Decision Virginia

AP-VA-TopRaces-Glance-Sum,0097
(AP) 11-03-09 20:19,,
Governor

1,392 of 2,516 precincts – 55 percent

x-Robert McDonnell, GOP 594,174 – 62 percent
R. Creigh Deeds, Dem 370,399 – 38 percent

Lieutenant Governor

1,382 of 2,516 precincts – 55 percent

x-Bill Bolling, GOP (i) 570,454 – 60 percent
Jody Wagner, Dem 381,206 – 40 percent

Attorney General

1,378 of 2,516 precincts – 55 percent

x-Ken Cuccinelli, GOP 573,499 – 61 percent
Stephen Shannon, Dem 366,913 – 39 percent

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

AP-NY-11-03-09 2019EST

It was the kind of day you would expect from the two men hoping to be Virginia’s next Governor. Both Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds put together a blistering schedule that took them to all across Virginia. Both pulled out all the stops, with the hopes of grabbing every last second vote until the polls close Tuesday at 7.

McDonnell made 7 stops across Virginia, alongside Lt. Governor Bill Bolling and Attorney General candidate Ken Cuccinelli. Team McDonnell started near his childhood home in Northern Virginia and finished in Virginia Beach, where he served in the House of Delegates. (McDonnell currently lives in Henrico county)

McDonnell’s second to last stop was here in Richmond where he played to a crowd of a few hundred supporters at a hanger at Richmond International Airport. McDonnell staffers were hoping of a crowd of as many as one thousand people, but  it didn’t get quite that big. McDonnell, who still had one more speech to give and will have a speech of some sort to give tomorrow night was starting to sound a bit hoarse. Something to be expected from the amount of speech the candidate has given over the past few weeks.

Creigh Deeds made 4 stops across the Commonwealth, starting in Roanoke and concluding in Northern Virginia, where he hopes he gets a huge turnout tomorrow.

Deeds stop in Richmond was a perfect example of the Democrat’s strategy in the final weeks of the campaign. He rallied a group of college students at VCU, along with his ticketmates Jody Wagner and Steve Shannon.  Deeds spoke specifically about how that group of voters played an important role in Tuesday’s election and that an unpredictable surge in turnout could make all the polls taken leading up to tomorrow irrelevant.  He repeated his familiar line “The only poll that matters is the one that is taken on Tuesday.”

Now that the closing arguments have been made, the get out the vote effort begins.  McDonnell bragged today on the trail that the Republicans have already made hundreds of thousands of phone calls and knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors. Deeds said that they have had a plan in place that just needs to be kicked into gear. All the effort that has been built upon over the 12 plus past months all comes down to tomorrow.

Republican candidate for Governor, Bob McDonnell and his GOP ticketmates drew a crowd of more than 300 people at an event in Chesterfield County today (Saturday).

The event was part of the Republican “New Jobs, More Opportunities: It Starts Now!” Statewide Tour. McDonnell and Lt. Governor Bill Bolling and Sen. Ken Cuccinelli all addressed the crowd, encouraging them to continue to keep up their efforts through election day and to not rest on the confidence of polls that show the ticket up by wide margins.

Later tonight, Sen. Creigh Deeds the Democratic nominee will host a similar rally with Attorney General nominee, Steve Shannon at the Democratic Coordinated Campaign office in Richmond.

The crowd was excited to greet McDonnell as his “New Jobs, New Opportunities” RV rolled into the parking lot and remained enthusiastic throughout all the speeches given by the candidates. McDonnell’s speech didn’t reveal much new information, instead just sticking to his traditional campaign talking points, as well as dishing up some key red state rhetoric, for the clearly Republican crowd.

Here is an example of what McDonnell talked about to get the crowd fired up:

Note the excitement McDonnell created when he hammered the federal government and proposed the idea of drilling offshore for oil.

McDonnell will stump in a number of different corners of the state tomorrow and won’t return to the Richmond area until Monday, where his team is promising the biggest rally of the campaign that is expected to be held at an airport hanger at Richmond International Airport.

The two men vying to be Virginia’s next Attorney General will meet in an afternoon debate today (Thursday) in Richmond. Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R) and Del. Steve Shannon (D) have met in several debates, most of which have received limited media coverage.

The debate starts at 1:15 and takes place at the Omni in the James River Ballroom. The forum is being hosted by the Richmond Bar Association as part of their Bench Bar Conference. The event is a cooperative effort from a number of bar associations in Central Virginia.

The Shannon campaign is going to stream the debate live on the internet if you can’t make it to the Omni. From what I can tell, the webcast is being produced by the Shannon Team. You can check it out by clicking here.

Much like his two Republican ticketmates, Sen. Cuccinelli leads in every single public poll that has been released in the last three weeks. However, conventional wisdom dictates that many Virginians don’t pay very close attention to the down ballot races until closer to election day. With only 12 days to go, this debate could be the first time many voters take the opportunity to get a look at both candidates.

While much fodder has been made over a series of polls taken in the race for Governor most of them have been open to skepticism because of their method for gathering the information. Many of these polls were conducted via automated means, which is still widely debated as an appropriate statistical gathering mechanism.

Often times, reputable national mainstream media outlets would report on the polling in the race and would use a caveat when describing the numbers, because of the use of that method. It would lead them back to the last Washington Post poll conducted last month that showed the race as a virtual tie.

That survey will no longer matter, as today the Post released another phone survey, of more than 1,000 Virginia residents that now shows Bob McDonnell and his Republican ticketmates leading by 9 points. In addition to the encouraging news for Republicans in the overall numbers, the insider numbers show McDonnell shrinking the gap he once had with female voters, increasing his lead with independents and running competitively in Northern Virginia. There is very little that could be considered encouraging for the campaign of Creigh Deeds.

This latest poll, now gives McDonnell an 8.5% lead in the new average of public polling data gathered by Real Clear Politics.

However, this by no means indicates the race is over. Deeds, you will recall trailed by similar numbers in the Democratic primary before pulling ahead in the 11th hour and the candidates have two more debates on the docket before the final vote on November 3rd.  Deeds officials continue to say that their internal polling numbers show a race far more competitive than the public polling would indicate.

Here is a breakdown in all three statewide races according to the Washington Post poll:

Governor
Bob McDonnell (R)        53%
Creigh Deeds (D)    44%

Lt. Governor
Bill Bolling (R)                49%
Jody Wagner (D)           40%

Attorney General
Ken Cuccinelli (R)         49%
Steve Shannon (D)       40%

The candidates for Attorney General, Sen. Ken Cuccinelli and Del. Steve Shannon will meet tonight (Wednesday) in a debate in Northern Virginia. This will be their second debate in less then a week. The two sparred on WTOP radio last Friday morning.

The Debate is being held at the Prince William County campus of George Mason University. The event is being hosted by the Prince William Committee of 100 and is set to start at 7:30pm.

The liberal blog, Blue Commonwealth, is hosting a live stream of the debate, which you can find here.

It may not be at the point where it can be described as an outright trend, but there is certainly a pattern of Democratic Attorney General candidate Del. Steve Shannon, benefiting from advocacy groups splitting their endorsements among parties in his favor.

In general, most endorsement announcements from major advocacy groups are rarely a surprise. Pro-business groups generally get behind Republicans, pro-labor groups behind Democrats and so on and so on.  From time to time, these groups will surprise people by braking ranks, like for instance when the National Rifle Association supported Creigh Deeds in 2005 in the race for Attorney General.

However in 2009, a number of groups that can be objectively described as “pro-business” have decided to support Bob McDonnell for Governor, and then Steve Shannon for Attorney General. McDonnell has heavily touted his support from the business community and used many of these endorsements as an example of that success. In a recent release announcing the support of the Northern Virginia Technology Council, McDonnell said the endorsement was noteworthy because “This campaign is about who is best prepared to lead an economic resurgence in Virginia in the years ahead as our next governor.”

Generally these organizations who focus on the economy don’t focus as much on the race for Attorney General, but the Shannon campaign has made an aggressive push to garner that support, particularly with organizations in Northern Virginia. The results have paid off as these groups have stuck with the top of the GOP ticket, but then have reached out to give Shannon their support instead of Sen. Ken Cuccinelli.

Here are at least 5 examples where endorsements have gone to McDonnell and Shannon:
Virginia Realtors Association
Associated Builders & Contractors
Northern Virginia Technology Council
Fairfax Chamber of Commerce
Virginia Credit Union League

In addition to these 5 endorsements, Shannon also seemed to at least be in the running for the support of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, before they ultimately endorsed Cuccinelli several weeks after they endorsed in the race for Governor and Lt. Governor.  The NFIB eventually said that Cuccinelli had their “whole-hearted” support.

Cuccinelli’s campaign disagrees that there is any sort of trend and pointed to the Senator’s lengthy list of endorsements from a wide variety of groups including the NRA, The Farm Bureau and the very important nod, (especially in an Attorney General’s race) of The Fraternal Order of Police. Furthermore, Cuccinelli’s campaign claims that Shannon is working hard to play up these endorsements as a way to hide his major support from big union interests.  Shannon does have the support of the SEIU and the AFL-CIO and has received around $150,000 in donations from union based groups.

While this at first, this seems like good news for Shannon, it does come with a caveat for Democrats. If he is the only Democrat receiving that support it could mean one of two things. 1- These groups don’t support policies that democratic voters agree with but do support him or 2-If he is the only Democrat earning this support, that means the top of the ticket has problems.

It is worth noting that when touting these endorsements Shannon comes very close to tying himself to the Republican nominee for Governor.  In the press release touting the Northern Virginia Technology Council endorsement  the Shannon campaign pointed out that “The NVTC endorsement comes just two days after the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce’s NOVABizPAC announced its formal support of Shannon’s candidacy. Both groups offered endorsements to members of both parties this year, endorsing Shannon alongside Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob McDonnell.”

How do Democrats feel about Steve Shannon being lauded “alongside” the current Republican standard bearer?

Shannon and Cuccinelli of course continue to fight for headlines in a hot governor’s race, but tomorrow will meet in a high profile debate on WTOP radio. The debate starts at 10am and will be streamed live on WTOP’s web site. You can listen here.

Yet another poll released today shows the race for Governor of Virginia has become tight. Public Policy Polling, which at one point had Republican Bob McDonnell with a lead of as much as 7 points, now has his lead shrunk to only 5 points. The survey gives McDonnell an advantage only slightly outside the margin of error.

While this poll confirms a promising trend for Democrat Creigh Deeds, there has yet to be a poll that shows him with a lead.  (The Real Clear Politics average shows McDonnell with a lead of little more than 4 points)

According to PPP, Deeds has room to grow. A large pool of undecided voters describe themselves as Democrats and there is evidence that a recently lackluster crowd of Dems are finally starting to warm up to the idea of voting for Deeds in November. On the flip side, McDonnell still enjoys a wide margin of support among Independent voters and female voters do not seemed to be impacted greatly by the revelation of the candidate’s master’s thesis.

The news is not as good for down ballot Democrats. Both Jody Wagner and Steve Shannon trail Bill Bolling and Ken Cuccinelli,  respectively by margins consistent with what they have been over the course of the campaign.

UPDATE:

Not long after PPP released the results of their poll, did Survey USA, and WDBJ-TV released a separate survey with dramatically different results. This poll shows Bob McDonnell, with a comfortable 14 point lead.  Not surprisingly, Republicans are pushing these results and finding problems with the PPP poll.

Here is the breakdown of the numbers of both polls, side by side:

Governor:                 PPP      SURVEY USA

Bob McDonnell (R)-  48%           55%
Creigh Deeds (D)-      43%             41%

Lt. Governor:

Bill Bolling (R)-          43%             54%

Jody Wagner (D)-     35%             41%

Attorney General:

Ken Cuccinelli (R)-     43%           53%

Steve Shannon (D)-    34%           42%

See the full results  of the PPP Poll here.

See the full results of the Survey USA Poll here.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses has finally released their endorsement in the race for Attorney General and they have “whole heartedly” gotten behind the campaign of republican Ken Cuccinelli.

NFIB released their endorsements for Governor and Lt. Governor a little less than a month ago and did not weigh in on the race for AG. At the same time, curiously, Steve Shannon released a statement “thanking” the organization for their consideration after learning he was not going to be endorsed.

Strangely, representatives from the NFIB could not tell me when and if they were going to endorse in the campaign. They basically responded by telling me that would put me on their mailing list for future announcements. Today that announcement came.

Ken Cuccinelli is their candidate and despite the delayed arrival of their support the organization has promised they will do “everything in their power” to help him win. .

You can read the full statement after the jump.

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Ryan Nobles – bio | email

Republican candidate for governor Bob McDonnell comes to the Richmond area today with the wind at his back. A series of new polls, including one released Sunday morning, show him with a clear lead in the race for governor.  The new Washington Post poll shows McDonnell with a 47%-40% lead over Creigh Deeds and a lead of 54%-39% when voters say they will vote for sure in November.

The new numbers for McDonnell come despite a persistent and aggressive push by the Deeds camp to paint the GOP nominee as a rigid conservative outside the mainstream. Deeds has held a series of events with abortion rights groups and has made the issue a talking point on the stump. He has also received assistance from activists in the form of press releases, web sites and web videos. Even though the strategy was unveiled about a week ago, the poll demonstrates no evidence that it is working. According to the Post story, “Deeds has sought to appeal to independents by trying to portray McDonnell as outside the mainstream on such issues as abortion, which he raised in campaign stops last week. But the poll shows that Deeds’s plan has yet to yield benefits. Fewer than three in 10 view McDonnell as too conservative, which is less than the number of respondents who view Deeds as too liberal.”

This runs contrary to the conference call that Deeds campaign manager Joe Abbey and communications aide Mo Elleithee held on Friday, where they claimed that the attacks had the McDonnell camp “reeling”.

In addition to the encouraging poll numbers, McDonnell also learned on Friday that he had picked up the endorsement of the political arm connected to the Virginia Farm Bureau. It’s an endorsement that both candidates had sought and one that Deeds appeared to have an advantage with, given his background and childhood connection to the agriculture industry. However the Farm Bureau decided to endorse a straight Republican ticket, picking Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and attorney general candidate Ken Cuccinelli as well.

Certainly, if the election were held today, Creigh Deeds would have reason to be concerned. However perhaps the most revealing part of the poll showed that most Virginians are not paying close attention to this election at all. A wide group also said that they do not know much about either candidate. There is still ground to make up and plenty of time to do it in. Many lefty bloggers are reminding jubilant republicans of what the polls looked like for Jerry Kilgore at this time back in 2005.

I hope to catch up with Bob McDonnell today. The candidate will speak at two different events in the Richmond area today. I will have more tonight on NBC12 news at 6 and 11 and a complete wrap later on Decision Virginia.

The details of the candidates Richmond area visits can be found after the jump:

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