After Action Report (Election 2014) On the day after Election Day, everybody’s an expert. Everybody has an explanation. Everybody “had a feeling” about the winners — or at least the losers. I will freely admit that I was more than surprised to see Mark Warner dangling by his fingernails from an electoral cliff at 10 p.m. last night. (Sadly, the result in the Virginia 10th Congressional District was not a surprise to anyone paying close attention. There are a lot of Democratic bodies in that graveyard). The initial instinct would be to blame Warner for barely winning, when every poll over the last six months had him winning easily. Yet he probably used more skills to reach the finish line in this race than in any other. For purposes of reviewing his campaign, I briefly note the 2001 campaign when Mark first won statewide office. Virginia was more Republican then and his strategy was markedly different. In fact, Mark actually based his campaign in the rural Fifth and Ninth Congressional Districts and won them with margin. He struggled comparatively in the suburbs, only winning Fairfax by 26,000 votes (in that era, it was still a big deal for any Democrat to carry Fairfax County — Al Gore had failed the year before). That was the old model — retail politics in the rural areas, build a base, then finish the campaign in the urban crescent. That changed drastically in 2014. Gillespie, with minimal name recognition, won all over western Virginia by 20%+ margins, except in academic outposts like Blacksburg and Charlottesville. He also carried every single county across Southside Virginia, except those few with a black majority. Finally, he crushed Warner in central Virginia, the Piedmont and even the outer suburbs. (Fauquier County went 2-1 for Gillespie). But Warner survived. He did it by holding onto the population base: Northern Virginia: Mark won big in Arlington (70%), Alexandria (70%) and Fairfax County (57%). Don’t take the latter for granted. In Fairfax, Mark got significant cross-over support yesterday, running ahead of the Dem Congressional candidates in virtually every precinct, especially in western Fairfax which was breaking hard on Election Day for Barbara Comstock (R). Otherwise, he was toast. Richmond: Mark won easily and expectedly in Richmond City (75%) and Petersburg (87%). More importantly he won Henrico (55%), which effectively canceled out a loss in Chesterfield. Again, this kept him in the game. Hampton Roads: This was his firewall and it barely held. Mark’s numbers were solid, not eye-popping, in the urban districts of Norfolk (68%), Portsmouth (69%), Hampton (68%), and Newport News (60%). More importantly was the fact that he held even or won in Suffolk (55%) and Chesapeake (49%) and didn’t get blown out in Virginia Beach (46%), a real possibility in a wave election. The three regional “nodes” gave Mark about a 200,000 vote margin to confront the rest of the state, which was solidly red. That was just barely enough. There are a lot of variables to this. First of all, the Democratic Party’s most valuable asset is clearly Libertarian Robert Sarvis, who again siphoned off 50,000 votes that could have made the difference. Way to go Rob! Secondly, the polling was lousy, just like it was for 2013. As a result, the national Republicans abandoned their Virginia statewide candidate in the crucial final days which kept them off the air and without a GOTV program. (Another couple weeks of those “97%” ads and this would have been a very different post. I am sure of that). In that respect, I give Warner’s camp the credit for keeping the real poll numbers under wraps — as nobody had a clue what was going on — and keeping the national attention elsewhere. (Like Maryland?) In the end, Mark survived. His 2001 coalition is officially a thing of the past. Of course, that may be liberating in some ways. You can’t please all the people all the time. I’ll write later this week about “Lessons Learned,” which will be my own “No Spin” version of the American electorate and some thoughts for the Democratic party. Of course, everyone feels their own viewpoint is vindicated by every election. I’m no exception. In the meantime, there’s another two-year slog of Washington D.C. gridlock. Ain’t democracy grand?
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 20:42:52 +0000
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