Why Terry McAuliffe barely won

[AdamSmith]

Why Terry McAuliffe barely won

By JAMES HOHMANN | 11/6/13 1:06 AM EST

politico.com

How the heck did that happen?

Most public polls leading up to Election Day had Democrat Terry McAuliffe coasting to victory, some by double digits, in the Virginia governor’s race. Instead he squeaked by, beating Republican Ken Cuccinelli by less than 3 percentage points.

The much-closer-than-expected outcome blunts the narrative that this was a clean win for Democrats going into 2014 and guarantees an intense blame game among Republicans about what might have put Cuccinelli over the top.

Based on a review of returns, exit polls and conversations with operatives, here are six takeaways from the surprise election of the night:

Obamacare almost killed McAuliffe.

The main news stories of the last two weeks of the race were about the botched rollout of the health exchanges and troubling revelations about people getting kicked off their health plans.

Cuccinelli called the off-year election a referendum on Obamacare at every stop during the final days.

“Despite being outspent by an unprecedented $15 million, this race came down to the wire because of Obamacare,” Cuccinelli said in his concession speech Tuesday night.

When President Barack Obama crossed the Potomac for McAuliffe on Sunday, he glaringly avoided even mentioning his signature accomplishment — trying instead to link Cuccinelli with the federal government shutdown.

Exit polls show a majority of voters — 53 percent — opposed the law. Among them, 81 percent voted for Cuccinelli and 8 percent voted for Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis. McAuliffe won overwhelmingly among the 46 percent who support the health care overhaul.

Cuccinelli actually won independents by 9 percentage points, 47 percent to 38 percent, according to exit polls conducted for a group of media organizations. They made up about one-third of the electorate.

“Obamacare helped close the gap,” said Richmond-based strategist Chris Jankowski, the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee.

Cuccinelli might have won if he had more money.

Even before Cuccinelli delivered his concession speech, the candidate’s close allies were beginning to blame outside groups for not helping out more.

McAuliffe outraised Cuccinelli by almost $15 million, and he used the cash advantage to pummel him on the airwaves. A lack of resources forced the Republican to go dark in the D.C. media market during the final two weeks.

The Republican National Committee spent about $3 million on Virginia this year, compared to $9 million in the 2009 governor’s race.

The Chamber of Commerce spent $1 million boosting McDonnell in 2009 and none this time.

“If the Republicans would have rallied around the nominee instead of refusing to support Cuccinelli, he would have won,” said a GOP source involved in the race.

A constellation of liberal interest groups, meanwhile, poured money in as McAuliffe’s lead grew in the public polling. They wanted to claim credit for their particular issues, whether the environment or abortion. Mike Bloomberg’s super PAC spent $2 million in the final two weeks on ads boosting gun control, for example.

The Republican Governors Association spent $8.3 million for Cuccinelli, compared to $5.2 million four years ago, to try making up for the fundraising disparity. But much of that money came earlier in the summer, and the RGA eventually stopped pouring cash into what looked like a losing campaign.

Cuccinelli personally was not a great fundraiser. Removing direct contributions from outside groups, McAuliffe raised $28 million to Cuccinelli’s $11.7 million.

RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski defended the committee, saying that it has to make hard choices about how to spend limited resources.

“The RNC spent millions of dollars to fund the ground game efforts in both New Jersey and Virginia, working in coordination with both campaigns to identify and turn out voters,” she said.

It was a base election.

McAuliffe declared in his victory speech that “a historic number of Republicans” supported him. But that’s just not how it happened.

The Democrat won only 4 percent of self-identified Republicans, according to exit polling. His key was getting more of his people to the polls — 37 percent of voters self-identified as Democrats and 32 percent self-identified as Republican.

In the exit polling, 28 percent of voters supported the tea party movement and another 28 percent were neutral. Virtually all the rest who oppose the tea party backed McAuliffe.

The partisan outcome wasn’t for lack of trying. During the campaign, the former Democratic National Committee chairman embraced one of the main attacks against him — that he is a wheeler-dealer — and tried to flip it into an asset, calling himself a problem solver in a period of paralysis.

And, after his win, McAuliffe pledged to reach out to Republicans in the statehouse.

The gender gap mirrored the presidential.

Exit polls showed McAuliffe won women by only 9 points, the same margin Obama won them by in the presidential election last year. The Washington Post poll last week had put McAuliffe ahead among women by an astonishing 24 points.

This raises questions about whether women are starting to tune out “war on women” messaging and whether apocalyptic suggestions that Cuccinelli would try to ban common forms of birth control were effective at driving women to the polls who might not typically vote in an off-year.

Cuccinelli is a true-believer social conservative, who has spent his career battling abortion and trying to limit divorce. After avoiding social issues the first half of the year, he began defending himself and touting his anti-abortion bona fides in the final weeks as he tried to galvanize his base.

The margin will embolden both sides of the abortion issue to claim victories of sorts.

The Susan B. Anthony List, which spent $870,000 for Cuccinelli through a Virginia affiliate, noted that McAuliffe ran more than 5,600 spots on the abortion issue alone.

“This election shows that it is imperative for pro-lifers to be on offense in 2014 against the distortions and extremism of the left,” said SBA President Marjorie Dannenfelser.

NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue said the attacks worked: “Ken Cuccinelli tried to mislead voters by downplaying his extreme social agenda, but ultimately, he couldn’t hide from his long record of attacking women’s reproductive health.”

Obama himself was a mixed bag.

A 54 percent majority of those voting Tuesday disapproved of Obama’s job performance, according to the exit polling. But 30 percent of those who “somewhat disapproved” of Obama nonetheless voted for McAuliffe.

And despite the widespread criticism directed at Republicans for the government shutdown, an equal number of voters pinned the closure on Obama vs. congressional Republicans.

The president’s approval rating has slipped in the wake of the Obamacare fiasco and other scandals of his fifth year in office, and his trip to Virginia Sunday probably motivated some independents and Republicans to back Cuccinelli, but he still has deep appeal with the Democratic base.

Whether blacks would show up without Obama on the ballot was a big concern for the McAuliffe campaign, and they used the trips of Bill Clinton and the president to push turnout specifically among this community.

African-Americans made up 20 percent of the electorate, according to exit polls, on par with the presidential race as a share of the electorate and up from 16 percent in the 2009 governor’s race. Since McAuliffe won 90 percent of the black vote, a 4 percent drop-off in the share of the electorate could have proved fatal.

The black vote helped Virginia Democrats break a four-decade streak — electing a governor of the same party as the sitting president for the first time since 1973.

The shutdown still hurt Republicans.

Though an equal number in the exit polls blamed Obama as blamed congressional Republicans, analysts in both parties agree that the shutdown galvanized Democratic intensity and helped give them the turnout advantage.

Republicans had a 4- to 5-point advantage on the generic ballot through the spring and summer, but internal GOP polling showed a flip during the shutdown. Likely voters preferred “Democrats” by 6 points on the generic ballot in their final polling.

“The shutdown demoralized a chunk of the Republican base and really energized a chunk of the Democratic base,” said GOP pollster Wes Anderson, a partner at OnMessage Inc. “Terry McAuliffe had not found any way to energize the Democratic base prior to the shutdown.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/terry-mcauliffe-virginia-governor-2013-elections-99441.html#ixzz2jsWr56a0

[Guest NCBored]

One day I'd like to see a exit poll that shows who voted FOR each candidate vs. who voted AGAINST someone. In other words, how many people voted for a candidate because they approved of him vs how many voted for him because they hated the other guy.

The analysis in the article seems to focus on the race as a referendum on parties & policies vs a choice between two individuals.

[RA1]

I would love to vote FOR someone. For very much too long many of us have voted against someone. Is there a third choice?

Best regards,

RA1

[MsGuy]

RA1, I would have thought that the Libertarian candidate pulling 6.5 % of the vote would have cheered you up. That's got to be a record (or damn near it).

[RA1]

I noticed that but was too dumbfounded or inebriated to be cheered up. However, thanks for the reminder. There is some chance for a third party (vs. two that are only too similar) but some R's seem to think that the Libertarians are just an offshoot of the "modern" R's. If one looks at a 100 year history of both the R's and the D's, the early members of either would not recognize the latter members or so it seems. The morass continues or thickens.

Best regards,

RA1

[MsGuy]

One interesting takeaway from this race is that many traditional party moneybags took a walk as a way of firing a shot across the bows of the radical wing of the party. For months donors from finance, big business and high tech have been kvetching that tea party types were behaving irresponsibly on immigration and fiscal issues (read: costing them money). There's been a (somewhat) organized movement to pull a cash boycott of tea party candidates during next year's election cycle.

Some of the more irate fat cats are even talking of taking a page out of the tea party play book and sponsor primary opponents against congress critters who get too far off the reservation. Given the shift to the right in the party base, they might not have too much luck with more moderate pro-business candidates but could be successful in forcing incumbents to exaust limited funds and leaving them with a tarnished image with which to wage the general election.

[AdamSmith]

More on this...

In G.O.P., a Campaign Takes Aim at Tea Party

By ERIC LIPTON

The New York Times

Published: November 5, 2013

WASHINGTON — Open warfare is breaking out among rival Republican groups, with one, Main Street Advocacy, set to start an ad campaign on Wednesday that blames conservative groups like the Tea Party for the recent series of political losses in critical elections across the United States.

The ad cites what it calls a “Hall of Shame,” including Representative Todd Akin, Republican of Missouri, who lost his bid for the Senate last year, despite a Tea Party endorsement, after he said a “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy.

It also pokes fun at conservative groups like the Club for Growth and Freedom Works — stamping the word “Defund” over their names — because they recently pushed Congress to shut down the federal government in an effort to block financing for President Obama’s health care program.

“We want our party back,” said former Representative Steven C. LaTourette of Ohio, who is leading Main Street Advocacy. “And we are going to do what it takes to accomplish that.”

The ad was previewed Tuesday during a fund-raiser in New York City hosted by Mr. LaTourette. Main Street Advocacy is trying to raise $8 million to help eight Republican moderates either defend their congressional seats in the 2014 midterm elections or to oust Tea Party-endorsed candidates already in office, like Representative Justin Amash of Michigan.

The 14-year-old Club for Growth has become an increasing force in Republican races. It spent $17 million in the last election cycle to help select extremely conservative candidates — including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas — in congressional races that Republicans were likely to win.

The Club for Growth opened the offensive against moderate Republicans earlier this year with a website it calls Primary My Congressman! The site lists 10 House Republicans it calls RINOs (Republican in Name Only) that it wants to see replaced by more conservative party members. Some are the same Republicans, like Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, that Main Street Advocacy is preparing to defend.

Barney Keller, a spokesman for the Club for Growth, said that Mr. LaTourette’s group was wasting its money going after a rival political action committee. Mr. LaTourette, he added, has been working as a lobbyist since he left Congress and so now is trying to help corporate America reassert its control over Congress.

“They can attack the Club all they want, and I hope they spend their money doing so,” Mr. Keller said. “We look forward to adding to the ranks of pro-growth conservatives in Congress next year.” He added that the Club had not endorsed all the candidates featured in the ad.

The challenge for Main Street Advocacy, the group’s organizers said, is to build a network of moderate Republicans who are as motivated and politically active as Tea Party enthusiasts have been since Mr. Obama was elected to his first term.

Party primary results are often difficult for pollsters to predict because the outcomes largely depend on who turns out to vote, and Mr. LaTourette acknowledged that the most conservative candidates had traditionally had much more reliable supporters.

“We are behind the curve with our more conservative counterparts,” Mr. LaTourette said. “They have built grass-roots networks and databases of conservative voters. That is part of this project.”

Mr. LaTourette stepped down this year, declaring he was fed up with the confrontational tone of his party and at how partisan Congress had become.

Main Street Advocacy has not yet formally picked the eight or so Republican candidates it will spend its money on next year. Besides Mr. Kinzinger and a Republican challenger to Mr. Amash, other possibilities include Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho and Representative Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who is vying for a Senate seat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/us/politics/in-gop-a-campaign-takes-aim-at-tea-party.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-thecaucus&_r=4&

[TampaYankee]

Never really believed the hyped polls and always figured a tight race in the end. Conservatives come out, progressives and moderates generally are less enthusiastic about off year participation.

The government shut down helped with that. I thought it was a mistake and would hurt to have Obama and Bloomberg enter the fray. McAuliffe didn't need them and I think they did hurt. He should have left it at Bill and Hillary, both definite pluses in VA. But then McAuliffe has never been very savvy IMO. I'm amazed the Va Dems couldn't do better. Still, the statue of Grant on his Horse would be better than the Cucch. (We need a hair-on-fire icon. )

[MsGuy]

(We need a hair-on-fire icon. )

I'd suggest adding this one too:

But I don't want to be called as a material witness in our very first banning trial.

[TampaYankee]

I'd suggest adding this one too:

But I don't want to be called as a material witness in our very first banning trial.

LOL I like both.

We could call you as an immaterial witness! That would be in the back-up scheme, which Oz and I never really got around to proposing, whereby we tie a heavy stone to the accused offender and toss him in the village cesspool. If he floats then his guilt is affirmed. Of course the offender could file a cross-complaint causing both parties to be adjudicated at the same time. I suspect the drop in complaints would be precipitious.

[AdamSmith]

We could call you as an immaterial witness!

Spectral evidence.

And sewerboarding! Your scheme if broadly applied would unclog the courts almost immediately.