The news for Virginia Republicans is not bad, merely strange. While Survey USA shows Robert Hurt crushing incumbent Democrat Tom Perriello in one competitive district, in another, GOP challenger Parker Morgan* Griffith trails incumbent Democrat Rick Boucher by 10, narrowing the gap by 3 percentage points since their last poll.
Virginia Republicans see many reasons for optimism:
Why is a 3-point swing so remarkable?
• Name Recognition: Boucher has run 14 previous campaigns in this district — yet this is one of the closest, if not the closest — re-election runs he’s ever faced. Over the past decade, Boucher has usually finished 20 or more points ahead of his challenger. For the first time ever, his margin is shrinking.
• Air Time: Boucher has been on the air for months in annoyingly-heavy rotation. You can’t turn on the 6 p.m. news in Roanoke or the Tri-Cities without being blasted by multiple Boucher ads.
• Boucher is Running from his Record: Boucher’s TV message is a 180-degree distortion of his actual record. He claims to be for a balanced budget, but voted against a balanced budget amendment twice, and balanced budget resolutions on two other occasions. He boasts about his vote against ObamaCare, but doesn’t mention his vote to hire 16,000 IRS agents to enforce it.
If Rick is so proud of his record, why doesn’t he mention that he votes with Nancy Pelosi 96.4 percent of the time. Or for that matter, why doesn’t the word “Democrat” appear in any of his ads?
Meanwhile, as people get to know Morgan Griffith, the more they support him.
All of their reasoning is plausible; it’s just odd to see Griffith, a veteran state legislator who would presumably begin with decent name recognition in a not-terribly-Democratic district, still trailing by a significant margin.
* Thank God I didn’t write “Peter Griffin.”
A good portion of Griffith's state house district is in VA-6, which may impact his name recognition to some degree (his statehouse district covers part of Roanoke County, which is split between the 9th and the 6th. The full 9th CD encompasses 19 full counties, as well as parts of 3 others). So it's not surprising to think that most of the folks in SW Virginia don't really know Griffith.
In addition, Griffith doesn't live in the district as far as I know (unless he has moved). He lives in Salem, which is the center of his House of Delegates district but is actually in CD-6 and not CD-9. It's only a couple miles away from the border - and is guaranteed to be put into the 9th in the next round of redistricting, but it's not there yet. You never know whether that impacts some people in the district (especially voters who are formally Democrats but would be otherwise inclined to vote for a Republican). That doesn't mean they will vote for Boucher, but it certainly could keep people from committing to a vote for Griffith.
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