PREDICTION TIME: How big do the Dems win in VA on Tuesday?

[RBInMaine]

Here's Mine:

They take the governorship by five to ten points. That is a "conservative" estimate.

They take Lt. Gov. by even more because the R is truly NUTS.

They take AG by a few points. That is the toss-up, but I think coattails give it to the Dem.

They pick up about 10 seats in the House of Delegates but can't flip it this time. Flipping will come in two years.

This has happened because the current R gov. is corrupt, the R statewide candidates are looney tooney TeaBaggers, Virginians are disgusted with the R's over the shutdown as they depend on govt. related jobs there, and the Dems have coalesced and run EXCELLENT campaigns with many progressive groups helping.

What do you think?

[gopiscrap]

1. I don't think it will be massive

but it will be comfortable!

[RBInMaine]

3. Ya, probably 5 to 10 in the gov. race.

[gopiscrap]

6. I was thinking 6-8 in the gov race

8-10 in the Lt. Gov and 2-3 in the Attorney Generals race, the rest I don't know about because I haven't followed it.

[RBInMaine]

8. Yup. Just about what I'm thinking. How about the House of Delegates?

[gopiscrap]

10. I truly don't know because living in WA state

I don't get a lot of news about those races, but I do think they'll have a bit of coattail effect and pick up a few seats.

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

2. Well now,

I don't know how the numbers will come out except to say, I will be there and voting "D" all the way. I do look forward to it though, can't wait!

[RBInMaine]

5. What are you sensing on the ground? Reports say D's are much better organized and financed.

[gopiscrap]

4. BTW I hope you're right and I am wrong

I've just seen too much GOP cheating to hope for a blowout.

[RBInMaine]

7. Well, with all polls and pundits looking to a D win, hard to cheat too much. Can't be paranoid.

[gopiscrap]

9. yeah but in the closer races

specially the down ticket ones where know one's watching that's where the true cheating will be..plus I worry about the effect of the gop voter purge.

[clydefrand]

11. I think the difference will be

much larger than thought. The libertarian (Sarvas) I think will get more than 10%, with almost all of that from the
Republicans. (The GOP is just about dead in Virginia.)

[RBInMaine]

12. I heard McCauliffe was winning big in the early voting.

[Chan790]

13. A gut-based unscientific guess.

[font color="blue"]Terence R. McAuliffe[/font] over [font color="red"]Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II[/font] by a 54-46 margin in the gubernatorial race.

[font color="blue"]Ralph S. Northam, MD[/font] over [font color="red"]Earl Walker Jackson, Sr.[/font] by a 62-38 margin in the lieutenant gubernatorial race.

[font color="blue"]Mark R. Herring[/font] over [font color="red"]Mark D. Obenshain[/font] in a 51-49 race in the Attorney General race.

I'm expecting negligible movement in the legislature, no more than 3-5 seats to change parties with no clear partisan advantage in my prediction.

[RBInMaine]

14. The Libertarian will get some votes too.

[Chan790]

15. That was not factored in.

I mean I know he will...but I expect a lot of those people when the get in the booth will end up pulling the lever against McAuliffe (and vote Cuchinelli in an attempt to deny the win to the Democrat) rather than for Sarvis further tightening the race. I expected Sarvis' share to be so small that I rolled it into Cuchinelli.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

16. We need to win big and we all need to get down there to help

[Dawson Leery]

17. Terry has a 20 point lead in early voting.

GOTV will be vital on the 5th to get Mark Herring over the finish line and gain as many seats as possible in the lower house.

[RBInMaine]

19. Election day ground game has to be MASSIVE. They are doing well right now.

[DFW]

18. Among others, Howard and Jim Dean poured a lot of effort into VA

Their DFA is mostly low key ground work, and I think it will have helped.

I also think our efforts will have been helped by the Republicans nominating a nut case slate. otherwise, McAuliffe wouldn't have had a chance. They can, in part, thank my friend in Manassas, Richard Viguerie. He still wields a lot of clout there, and would have gone all out to make sure that Koochicrazy got the nomination. He got his way with the nomination, but it will cost him the governor's mansion. Richard is a sly character, but he is very far right, and while he was very successful in 1980 and 2010, the pendulum has swung back the other way, and he's not going to get his way this time. Two years ago, for example, he was backing Santorum for president. oops.

On the whole, I'd say that from here (and it is, after all, 4000 miles away from Virginia) it looks like the OP is going to be pretty accurate. If not, I'm going to be either very pleasantly surprised or very upset. I was born there and my brother still lives there, so I still keep an eye on state politics there as much as I do in TX, which has been a lost cause, but with a few bright rays of hope on the horizon, one of whom is named Davis.

[RBInMaine]

20. Howard is awesome. I wish he was still in charge at DNC.

[DFW]

21. He doesn't

It's a powerful, exciting job when we're in the opposition. When we have the White House, the President is the nominal head of the Party, and after the debacle with having Rahm as White House Chief of Staff and cutting Howard out of the cabinet entirely (as in HHS, handing the governor's seat in Kansas back to the Republicans), Obama pretty much told Howard, thanks for getting me in here, now get lost. I'm sure he regrets that now, but they're both big boys and know how the game is played. Howard, at least, has never stopped working for us.

[RBInMaine]

22. Well, no need to Obama bash, and Howard did 4 years. But he was good.

[DFW]

23. I didn't intend to bash Obama

However, I stand by my opinion that he had a lapse in judgment in letting Rahm Emmnuel call the shots when setting up his first administration. I realize the Chicago connection and Rahm's rep for being a "get things done" guy, but Rahm hates Howard's guts, and has done so since the famous shouting match in 2006, when Howard as DNC Chair stood by his intention to launch the 50 State Strategy, where Rahm as head of the DCCC insisted on only going after safe or swing districts. Howard turned out to be right.

Obama must have known that Howard's actions in 2006 set up his big win in 2008. He just went with Rahm instead of Howard after winning. He went with a known quantity, as Howard had never served in Congress or the White House. However, I think the nation lost doubly when we removed Sibelius as governor of Kansas and let that maniac Brownback take over, and I think Howard as Secretary of HHS would have been a far bigger help in explaining why we needed an ACA, and maybe even brought us farther along the path to single payer. Howard has a talent for explaining the complicated to the simple-minded (and there are enough of them in Congress), and would have been out in front explaining to the public why the country needed reform.