Bennett, Petts & Normington (5/6-8):
Glenn Nye (D): 32
Thelma Drake (R-inc): 48
Any incumbent under 50 against a challenger who only has 9% name recognition is not in stellar shape. Indeed, Drake’s re-elects are at 40%. After hearing positive statements about both candidates, Nye closes the gap to 45-47.
Democrats have had heartbreak here before, losing narrowly in ’06. Mark Glenn Nye, who only began his campaign earlier, as a candidate to watch.
SSP currently rates this race as “Likely Republican“.
Thelma Drake has $593,620 cash on hand (she’s raised over $1 million so far this cycle). That may be a lot of money but it is clearly below average for a House member from a battleground district. Using Benawu’s data and doing a little rounding to the nearest whole number for PVIs, there are 13 Republican seats with a PVI of R+6. Thelma Drake’s cash on hand balance ranks eighth out of the 11 Republicans running for re-election. She’s way behind the other two plus-six VA GOPers, Goodlatte and Wolf.
Btw, I got all this data together to see how far out the tree one had to go to find an incumbent Republican House member with a lower cash balance than Vito Fossella ($248 K). The answer is R+6 (Ken Calvert of CA and Tim Johnson of IL although Fossella at D+1 is in worse shape than 9 of the 11 R+6 members going for re-election. R+6 came in immediately handy for this.
Would Obama help here? Is there a significant number of blacks and/or college students?