In case you haven’t read this already, Robert Hurt is in a 12 point freefall in Virginia’s 5th District against incumbent Congressman Tom Perriello, with the point spread 52-41 with conservative independent Jeff Clark garnering 4% of the vote.
Just for comparison purposes, it’s worth noting that former Congressman Virgil Goode posted similar double-digit numbers according to Survey USA in 2008, only to find himself in a freefall as well.
How scary are the parallels? While today, Hurt finds himself with a supposed 11-point lead, Goode in 2008 was pegged at a 13-point lead, only to eventually lose the 5th district by a little more than 700 votes.
Making matters worse, while Hurt did outraise Perriello ($900K to $810K), the candidates cash on hand differential means that Perriello can continue the momentum. Insiders estimate that Hurt’s COH will be in the neighborhood of $500K, while Perriello has a whopping $1.3 million left in the bank — a near 3:1 advantage.
With outside groups such as Americans for Prosperity (AFP) being matched dollar for dollar by groups such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), it’s difficult to argue that outside cash will not simply bounce off one another. Same is true for NRCC and DCCC cash — no real differential, no haymakers.
Hurt and Perriello still have a series of debates to walk through. But it has been Perriello that, so far, has successfully run a challenger’s race against “10 years of Senator Hurt” as the TV ads go. This, coupled with the fact Perriello is successfully driving home Hurt’s 2004 tax hike vote (one among many tax votes claimed by Camp Perriello) and one has to wonder whether Hurt’s campaign has the afterburners to turn on?
Of course, the smart money is for Hurt to ride his 11-point lead home and hope Perriello peaks on November 15th when it’s too late, rather than the day of the election.
Still, the dynamics, momentum, and money all weigh in Perriello’s favor. Perriello is in familiar territory as an underdog, and while outsiders may be convinced as they were in 2008 that the 5th District is locked up, insiders know better.
So is it time to panic in VA-05?
If you’re a Republican interested in beating Perriello, the answer to that is an emphatic yes. Double digit leads often lead to complacency, and that is precisely where most of the grassroot activists are right now. The fact that VA-05 could very well lose twice to Perriello after holding supposedly double-digit leads should drive activists to volunteer centers and local GOP units.
If you’re a Tea Party activist, you have some decisions to make. Jeff Clark has mentioned his exasperation time and time again about the willingness of ideally small government conservatives to flock to the Hurt battle standard. Should the race come down to where Clark’s conservative following makes or breaks Perriello’s re-election bid, will Clark stand down? At the moment, Clark is in it, though not necessarily to win it. But the prospect of kingmaker is still there, should Clark reflect the statesmanlike qualities of the Founding Fathers rather than their revolutionary strain. That choice is, ultimately Clark’s to make — and I for one will not discourage or encourage him to make what has to be a very private and character-testing decision.
If you’re a socialist Democrat (I keed, I keed…) you have to take courage with these numbers. Perriello is about to shoot the moon once again as virtually everyone with an IQ over 40 is realizing the race is much, much tighter than the “polls” reflected. Of course, SUSA outliers excepted, the race has held fairly steady with Hurt commanding anywhere from a 2 to 6 point lead. Survey USA polling notwithstanding, Perriello has yet to make a serious dent in the numbers of the other polling firms. As SUSA reworks their methodology (and to be honest, all pollsters are in a cell-phone/Facebook era), Perriello knows he has three immediate tasks on hand: (1) work your ass off, (2) drive up Hurt’s negatives, and (3) don’t do anything stupid.
SEIU and Big Labor will take care of #1 for Perriello. Making #2 work for Perriello is going to be a much more difficult task. While the environment has given every reason to fire anything resembling a Democrat, Hurt is failing to make the firebrand’s case that he should replace Perriello, mostly because he is every inch the definition of the old “Virginia gentleman” of a bygone era.
As Perriello tries to prevent Hurt from becoming that replacement, he must make Hurt particularly odious to either hardcore conservatives (which is working to some extent given Clark’s candidacy) and to the traditional saving grace of women moderates. Of course, should he go for the traditional wedge of abortion, Perriello betrays his Catholic inclinations as nominally pro-life but politically pro-abortion Democrat, which could damage his carefully built brand.
So there comes problem #3 for Perriello — don’t do anything stupid. With a line of debates, one can expect Hurt to try to nail “Perri-Jello” to a wall (not my epithet — common in Tea Party circles). Alternatively, we’ll be able to find out what wedge issue Perriello has selected from a quiver of issues against Hurt… and $1.3 million dollars to drive that point home, while Hurt can only fend him off with a fraction of that.
From the outset, I warned that VA-05 was the toughest race in Virginia. No one quite believed it, and from all outside takes perhaps VA-09 is still that race (though personally, I don’t believe SUSA polling there anymore than I believe it in VA-05 — Griffith is much closer and Boucher is in for a shock come election day). Time has proven my analysis correct.
Politics has often been compared to pugilism. In VA-05, we may very well have Hurt on the ropes, struggling to parry off Perriello’s hits in order to win the match by decision. But one wrong punch, one imperfect throw…
Gotta love politics!
