Fall 2009 Governor's Race- Part 1- - Because polling data for Adams County Sheriff was not available.

Steering away from healthcare for a moment (as I'm sure this debate is far from over and I can contribute my comments at some point) I'm going to dedicate a few posts to the upcoming elections in both 2009 and 2010. The 2009 gubernatiorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey can, and the 2010 midterms will, be seen as the first public referendums on any large scale during the Obama Administration. Tonight's post will focus on the elections in Virginia and New Jersey coming up in early November. The next post will get into elements of the much larger topic of the midterms.

I figure it best the break the two elections down into a few categories:

The States:
Virginia- 2008- Obama - 53 McCain 46- 2004 - Bush- 54- Kerry- 45-
In recent years, Virginia - Republican in every Presidential election since 1964 until 2008 has trended to a swing state with increasing Democratic strength at the Congressional level- In the very democratic year of 2006 - Senator George Allen was knocked of fby Marine Veteran and Reagan Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb (fairly tailor made for Virginia- a Vietnam veteran, gun-toting, folksy, technocrat) by a few thousand votes. In 2008, former Governor Mark Warner (possibly the most electable man I've heard of this side of Dwight Eisenhower) overwhelmingly walked into an open Senate seate previously held by Republican John Warner. Obama picked up the state -- but since his election it appears that Virginia turned blue out of a tendency toward moderation and disatisfaction with the Bush administration rather than an embracing of Progressive political causes. Also of interesting note, the one-term limited governor's seat has since the late 1970s, always opted for the opposite party of the recent Presidential winner-- Republican in the late 70s, Democratic in the 80s, Republican 1993 and 1997 and back to the Democrats in 2001 and 2005. Recent electoral history favors the Democrats, the historic trend and the stagnating polls of the President (Republicans have recently been picking off city council seats and local elections in the Northern Virginia suburbs) have given momentum back to the GOP in the state.

The Candidates: Robert McDonnell (R) vs R. Creigh Deeds (D) - Republicans in the state quickly rallied around former Attorney General Robert "Bob" McDonnell, who recently resigned the position he won (over Deeds ironically enough) in 2005, to run . McDonnell is a northern-Virginia based conservative with an economy and job creation based campaign and a fairly strong record (20 years in the Army certainly doesn't hurt either). State Senator Creigh Deeds is from the rural Southern area of the state and won a contested Democratic primary against more liberal opponents (including former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe). Though able to attract support from rural areas more effectively than most Democrats, Deeds may be handicapped by the Obama Administration's difficulties, the conservative leaning independents and nominal Democrats he may be trying to court might like him, but dislike Obama even more and vote as a protest against his policies. It does not take a very large stretch of the imagination to view Virginia's contrarian electoral habits as in part being a reaction to Washington sitting just over the Potomac. McDonnell's focus on the Northern Virginia suburbs might well be more effective to his cause as well. McDonnell recently has been underfire via the Washington Post over elements of his master's thesis at Regents University, where he makes some questionable statements over working women and working mothers. However, he seems to have not suffered particulary in the polls, and has partially touched on this, albeit in treacly fashion in this campaign ad-- mentioning his working mother and his Iraq vet daughter.

The Polls: The race, particulary since July have favored McDonnell by a statistically significant margin: the most recent Rasmussen poll favors McDonnell 49 to 39, while the most recent survey USA poll has him over the 50% mark at 54- 43, while the Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling recently rated the race (the earliest of these polls was taken the last day of August) McDonnel 49 to 42 as well. The average margin of error is 4%

My view: Barring some unpredictable events-- The Democrats would consider themselves very lucky to lose this one narrowly (under 4 points perhaps). If McDonnell wins by over 5, and particularly if he approaches an over 10 point margin victory- the Republicans could find themselves with a nice shot in the arm for the 2010 elections. If Virginia is starting to trend back towards the Republicans (taking back a couple marginal House seats in 2010 would be the real confirmation) it could signal some serious issues with Obama's ability to hold together his coalition.

As it is getting late-- tomorrow I will do my best to post my overview on the New Jersey Governor's Election in 2009.