After an election cycle that saw tens of thousands of television ads and millions of dollars of candidate spending in the Old Dominion, the worst may be yet to come for Virginia voters.
Off-year gubernatorial contests in the commonwealth have been nasty, brutish, and yes, short, in the past. With likely nominees already starting to settle in, next year’s clash between Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe is shaping up to be the nation’s 2013 marquee contest just ahead of a crucial midterm year.
The field has finally coalesced in the past few weeks, with Cuccinelli avoiding a potentially messy convention fight with Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R) -- which Cuccinelli almost certainly would have won -- and McAuliffe avoiding a potentially messier primary fight with former Rep. Tom Perriello (D).
Off-year gubernatorial contests in the commonwealth have been nasty, brutish, and yes, short, in the past. With likely nominees already starting to settle in, next year’s clash between Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe is shaping up to be the nation’s 2013 marquee contest just ahead of a crucial midterm year.
The field has finally coalesced in the past few weeks, with Cuccinelli avoiding a potentially messy convention fight with Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R) -- which Cuccinelli almost certainly would have won -- and McAuliffe avoiding a potentially messier primary fight with former Rep. Tom Perriello (D).
Lay of the Land
Virginia has been one of the most unpredictable states politically in recent years, particularly in the contrast between its presidential and gubernatorial contests. There is no incumbent boost, since the state is the last in the union to prohibit its incumbent from running for a second consecutive term.
In 2008, Barack Obama carried Virginia for Democrats for the first time since 1965. Just a year later, the GOP statewide ticket swept to victory. Bob McDonnell won the gubernatorial race with 59 percent percent, Bolling took 57 percent in the lieutenant governor’s race, and Cuccinelli garnered 58 percent to become attorney general.
One critical key to that victory: turnout was down significantly from just a year earlier, dropping from 75 percent to 40 percent. Additionally, as the mood of the country was beginning to tilt toward the GOP, that change was being reflected just outside the nation’s capital. A year later, Republicans flipped three seats in the 2010 GOP congressional wave, and kept them in 2012 despite wider statewide losses, partly thanks to an incumbent-protection redistricting plan.
Since 1976, Virginia has elected a chief executive from the party not controlling the White House, but much has changed in the state in the past four years. The state has taken on a decidedly purple hue, and Democrats are optimistic that this is the year that the streak will be snapped.
In this year’s presidential contest, President Obama carried the state by three points, 51 percent to 48 percent, a much wider margin than final polls had projected. And former governor Tim Kaine won the open seat Senate contest over another former governor and senator, Republican George Allen, 53 percent to 47 percent. Still, Democrats are cautious not to take too much solace from their most recent victories in the Old Dominion.
The Republican: Cuccinelli
Ken Cuccinelli, 44, was born in New Jersey but moved to McLean, Va., when he was a toddler. A devout Catholic, he attended Gonzaga High School in D.C., and went on to the University of Virginia, where he earned a mechanical engineering degree. Then, after being on UVA’s judiciary committee and interning for Democratic Gov. Douglas Wilder, Cuccinelli went to law school at George Mason University, and worked in private practice, mainly in business law.
Cuccinelli is no stranger to winning on difficult terrain. He represented a very swing legislative district from perpetual bellwether Fairfax County in the state Senate for nearly seven years. He won a special election in 2002 with 55 percent of the vote, and was re-elected again in 2003 with 53 percent of the vote, despite his conservative principles many believed were out of step with the district. However, in 2007 the margin was much closer, and after a recount he prevailed by just 98 votes.
In 2009, he ran statewide for attorney general, was unopposed in the GOP primary, and won the general election handily.
In office, Cuccinelli drew immediate attention as an aggressive, conservative prosecutor unafraid to use his office, even in controversial ways. He was the first attorney general in the country to bring suit against the federal government over the Obamacare legislation. He filed suit for UVA’s records on climate change research, argued against the state’s universities ability to ban discrimination against homosexuals, saying the Legislature hadn’t defined sexual orientation as protected. He has sued the EPA and sought more regulations on abortion clinics.
But for Cuccinelli, standing by his constitutional principles sometimes means deviating from Republican orthodoxy. He defended George Mason University’s ban on firearms on campus, angering gun rights activists, and has opposed expansions of the death penalty and favored more mental health reforms.
Instead of falling into the commonwealth’s supposedly drama-free line of succession, Cuccinelli announced last December that he wasn’t going to wait his turn, and announced he’d run for the Republican nomination for governor against Bolling instead of seeking another term in the attorney general’s office, as he’d previously said he was inclined to do. Four years ago, Lt. Gov. Bolling stepped aside to avoid a primary with then-AG McDonnell, choosing to run for re-election and wait for his turn in 2013.
Cuccinelli’s first break came when his supporters maneuvered to pick the GOP nominee at a party convention next summer, which will likely include a much smaller and more conservative electorate than a statewide primary.
While Bolling mounted a bid for the past year, and had the backing of McDonnell and much of the state’s establishment, he saw the writing on the wall and withdrew at the end of November. But the two-term lieutenant governor certainly didn’t mince words on his way out, refusing to endorse Cuccinelli and saying he had “serious reservations about his ability to effectively and responsibly lead the state.” Bolling seemed to leave the door open to a possible independent bid, but Republicans, and wishful Democrats, believe that’s an unlikely scenario.
Cuccinelli’s ability to heal the rifts in the GOP will be crucial in the coming months. However, as one GOP strategist noted, he never attacked Bolling and the Cuccinelli campaign has been deferential these past few weeks, knowing there’s still an open wound on the Bolling side. Overall, GOP sources believe that Bolling’s supporters will follow McDonnell’s example and fall in line behind Cuccinelli.
Famed but polarizing Virginia consultant Chris LaCivita is serving as Cuccinelli’s general consultant. The Republican hasn’t yet hired a pollster, media or mail firm.
The Democrat: McAuliffe
Terry McAuliffe, 55, was born in Syracuse, N.Y., to an Irish-Catholic, Democratic family. He started a driveway maintenance business at just 14, and came to the nation’s capital to attend college at Catholic University. He worked on President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 re-election campaign, beginning a long career in Democratic politics. He got his law degree from Georgetown, and took over the struggling Federal City National Bank in D.C. at just age 30.
But McAuliffe was still active in party politics, particularly as a key fundraiser for top candidates. During law school, he served as finance director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and also served as finance director for Dick Gephardt’s 1988 presidential bid.
A close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, he took over the helm at the Democratic National Convention in 2001, serving four years and working hard to revive the party after its disappointing 2000 election. He put an emphasis on fundraising and technology, building a new headquarters and set new fundraising records for the DNC. In 2008, he served as Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman.
In 2009, he decided to make the jump from strategist and fundraiser to candidate. Though he spent over $7.5 million, McAuliffe placed only a distant second in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest, getting only 26 percent of the vote in a three-way field behind eventual nominee Creigh Deeds. Despite living in Virginia for nearly 20 years, McAuliffe had to fight off carpetbagger charges -- and it’s something Republicans will be quick to seize on again, pointing to his open flirtation with running for office in Florida or New York.
There seemed to still be a trace of that disillusionment this go-around even within his own party, given a quiet drumbeat among some activists for a candidate other than McAuliffe. The former DNC chairman certainly has a larger-than-life personality, and that rubs some, especially on the campaign trail, the wrong way. He has yet to prove he can fire up the Democratic base, and that led more than a few key Democrats to privately hope that Sen. Mark Warner or Perriello, a hero to party progressives, could mount a bid.
But the McAuliffe of 2009 is very different than the McAuliffe of 2012. Democrats in the state note he has spent the past three years paying his political dues, building relationships in the state and remaining active in party politics -- all clearly the building blocks for the seemingly inevitable 2013 bid. And after Warner passed on a return to Richmond, McAuliffe officially announced in November and now has the field to himself, unlike last time.
McAuliffe has hired outgoing Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Executive Director Robby Mook to manage his campaign. Fred Yang and Geoff Garin of Garin-Hart-Yang Research will handle the polling, while media consultants Saul Shorr, Andrea Johnson and Adam Magnus of Shorr Johnson Magnus Media will do the ads.
How It Plays Out
Virginia voters are fatigued following virtual non-stop campaigning for nearly two years. So while the field is set in the Old Dominion, don’t expect much action until after the first of the year.
A November poll from Quinnipiac offered a brief glimpse into the future. The survey showed McAuliffe leading Cuccinelli 41 percent to 37 percent and both men starting with relatively low statewide name I.D. Sixty-eight percent said they hadn’t heard enough about McAuliffe to have an opinion, while 45 percent said the same thing about Cuccinelli.
A poll conducted early this month for McDonnell by Glen Bolger at Public Opinion Strategies showed the race in a virtual dead heat, with McAuliffe at 43 percent to Cuccinelli’s 42 percent.
Still, the narratives the two campaigns want to shape are clear. To Republicans, Cuccinelli may be outspoken and often controversial but is passionate and principled, while McAuliffe has never held public office and is a party leader with tenuous connections to the state. To Democrats, McAuliffe is a proven business leader who’s lived here for nearly 20 years, while Cuccinelli is outside the mainstream of the state and too extreme for a swing state.
Democrats believe Cuccinelli’s record is his biggest liability, and have already started highlighting his positions on abortion and gay marriage, as well as prosecutions he pursued in the AG’s office on climate change and sexual discrimination. But privately, many Democrats are still expecting a tough race.
“[Cuccinelli] represents the worst of Virginia Republicans and is such an ideological firebrand, the ads write themselves,” said one unaligned Virginia Democratic strategist. “But he’s no slouch. The guy can raise money, he’s very media savvy, and probably the greatest benefit he’s got is he will have a fired up Republican base.”
For the tea party hero, it’s undoubtedly his loyal followers, certain to go to the polls, that is his greatest asset. That wing of the GOP was unenthused by Romney, and some even by Allen this past year. But Cuccinelli gives them a different type of fire in their belly -- not just to come out to vote for him, but to work on his behalf. Democrats may find a similar fire -- but it may be to work against Cuccinelli, and not necessarily for McAuliffe.
For McAuliffe, the Clinton renaissance has come at the perfect time. While McAuliffe may not be seen as the most centrist of Democrats, the former president still exudes warm feelings, especially among many moderate Republicans and independents, and was an invaluable surrogate for Obama and other Democrats this past cycle.
McAuliffe will also talk about his business background, but that will not be without some risk. He has already come under scrutiny just these past few weeks over why one of his newest ventures, GreenTech Automotive, an electric car company, chose to locate its plant in Mississippi instead of Virginia.
However, as Democrats say, the fight over jobs, whether how many or where, is one they’re eager to have and won’t shy from. As one strategist was pointed out, no matter how many jobs McAuliffe created, “it’s still more jobs than Cuccinelli’s ever created.” Indeed, most Democrats believe that the contrast between Cuccinelli’s activism and McAuliffe’s business work is their strongest message.
As many Republicans note, Cuccinelli’s ability to walk both lines, between jobs and red meat issues, will be tested. In recent speeches, the attorney general hasn’t shied away from his talking points on liberty and freedom. But he’ll need to balance that with his economic message -- still the number one concern among Virginians.
While Cuccinelli’s positions are virtually identical to McDonnell’s, the current governor has kept a focus on his economic development, both in his 2009 race and beyond. When a controversial thesis on women’s issues surfaced during his campaign for governor, McDonnell aptly managed the issue, and stayed myopically focused on his campaign mantra, “Bob’s for Jobs.”
Now, Cuccinelli benefits from his task to succeed one of the most popular governors in the country, with McDonnell’s approval rating resting at 67 percent in the POS survey. He will work to make the case that his election would be an extension of the McDonnell administration.
Though Romney couldn’t carry the state in November, Republicans have a blueprint for how to win statewide in off-year races. Democrats privately admit that Republicans will likely have the turnout advantage, especially after coming off a disappointing year.
What path the General Assembly takes this coming year will be critical to the fates of both men, too. Last year, conservatives made an ill-fated push for more abortion restrictions, including requiring transvaginal ultrasounds before women could terminate their pregnancy. It’s a message Republicans don’t need to woo independents and could complicate Cuccinelli’s already difficult task with that bloc.
Fiscal decisions coming from Congress, just next to crucial Northern Virginia, will certainly have a trickle down effect too, impacting not only the overall mood and messaging of both parties, but critically impact government workers in the more liberal suburbs and exurbs.
The Bottom Line
This race starts as a pure toss-up, and may well remain there until Election Day. In a state with as tough a terrain as Virginia, and with millions of dollars sure to be spent by both candidates and heavy involvement from outside groups, this could be the premier race of 2013-- especially if Democrats fail to get a top-flight challenger to Republican Chris Christie in New Jersey.
Races like this will be decided by swing voters, and as of now, neither candidates seems to appeal much to that group of voters. How the candidates begin to craft their messages -- and frame their opponent -- will be critical. Both have work to do as the year go on, but expect both to run aggressive campaigns in what will be a hard-fought contest that is just getting started.
SUBSCRIBER ONLY:
http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.com/news/article/virginia-governor-warts-and-all
Virginia has been one of the most unpredictable states politically in recent years, particularly in the contrast between its presidential and gubernatorial contests. There is no incumbent boost, since the state is the last in the union to prohibit its incumbent from running for a second consecutive term.
In 2008, Barack Obama carried Virginia for Democrats for the first time since 1965. Just a year later, the GOP statewide ticket swept to victory. Bob McDonnell won the gubernatorial race with 59 percent percent, Bolling took 57 percent in the lieutenant governor’s race, and Cuccinelli garnered 58 percent to become attorney general.
One critical key to that victory: turnout was down significantly from just a year earlier, dropping from 75 percent to 40 percent. Additionally, as the mood of the country was beginning to tilt toward the GOP, that change was being reflected just outside the nation’s capital. A year later, Republicans flipped three seats in the 2010 GOP congressional wave, and kept them in 2012 despite wider statewide losses, partly thanks to an incumbent-protection redistricting plan.
Since 1976, Virginia has elected a chief executive from the party not controlling the White House, but much has changed in the state in the past four years. The state has taken on a decidedly purple hue, and Democrats are optimistic that this is the year that the streak will be snapped.
In this year’s presidential contest, President Obama carried the state by three points, 51 percent to 48 percent, a much wider margin than final polls had projected. And former governor Tim Kaine won the open seat Senate contest over another former governor and senator, Republican George Allen, 53 percent to 47 percent. Still, Democrats are cautious not to take too much solace from their most recent victories in the Old Dominion.
The Republican: Cuccinelli
Ken Cuccinelli, 44, was born in New Jersey but moved to McLean, Va., when he was a toddler. A devout Catholic, he attended Gonzaga High School in D.C., and went on to the University of Virginia, where he earned a mechanical engineering degree. Then, after being on UVA’s judiciary committee and interning for Democratic Gov. Douglas Wilder, Cuccinelli went to law school at George Mason University, and worked in private practice, mainly in business law.
Cuccinelli is no stranger to winning on difficult terrain. He represented a very swing legislative district from perpetual bellwether Fairfax County in the state Senate for nearly seven years. He won a special election in 2002 with 55 percent of the vote, and was re-elected again in 2003 with 53 percent of the vote, despite his conservative principles many believed were out of step with the district. However, in 2007 the margin was much closer, and after a recount he prevailed by just 98 votes.
In 2009, he ran statewide for attorney general, was unopposed in the GOP primary, and won the general election handily.
In office, Cuccinelli drew immediate attention as an aggressive, conservative prosecutor unafraid to use his office, even in controversial ways. He was the first attorney general in the country to bring suit against the federal government over the Obamacare legislation. He filed suit for UVA’s records on climate change research, argued against the state’s universities ability to ban discrimination against homosexuals, saying the Legislature hadn’t defined sexual orientation as protected. He has sued the EPA and sought more regulations on abortion clinics.
But for Cuccinelli, standing by his constitutional principles sometimes means deviating from Republican orthodoxy. He defended George Mason University’s ban on firearms on campus, angering gun rights activists, and has opposed expansions of the death penalty and favored more mental health reforms.
Instead of falling into the commonwealth’s supposedly drama-free line of succession, Cuccinelli announced last December that he wasn’t going to wait his turn, and announced he’d run for the Republican nomination for governor against Bolling instead of seeking another term in the attorney general’s office, as he’d previously said he was inclined to do. Four years ago, Lt. Gov. Bolling stepped aside to avoid a primary with then-AG McDonnell, choosing to run for re-election and wait for his turn in 2013.
Cuccinelli’s first break came when his supporters maneuvered to pick the GOP nominee at a party convention next summer, which will likely include a much smaller and more conservative electorate than a statewide primary.
While Bolling mounted a bid for the past year, and had the backing of McDonnell and much of the state’s establishment, he saw the writing on the wall and withdrew at the end of November. But the two-term lieutenant governor certainly didn’t mince words on his way out, refusing to endorse Cuccinelli and saying he had “serious reservations about his ability to effectively and responsibly lead the state.” Bolling seemed to leave the door open to a possible independent bid, but Republicans, and wishful Democrats, believe that’s an unlikely scenario.
Cuccinelli’s ability to heal the rifts in the GOP will be crucial in the coming months. However, as one GOP strategist noted, he never attacked Bolling and the Cuccinelli campaign has been deferential these past few weeks, knowing there’s still an open wound on the Bolling side. Overall, GOP sources believe that Bolling’s supporters will follow McDonnell’s example and fall in line behind Cuccinelli.
Famed but polarizing Virginia consultant Chris LaCivita is serving as Cuccinelli’s general consultant. The Republican hasn’t yet hired a pollster, media or mail firm.
The Democrat: McAuliffe
Terry McAuliffe, 55, was born in Syracuse, N.Y., to an Irish-Catholic, Democratic family. He started a driveway maintenance business at just 14, and came to the nation’s capital to attend college at Catholic University. He worked on President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 re-election campaign, beginning a long career in Democratic politics. He got his law degree from Georgetown, and took over the struggling Federal City National Bank in D.C. at just age 30.
But McAuliffe was still active in party politics, particularly as a key fundraiser for top candidates. During law school, he served as finance director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and also served as finance director for Dick Gephardt’s 1988 presidential bid.
A close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, he took over the helm at the Democratic National Convention in 2001, serving four years and working hard to revive the party after its disappointing 2000 election. He put an emphasis on fundraising and technology, building a new headquarters and set new fundraising records for the DNC. In 2008, he served as Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman.
In 2009, he decided to make the jump from strategist and fundraiser to candidate. Though he spent over $7.5 million, McAuliffe placed only a distant second in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest, getting only 26 percent of the vote in a three-way field behind eventual nominee Creigh Deeds. Despite living in Virginia for nearly 20 years, McAuliffe had to fight off carpetbagger charges -- and it’s something Republicans will be quick to seize on again, pointing to his open flirtation with running for office in Florida or New York.
There seemed to still be a trace of that disillusionment this go-around even within his own party, given a quiet drumbeat among some activists for a candidate other than McAuliffe. The former DNC chairman certainly has a larger-than-life personality, and that rubs some, especially on the campaign trail, the wrong way. He has yet to prove he can fire up the Democratic base, and that led more than a few key Democrats to privately hope that Sen. Mark Warner or Perriello, a hero to party progressives, could mount a bid.
But the McAuliffe of 2009 is very different than the McAuliffe of 2012. Democrats in the state note he has spent the past three years paying his political dues, building relationships in the state and remaining active in party politics -- all clearly the building blocks for the seemingly inevitable 2013 bid. And after Warner passed on a return to Richmond, McAuliffe officially announced in November and now has the field to himself, unlike last time.
McAuliffe has hired outgoing Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Executive Director Robby Mook to manage his campaign. Fred Yang and Geoff Garin of Garin-Hart-Yang Research will handle the polling, while media consultants Saul Shorr, Andrea Johnson and Adam Magnus of Shorr Johnson Magnus Media will do the ads.
How It Plays Out
Virginia voters are fatigued following virtual non-stop campaigning for nearly two years. So while the field is set in the Old Dominion, don’t expect much action until after the first of the year.
A November poll from Quinnipiac offered a brief glimpse into the future. The survey showed McAuliffe leading Cuccinelli 41 percent to 37 percent and both men starting with relatively low statewide name I.D. Sixty-eight percent said they hadn’t heard enough about McAuliffe to have an opinion, while 45 percent said the same thing about Cuccinelli.
A poll conducted early this month for McDonnell by Glen Bolger at Public Opinion Strategies showed the race in a virtual dead heat, with McAuliffe at 43 percent to Cuccinelli’s 42 percent.
Still, the narratives the two campaigns want to shape are clear. To Republicans, Cuccinelli may be outspoken and often controversial but is passionate and principled, while McAuliffe has never held public office and is a party leader with tenuous connections to the state. To Democrats, McAuliffe is a proven business leader who’s lived here for nearly 20 years, while Cuccinelli is outside the mainstream of the state and too extreme for a swing state.
Democrats believe Cuccinelli’s record is his biggest liability, and have already started highlighting his positions on abortion and gay marriage, as well as prosecutions he pursued in the AG’s office on climate change and sexual discrimination. But privately, many Democrats are still expecting a tough race.
“[Cuccinelli] represents the worst of Virginia Republicans and is such an ideological firebrand, the ads write themselves,” said one unaligned Virginia Democratic strategist. “But he’s no slouch. The guy can raise money, he’s very media savvy, and probably the greatest benefit he’s got is he will have a fired up Republican base.”
For the tea party hero, it’s undoubtedly his loyal followers, certain to go to the polls, that is his greatest asset. That wing of the GOP was unenthused by Romney, and some even by Allen this past year. But Cuccinelli gives them a different type of fire in their belly -- not just to come out to vote for him, but to work on his behalf. Democrats may find a similar fire -- but it may be to work against Cuccinelli, and not necessarily for McAuliffe.
For McAuliffe, the Clinton renaissance has come at the perfect time. While McAuliffe may not be seen as the most centrist of Democrats, the former president still exudes warm feelings, especially among many moderate Republicans and independents, and was an invaluable surrogate for Obama and other Democrats this past cycle.
McAuliffe will also talk about his business background, but that will not be without some risk. He has already come under scrutiny just these past few weeks over why one of his newest ventures, GreenTech Automotive, an electric car company, chose to locate its plant in Mississippi instead of Virginia.
However, as Democrats say, the fight over jobs, whether how many or where, is one they’re eager to have and won’t shy from. As one strategist was pointed out, no matter how many jobs McAuliffe created, “it’s still more jobs than Cuccinelli’s ever created.” Indeed, most Democrats believe that the contrast between Cuccinelli’s activism and McAuliffe’s business work is their strongest message.
As many Republicans note, Cuccinelli’s ability to walk both lines, between jobs and red meat issues, will be tested. In recent speeches, the attorney general hasn’t shied away from his talking points on liberty and freedom. But he’ll need to balance that with his economic message -- still the number one concern among Virginians.
While Cuccinelli’s positions are virtually identical to McDonnell’s, the current governor has kept a focus on his economic development, both in his 2009 race and beyond. When a controversial thesis on women’s issues surfaced during his campaign for governor, McDonnell aptly managed the issue, and stayed myopically focused on his campaign mantra, “Bob’s for Jobs.”
Now, Cuccinelli benefits from his task to succeed one of the most popular governors in the country, with McDonnell’s approval rating resting at 67 percent in the POS survey. He will work to make the case that his election would be an extension of the McDonnell administration.
Though Romney couldn’t carry the state in November, Republicans have a blueprint for how to win statewide in off-year races. Democrats privately admit that Republicans will likely have the turnout advantage, especially after coming off a disappointing year.
What path the General Assembly takes this coming year will be critical to the fates of both men, too. Last year, conservatives made an ill-fated push for more abortion restrictions, including requiring transvaginal ultrasounds before women could terminate their pregnancy. It’s a message Republicans don’t need to woo independents and could complicate Cuccinelli’s already difficult task with that bloc.
Fiscal decisions coming from Congress, just next to crucial Northern Virginia, will certainly have a trickle down effect too, impacting not only the overall mood and messaging of both parties, but critically impact government workers in the more liberal suburbs and exurbs.
The Bottom Line
This race starts as a pure toss-up, and may well remain there until Election Day. In a state with as tough a terrain as Virginia, and with millions of dollars sure to be spent by both candidates and heavy involvement from outside groups, this could be the premier race of 2013-- especially if Democrats fail to get a top-flight challenger to Republican Chris Christie in New Jersey.
Races like this will be decided by swing voters, and as of now, neither candidates seems to appeal much to that group of voters. How the candidates begin to craft their messages -- and frame their opponent -- will be critical. Both have work to do as the year go on, but expect both to run aggressive campaigns in what will be a hard-fought contest that is just getting started.
SUBSCRIBER ONLY:
http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.com/news/article/virginia-governor-warts-and-all