about Cuccinelli, 23% for McAuliffe;” “Q has no horserace numbers for LG and AG. Candidates little known. Means nothing in August. Ticket election? We’ll see;” “Q also has nothing on McDonnell. But it’s perfectly obvious McD’s scandal has hurt Cuccinelli. Letter “R” links them.”

From Sen. Tim Kaine’s office, I’m also “deeply troubled by the ongoing violence in Egypt,” I’m just not sure what we can do about it exactly. Also, if we cut off aid to Egypt, won’t the Saudis just replace it, as they’ve promised to do? And might we not lose whatever (little) leverage we have? On the other hand, how can we keep providing military aid to a government that slaughters its own people? Horrible choices all around…

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tim Kaine today released the following statement calling for the U.S. government to immediately cease assistance to the Egyptian government as the Obama Administration and Congress conduct a thorough policy review:

“I continue to be deeply troubled by the ongoing violence in Egypt.  I strongly urge a stop to the indiscriminate killing of innocent Egyptian civilians, the arrest of individuals based on political affiliation, the attacking of churches and places of worship, and the government’s imposition of a State of Emergency that denies Egyptian citizens the right to peacefully assemble and be granted due process under the law.

“I’m pleased the Administration is currently reviewing the United States assistance package to Egypt.  The U.S.-Egypt assistance relationship is over three decades old, so an overall policy review is appropriate, and frankly overdue. As I was reminded during a recent visit to the region, our relationship with Egypt is both strategic and historic.  Egypt has been a pillar of stability in the region for decades, maintained its peace treaty with Israel, and cooperated with the United States on key security and regional issues.  But one thing is clear: the situation in Egypt has deteriorated rapidly and is now intolerable, and our assistance relationship must change. We can no longer conduct business as usual.    

“Today I am calling on the U.S. government to immediately cease all assistance to the Egyptian government as we conduct a thorough policy review. This review will be done by the Administration with the full cooperation of Congress. My view is that no assistance should flow to the Egyptian government until the following conditions are met:  1) a clear commitment to hold democratic, credible elections that are free, fair, and transparent, consistent with international norms, and inclusive of all Egyptians; 2) political and religious freedoms of all Egyptians are protected, including women and religious minorities; 3) civil society is allowed to operate openly and freely; 4) all international agreements and treaties are upheld; and 5) counter terrorism and security cooperation continue, including securing the Sinai and countering smuggling into Gaza.

“I do not make this decision lightly.  I understand the complexities and depth of our relationship with Egypt, especially with regard to our assistance package.  I hope the democratic transition in Egypt gets back on track for the sake of the Egyptian people, the region, and United States interests.  I look forward to working with the Administration on a thorough policy review.”

From the Mark Herring for AG campaign:

Democratic candidate for Attorney General Mark Herring called for Ken Cuccinelli to fully release emails related to his involvement in the scandal involving his office’s cozy relationship with out-of-state energy companies involved in a dispute with southwest Virginia landowners over unpaid mining royalties.

“At a time when Virginians deserve the truth, Ken Cuccinelli and his office continue to fight to keep the public in the dark about the help they gave to out-of-state gas companies trying to deny Virginians millions in mining royalties," Herring said. “It’s shameful that Ken Cuccinelli aligned with the gas companies to keep their emails out of the public view. And it’s shameful that Cuccinelli would think it’s acceptable for his office to offer legal advice to an out of state company, instead of working on behalf of Virginians.

“It seems every day we have more proof that Ken Cuccinelli is more concerned with sweeping his scandals – whether it’s Star Scientific or this mining royalties scandal – under the rug instead of revealing the truth. It’s shocking that his ticketmate Mark Obenshain sits quietly on the sidelines while Ken Cuccinelli puts the interest of a company that donates to his campaign over the interests of Virginia taxpayers. This is why Virginians are ready for a change in the Office of Attorney General,” Herring added.

Earlier today, the Associated Press reported that Cuccinelli fought to release the emails to prosecutors. The full AP article is below. 

One thing I find interesting about all these Republicans endorsing Terry McAuliffe is that not a single Democrat, to my knowledge, has gone the other way and endorsed Cuccinelli. Gee, I wonder why that is…hmmm. By the way, the video is of a wrap-up session on the 2012 Tim Kaine vs. George Allen Senate race, with Boyd Marcus – the guy who’s now endorsed Terry McAuliffe – the former Allen campaign’s senior strategist facing off against Kaine strategist (and now DNC Communications Director) Mo Elleithee. It’s also important to emphasize that Marcus was/is very tight with Bill Bolling, so it makes you wonder to what extent this endorsement reflects Bolling’s thinking…

Today, Terry McAuliffe for Governor announced that Boyd Marcus, who served as Governor Jim Gilmore’s Chief of Staff and has worked with Virginia Republicans for about 40 years, will join “Virginians for McAuliffe” as a supporter and the McAuliffe Campaign as a consultant.

“I am enthusiastically supporting Terry McAuliffe for Governor because I believe he will work with both parties to advance an agenda that prioritizes economic growth. Virginia needs an experienced businessman who will put the practical needs of our people ahead of political ideology,” said Marcus. “I’ve never before supported any Democrat, but this election Terry is the clear choice for mainstream conservatives. I am excited to work with him to grow the already-long list of prominent Republican leaders who are supporting his campaign. Virginia is facing tremendous economic headwinds and we need a Governor who is going to work with both parties.”

As a member of “Virginians for McAuliffe,” Marcus joins prominent Republicans supporting McAuliffe including Dwight Schar, Judy Ford Wason, Sen. John Chichester, Del. Vince Callahan, Sen. Russ Potts, Del. Jim Dillard, John Sherman and Del. Katherine Waddell.

“Boyd is a great addition to our campaign team that is focused on bringing together Virginians of both parties,” said McAuliffe. “Leadership means working with both parties towards compromises that move Virginia’s economy forward.”