Election Eve - Big Mo with Deeds

As a McAuliffe supporter, I can't say that this is overwhelmingly welcome news, but it is what it is. With the release of PPP's 14-point lead for Deeds, it's clear that the WaPo endorsement has started a brushfire for the affible and humble Senator from Bath.


Even with these numbers I wouldn't discount the power of the McAuliffe GOTV effort which is evidence of the uncanny, excellent, and powerful campaign that Mike Henry and Terry McAuliffe have put together.

Still, you can't argue with Creigh's numbers.

Fav-Unfav
Deeds 57-14
McAuliffe 40-40
Moran 47-23

An unfavorable rating of 14 shows that those who know Creigh love him and you know what. I do, too.



It's my sincere hope that Terry McAuliffe will be the nominee, the consolation that I find in these numbers is that it feels overwhelmingly unlikely that Brian Moran will be. Moran and his thuggish campaign have made such a mess of things that if he were to take this nomination, it would be a long hard summer trying to pull the team together. With Terry, the sheer excellence of the campaign and the need to oppose McDonnell would engender the unity necessary for Virginia to take the deep look necessary to really appreciate what a great leader Terry McAuliffe is and could be in Richmond.

With Creigh as the standard bearer, the party will come into line very quickly. In some cases, it's already started. Creigh the nominee would rapidly pull together enough resources to hopefully encompass some of Terry's outstanding campaign staff, and potentially some of the Moran campaign's passionate grassroots activism.

It's not over. This is the time to work and fight with everything you've got for your candidate

Nonetheless, this is going to be an historic primary. We'll point to this one for years to come. With Creigh or Terry as the nominee, we'll do great against Bob McDonnell. If it's Moran, welcome to the summer (decade?) of our discontent.

PPP: Good News for Deeds, McAuliffe... Moran? Not so Much

With only 12 days left before the Democratic primary here in Virginia,PPP takes a look at the remaining undecideds, and their findings are surprising.

First, this is an astonishingly fluid electorate. The candidates are largely unknown:

Among the voters still undecided 66% don't know enough about Creigh Deeds or Brian Moran to have an opinion about them one way or the other, and 55% don't know enough about McAuliffe.

So, who and where are these undecideds?

Many of them are African American, which could bode well for Terry McAuliffe:

-They're disproportionately African American- 37%, compared to 27% of the overall primary electorate in our most recent survey. So far McAuliffe has had the upper hand with them so that could work to his advantage.

Most are not in Northern Virginia - bad news for Brian Moran:

-They're disproportionately not from northern Virginia. While 29% of voters total in this race are, just 22% of the undecideds hail from the metro DC area. That's bad news for Brian Moran, who hasn't been able to get much momentum anywhere else in the state, and good news for Deeds whose weakest performance is in that region.

And many trend conservative, which may favor Creigh:

-They're more conservative and less liberal than primary voters as a whole. Among undecideds 27% are liberal and 22% are conservative, while in total 34% are liberal and just 14% are conservative. This could help Deeds, who does best with conservatives and worst with liberals, and hurt McAuliffe who does the best with liberals.

There's been a lot of good news lately for the McAuliffe and Deeds camps, and not much for the Morans. The trend continues.

SUSA: McAuliffe Leads, Deeds Surges, Moran Lags

SurveyUSA: McAuliffe 37%, Deeds 26%, Moran 22%

Lowell points out that this poll reduced the representation of African-Americans and women in its sample, both groups among which Terry is enjoying very strong support.

With only 20 days to go, now is the time when voters will start waking up and when the campaigns need the most support.

Now is when Terry needs you most. Go Terry!

Moran's Astonishing Negativity

If you watch last night's Gubernatorial Debate, one thing that will simply jump off the screen is the endless stream of negative attacks and whining complaints issuing from the mouth of candidate Brian Moran.

The main focus of the attacks was Terry McAuliffe, but he had some choice words for Creigh Deeds as well on the issue of marriage equality.

Even the heavily Moran-organized twitter crowd was astonished by Moran's negativity, two thirds picked Moran as the more negative on a twitter poll.

Brian Moran has spent two years campaigning for this office and he has still failed to pull together a central message. In the absence of a coherent communications plan, he has fallen back on vicious attacks and whining complaints. It's very disappointing for those of us who began this election cycle with high hope for Moran, but who have been truly disgusted by the vicious negativity of his flagging campaign.

A few thoughts on tonight's debate

First, the polls are pointing towards a McAuliffe surge.

Second, tonight's debate went very well, so credit to Ben Tribbett for a huge achievement. That said, what terrible programming to put it directly opposite the Obama press conference.

Third, Moran really did himself no favors tonight coming across as a pugilistic and all around knobby-kneed attack dog. pretty sad.

Fourth, Creigh is a great guy, but half the time he comes across as less than gubernatorial. He's very energetic and has a very strong moral compass, but just looking at him and listening to him, makes you question. When you consider his positions on marriage equality, he loses the progressive vote.

Finally, McAuliffe is definitely the one to beat in this race. He is in the best position to take on McDonnell, has very strong and well-considered positions, and is really running by far the best campaign in Virginia politics this year. His common sense solutions will draw a stark contrast against McDonnell's radical ideologica in the fall.