If Hillary beat Chump in VA by 5.3% shouldn't Northam beat Ed "Trump Lite" Gillepsie by as much.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

That's my benchmark.

[MichMary]

1. Yes, but

who votes in off year elections?

GOTV!!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. I am hoping/assuming/praying disillusion with Chump wakes casual voters from their slumber.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. I suppose it's up to Russia, don't you think . . . . ?

[brush]

4. Well, that bonehead move by the DFA declaring no backing for Northam is not helping.

Don't know what gets into an alleged progressive group to torpedo the candidate most closed aligned policy-wise with them, thereby helping the repug candidate who is blatantly playing the "southern strategy" card?

What is up with those fools in Virginia?

[TheBlackAdder]

7. Yeah! DFA came off as a bunch of assholes for pulling this last minute stunt. They should FOAD!

[LAS14]

12. I hope the DFA move serves to get Northam more of the votes....

... he was apparently courting.

[brush]

13. Explain, pls.

[LAS14]

10. I'd say that if it were the DNC, but smaller, focussed..

... progressive groups get their clout by this sort of application of consequences.

[vi5]

5. If we can't win an election like this....

...in a state that we've shown Democrats CAN win in......during the heyday of Trump hatred and disillusionment.....then we truly are in a bad way as far as what we can do as a party. This should be a no brainer, all hands on deck, ads connecting Gillespie to Trump running 24-7 (maybe they are, I don't know I'm not in VA) effort.

[Laurian]

6. I hope, but I'm afraid they'll get the polls close enough

that manipulation of the vote won't be questioned. I still think the presidential vote tallies are suspicious. These assholes have lots of tricks up their sleeves.

[LAS14]

8. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

The source for this seems murky. Too bad that it's too true.

[Thrill]

9. Republicans been running some nasty racist ads there

So who knows

[onenote]

11. No. The one result doesn't follow the other.

First, Gillespie isn't Trump in the minds of a lot of republicans. Second, turnout in off year elections makes comparing them to presidential election years risky.

In 2008, Barack Obama won Virginia by 6.3 percent with 1.96 million votes.
One year later, Republican Bob McDonnell, won the Virginia governorship by 17 points (getting 1.16 million votes to his Democratic opponents 819,000 votes)


In 2012, Barack Obama won Virginia by just under 4% with 1.97 million votes
One year later, Democrat Terry McAuliffe won the governorship but only got 47.8% of the popular vote (1.02 million votes) and was helped immensely by a third party candidate that siphoned off Republican votes.

[Va Lefty]

14. Northam has not run a very good campaign IMO

Gillespie was on the radio/TV with ads early. Did not see much from Northam until the last month. I live in red Va. so maybe it was more about Gillespie rallying his base. On the positive side Notham seems to have a very good GOTV operation. I hope that makes the difference.