This is the first part of two posts analyzing Virginia’s 2009 gubernatorial election. The second part can be found here.
A normal observer might see the above map and naturally conclude that the Democratic candidate lost a landslide election. This is not always the case. In the 1968 presidential election, for instance, the state of New York looked like this:
Although it does not look like it, Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey won the state: 49.76% to 44.30%.
In November 2009, however, State Senator Creigh Deeds did in fact receive a thorough pummeling from Attorney General Bob McDonnell. An unappealing candidate running in a tough national climate, Mr. Deeds lost the race 41.25% to 58.61%.
More below.
Creigh Deeds only won two types of counties: his home district and Democratic strongholds. The former include the two blue counties along the state’s eastern border. The latter are populated by two Democratic constituencies: firstly, blacks in Virginia’s 3rd congressional district and secondly, wealthy suburbanites south of Washington (Virginia’s 8th congressional district).
Surprisingly (and disturbingly) Mr. Deeds lost Fairfax County, the key to recent Democratic success in Virginia. Rich, diverse, and heavily populated – Northern Virginia suburban voters were largely responsible for Democratic victories by Governor Tim Kaine, Senator Jim Webb and President Barack Obama.
Mr. McDonnell’s victory in Fairfax indicates one of two things. Either the Democratic Party has not entrenched itself in NoVa – or it is moving back to the Republicans. The latter possibility is highly worrisome and not simply confined to Virginia.
There is little more that the above map indicates – one cannot tell much from a map that just shows red counties. Differentiating the mass of red reveals more:
This image maps the results based on degree of support. It shows a substantial east-west divide hidden in the first map. Western Virginia voted Republican with far more intensity; eastern Virginia tended to be more moderate in its support of Mr. McDonnell.
Notice how intensely Republican the western panhandle is voting. These voters – poor, white, rural Appalachian folk – used to vote Democratic based on economic appeals. This trend subsisted even in fairly recent times: John Kerry won a couple counties; Senator Jim Webb took three. Former president Bill Clinton did even better (he lost the state by 1.96%):
Creigh Deeds, a moderate politician representing an Appalachian district, was supposed to appeal to the rural voters populating western Virginia; as the map makes evident, he failed to do so (outside his home districts). I suspect Barack Obama may have something to do with this; his poor performance amongst Appalachian voters may be affecting Democratic candidates everywhere. Given the many Democratic politicians elected from Appalachia, this – if true – would definitely be a bad thing for Democrats.
Finally, it is possible to map the results if Mr. Deeds had tied Mr. McDonnell:
This indicates the relative Democratic or Republican lean of each county – a county may vote Republican but still lean Democratic compared to the overall result, and vice versa. Massachusetts, for example, voted Republican in Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide – but nobody would accuse it of being a Republican state. It went red, but relative to the rest of the nation was more Democratic.
The next section will compare this map with similar images derived from previous Democratic coalitions.
(Note: All statistics are derived from http://www.uselectionatlas.org/).
–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
Virginia is a tough nut to crack as far as analyzing trends, but you have done a great job. I think the biggest unknown at this point is (a) Will NoVA become a reliable Democratic area for National, State, and local elections and (b) will the Appalachian area ever bounce back to the Dems on a national level? I think economic populism would appeal to Appalachia, but it seems that socially they find the Democrats as a national party not to be appealing. I think Appalachia could support a moderate Democrat in the mold of Clinton (sans the marriage issues) who could identify with their needs.
Seriously, kudos to you for going through all this.
But this type of analysis is a mistake.
Deeds performed worse than he should have statewide, even in places he won, all for the same reason: he didn’t define himself and give people a reason to vote for him.
Indulge me please for being long-winded here, but it was during the 2006 or 2008 cycle that Markos on DailyKos laid out the basics of campaign messaging in a perfect way: you tell a story about yourself and everything that happens in the campaign regarding youself, you put into that box; and you tell a story about your opponent and everything that happens in the campaign regarding him/her, you put into that box.
Deeds never did the first part of that equation, not at all. Everyone I know here who is a Democrat and even voted for Deeds didn’t have a reason to vote for him. There was nothing about him that appealed. And that wasn’t because they thought there was anything wrong with him, it was because he never said why he wanted to be Governor, he never said what he wanted to do, he never “defined” himself, and so they had no particular impression of him. And in that scenario, only very chronic voters show up to vote. Myself, I think the problem ultimately was that Deeds himself didn’t really know why he wanted to be Governor, he never thought about it. He just had a vague ambition and acted on it. And in a real sense, voters made the right decision in rejecting him, because why do you want a Governor who has no idea what he wants to do?
And on the second part of that equation above, Deeds did it badly. He never really had a coherent message about McDonnell, he just had the thesis and beat it to death, but he never had a story why McDonnell couldn’t be an effective Governor which was the main thing voters cared about.
So the result of the above was that Deeds performed about 10 points worse in Fairfax County than he should have, about 10 points worse in the rural western areas than he should have, about 10 points worse in the Richmond suburbs than he should have……and on and on, the same thing everywhere.
The simple lesson is that whatever differences voters have, they actually all share one big thing in common, which is they all want the same question answered by their candidates: “tell me why I should vote you and why I shouldn’t vote for your opponent.” Deeds never answered the first part of that question and stumbled and bumbled in trying to answer the second part.
Finally, looking particularly at Fairfax County, I’m a Democratic activist in Fairfax County, and I can tell you nothing has changed, Democrats still rule here. It’s just that a lot of Democratic voters have taken Democratic rule for granted and have taken a break from voting. That already started to change again after the disastrous election 2 months ago, with our picking up a GOP-held state Senate seat in a special election just a couple days ago. What McDonnell accomplished here was the outer extreme limit of what a Republican can do in Virginia under the perfect circumstances of running a great campaign and having the Democrat run the worst possible campaign. I won’t be surprised if no Republican carries Fairfax County in a statewide race for another 20 years.
Creigh Deeds simply ran a bad campaign, but credit the Republicans for using Virginia as a way to get back into national prominence. McDonnell ran a stealth moderate campaign, pretty similar to Tim Kaine in reverese. I don’t think NoVa is shifting between the parties. I think Hampton Roads is, although I do think that independents went Republican and the Democrats didn’t have a great message, other than the thesis attacks on McDonnell, and negative campaigns on Republican challengers to Democratic incumbents for the Delegate races. Creigh’s organization basically ignored the golden crescent (NoVa, Richmond, Hampton Roads) and then took it for granted for most of the campaign. There’s a ton of swing voters and base voters to do that. Even the President couldn’t get the base vote fired up.
I think the Dems still have some good candidates in the state; Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim, Senator Chap Petersen, among others.
I agree Hampton Roads is still a purple area as a whole though it can lean blue like it did between 2005-2008. I’m more biased toward Virginia Beach since I used to live there. True McDonnell is from there, but I see that city going back to being a moderate-conservative stronghold led by the Stolle family with their boy Will Sessoms as mayor. I couldn’t belive that the city went 51-49 for McCain, but then it’s two Democratic Delegates got beat when the McDonnell tide came in. Nye will have a tough race but he may have shown enough to Independents that he will buck his party, so they don’t go 2-1 against him.