Tag: vpap

by Lowell Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Saturday, July 21. A Global Heat Wave Has Set the...

People can try to put a positive spin on the 2018 Virginia General Assembly session all they want - and many have, for a...

A sure applause line for Virginia Democrats is to rail against gerrymandering, blame it for most/all of our problems in the Virginia House Delegates,...

The follow graphics, via VPAP, are fascinating and also highly revealing as to where Democrats and Republicans get their money these days. Also check...

Check out the following visual by VPAP, which shows the Virginia State Senate districts won by Ralph Northam and Ed Gillespie last Tuesday. The...

It the level of absentee ballot requests is predictive of turnout here in Virginia this coming Tuesday, then we are potentially talking numbers -...

Look, I understand that the folks at VPAP - the Virginia Public Access Project - do some excellent work (e.g., their visualizations and their...

Notice something about this "2016 General Assembly Outtakes" video (see below) from the self-described "nonpartisan" Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP) annual luncheon held yesterday in...

Courtesy of VPAP, this is what happens when Virginia Democrats only vote in presidential and/or "federal-only" election years. In short, when Democratic voters stay...

Today I attended VPAP's "After Virginia Votes" panel discussion on the 2014 election featuring senior strategists for both the Warner and Gillespie campaigns. Aside from helping to lower the average age in the mostly octogenarian filled room at George Mason University's Fairfax campus, I attended to hear how Warner advisor David Hallock would try to spin the near defeat for his boss.

Sadly, the sometimes candid conversation between David Hallock and Paul Logan paled in comparison to the sparks between Chris LaCivita and Ellen Qualls during VPAP's 2013 analysis. Now that was an analysis worth attending! LaCivita is an unapologetic political hack, in the most delightful way possible, who never shies away from defending his dirty approach to politics. No wonder many of my friends simply call him "the devil." Compare that to Logan and Hallock shifting uncomfortably in their seats trying to defend the practice of spamming inboxes in order to raise low donor funds.

Hallock at several times made the point that the lack of engagement during the midyear election depressed both volunteer enthusiasm and eventual voter participation, particularly among the Democratic base. While bemoaning the difficulties of getting Democratic constituencies to the poles, he clung to defending Warner's "statewide" campaign that stressed bipartisanship and reaching out to Southwest and Southside Virginia.

Perhaps Democratic disengagement is not a fact of life for midterm elections, but a byproduct of the type of campaign Warner ran?

In his concluding remarks, Hallock made the case that the Democratic Party needs to do a better job of engaging our voters and turning them out in off-year elections.

Let's talk about that.