Washington and Lee University
The results of Tuesday’s Virginia gubernatorial primary, in which state legislator R. Creigh Deeds won a resounding victory, turned on Deeds’ strategy to delay any advertising until the final days of the campaign, according to Mark Rush, the Robert G. Brown Professor of Politics and Law at Washington and Lee University.
Deeds wound up with nearly 50 percent of the vote, finishing well ahead of both Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe. He will now face Republican Robert F. McDonnell in the general election in a rematch of the face-off for attorney general four years ago, which McDonnell won by fewer than 400 votes over Deeds.
“The two key things that happened late to give Deeds his momentum were that he started advertising, and the Washington Post endorsed him,” Rush said. “Those two things changed the dynamic of the race.”
Rush said that McAuliffe had been advertising for so long that people were no longer paying attention to him.
“As some people had predicted, McAuliffe and Moran cancelled each other out, and Deeds, the only fellow who has run statewide, managed to draw upon that statewide appeal and won in what was a low-turnout election,” Rush said. “It was a good strategy. Deeds spent his money well, and it paid off.”
Rush said that the upcoming battle for governor will be a very different contest than the closely contested attorney general’s race of 2005.
“I don’t think that you can use the race four years ago as any kind of predictor of what is going to happen now,” Rush said. “It’s really a clean slate and will be a battle of organizations to see who can get the vote out.”
For Deeds, Rush said, the challenge remains going into Northern Virginia and Eastern Virginia and working his way into that population base, while McDonnell must contend with getting the Republican party organization back on its feet.
“The state is slowly inching Democratic with each and every election,” Rush said, noting gubernatorial wins by Democrats Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, as well as Barack Obama’s victory last November. “What you’ll see is the extent to which a new balance is struck between local and statewide politics, and national politics coming in to tip the balance.”
