Author’s note: An in-depth post-election analysis of the Supervisors’ races in Fairfax County’s Dranesville and Sully districts was conducted at the request of interested parties. Excerpted portions are being released for public review to assist Republicans in Fairfax County and across the Commonwealth learn from the various points of success and failure in the campaigns analyzed. The following analysis is presented with the genuine hope that a public and transparent examination of strategic victories and shortcomings will ultimately spur the necessary party growth and operational reform required for Republican victory in 2016.
Editor’s Note: This article and analysis represent the author’s work only, and no other contributors or editors of Bearing Drift have had any control or contributed in any way to the opinions and conclusions made in this piece.
Virginia is undoubtedly a purple state. While Republicans continue to hold majorities in both houses of Virginia’s Legislature, as well as among the commonwealth’s Congressional delegation, Democrats have won every statewide contest since 2012, erasing Virginia’s reputation as a conservative Southern state and safe territory for the GOP.
The roots of this profound electoral shift reach several underlying causes – demographic, social, political, and economic, among others. While causes remain varied, political analysts routinely cite one location’s politics as emblematic of this shift. Northern Virginia, which exists as a growing bastion of Democratic support, has risen in electoral prominence in stark contrast to the traditionally-conservative Republican base located downstate.
Perhaps, then, to understand how Virginia’s GOP must improve and evolve to remain competitive, Republicans should look towards the geography most responsible for recent power shifts to their detriment – Northern Virginia.
In Northern Virginia, this dichotomy in Republican choices of candidates, messages, and tactics is best seen in two races for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
In Sully District, currently held by retiring Republican supervisor Michael Frey, Tea Party backed Republican John Guevara won his firehouse primary, then squared off against Democratic school board member Kathy Smith – with disastrous results.
A short drive away, mainstream Republican Jennifer Chronis received the party’s blessing to try and topple incumbent Democrat John Foust in his solidly-Democratic Dranesville district, following his bruising loss in the 2014 10th District Congressional race against Barbara Comstock.
By districts alone, in Sully, the GOP should have cruised to an easy ten point victory, whereas in Dranesville, Foust’s incumbency and favorable district should have delivered to any challenger a most crushing defeat.
The results posted on November 3rd could not have been more different.
When the counts were in, Smith had prevailed over Guevara by 3.7%, whereas Foust ultimately bested Chronis by 8.6%. Shocking? Not upon further analysis.
Though Sully leans Democratic, it trends more Republican as turnout declines. While Obama won this district by 11.9% in 2012, Gillespie managed to close the Democratic advantage to 6.1% in 2014. Federal partisanship totals, though, do not do justice to the widespread appeal held by incumbent Republican Michael Frey, who won his final election in 2011 with over 70% of Sully’s vote. With Frey’s endorsement, and a strong campaign from the well-liked Delegate Tim Hugo, who won reelection in 2015 in his barely-Republican, partially-overlapping 40th House District with over 65% of the vote, Sully should have been an easy and cheap ten point victory for Republicans.
Furthermore, this easy and cheap victory would allow Republicans to shift financial and volunteer resources to close races elsewhere in the county, such as to Craig Parisot’s challenge of Kathleen Murphy in the 34th House District, where Parisot ultimately lost by 188 votes. While Sully Republicans threw everything they had at the district, alongside Republicans from outside the district, Democratic resources gravitated to races believed to be more difficult, such as Murphy’s,
Would an easy win in Sully have freed up enough money and manpower to save Parisot? Fairfax Republicans will never know for sure, but Parisot’s supporters have every right to be angry at the unnecessary, self-inflicted train wreck in Sully.
That cheap and easy victory would not come to pass as Republicans chose to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by nominating a candidate entirely wrong for Sully District – a Republican most out of touch with Frey’s brand of pragmatic, solutions-oriented governance.
John Guevara may have exclaimed, “Don’t tread on me!” – but Kathy Smith didn’t get the message.
Meanwhile, in Dranesville, Republicans tend to perform more poorly in lower-turnout elections. Romney lost the district by 11.6%, while Gillespie and Cuccinelli lost by 14.2% and 18.9%.
This tale of two districts instructs in detail how Republicans in Northern Virginia must run to win.
One benchmark of comparative performance can be calculated by measuring the results of each of the four candidates for supervisor against the performance of same-party legislative candidates in overlapping precincts.
In Sully, Guevara trailed his GOP ticket mates by 6.6% and 7.7% in vote percentage and vote share, respectively, while leading his ticket mates in each measure in only 2/18 and 1/18 overlapping precincts, respectively. Guevara underperformed his ticket mates by 10% or more in 5/18 and 6/18 overlapping precincts, respectively.
Guevara’s loss was partially Smith’s gain. She outperformed her Democratic ticket mates in both percentage and share in 15/18 and 14/18 overlapping precincts, respectively, though she led fellow Democrats by double digits in only two precincts.
Contrary to certain agenda-driven narratives, Guevara clearly lost support among moderates, as the results indicate substantial ballot splitting favoring Republican Delegate Tim Hugo alongside Democrat Kathy Smith.
This result should come as no surprise, as Hugo’s focus on issue-oriented problem solving has earned him the respect of voters on both sides of the aisle, as well as a healthy list of endorsements appealing to Republicans and Democrats, alike.
The numbers show another interesting trend: Guevara underperformed his ticket mates by a substantially greater margin than Smith overperformed hers. While agenda-driven pundits and activists would attribute this to base undervoting, the facts tell a different story.
Hurt feelings are most common in widely-voted state-run primaries, however Guevara was nominated in a party-run “firehouse” primary featuring substantially lower turnout, and few negative attacks. Consequently, very few paid attention, substantially decreasing the possibility of the hurt feelings and candidate resentment which drives undervoting in general elections.
A better explanation lies elsewhere.
First and foremost, many centrists didn’t like either candidate, believing neither to be a good successor to pragmatic Republican Michael Frey.
Additionally, during Smith’s tenure on the school board, she supported a very contentious plan to redraw high school boundary lines, ultimately depriving many families of their chosen high school, while leaving some families with students attending two high schools – a tremendous inconvenience to parents which cuts across party lines.
Fortunately for Republicans, this trend of underperformance did not extend to Dranesville.
In her race, Chronis solidly outperformed her ticket mates by 1.8% and 1.1% in vote percentage and vote share, respectively. Remarkably, she received more votes than up ballot running mates, despite being listed down ballot, where drop-off traditionally yields fewer votes.
Chronis’s over performance came at the expense of Foust, who trailed his Democratic ticket mates in the aggregate. Across 21 overlapping precincts, Foust did not exceed his ticket mates’ performance in percentage or share in a single precinct – not even his home precinct.
Her strong performance is only supported by one explanation: as a candidate, Chronis was a good fit for her district, in which she competed by running a solid, issue-oriented campaign of contrast.
How could these results be so different? Specifically, what went wrong in Sully and what worked well in Dranesville? Did the results come down to fundraising? Campaign mechanics?
In Sully, Guevara and Smith both raised similar amounts of money, though Guevara’s spending acted to his detriment. As both candidates vied for this open seat, both would need to communicate heavily to introduce themselves to voters familiar with Frey’s leadership, though Guevara’s needs exceeded Smith’s, owing to her tenure on the county’s School Board. Despite this, Guevara spent only roughly 32% of his war chest on paid campaign communications, whereas the more-known Smith allocated roughly 56% of her budget to these expenses.
Guevara waited too long to introduce himself to voters, sending his first mailer around October 13th, despite having adequate funds. By contrast, Smith struck a month earlier, defining Guevara early and repeatedly as a “Tea Party” candidate – an attack experts widely warned would likely prove fatal in Sully District. This, combined with unfavorable press coverage lamenting Guevara’s “toxic rhetoric,” ultimately led him to face an uphill battle in this moderate district.
When Guevara finally mailed, his pieces were poorly designed, confused, and incoherent, working against him by undermining his credibility as a candidate. Voters have come to expect professionally-produced mail as a hallmark of credible candidates. Guevara’s pieces and their Microsoft Word-esque feel fell far short of that standard, standing in stark contrast to Smith’s professional-quality mail.
Which mail piece will persuadable voters find more credible? Which candidate will persuadable voters assume is telling the truth?
Mail quality matters, contrary to the claims of the ideological purists. In campaign season, mail which stands out negatively from the rest does indeed convey an unfavorable and uncredible image of a candidate falling short of public expectations. This contrast becomes more evident when pieces from competing candidates arrive together in the mail-laden closing days.
Serious candidates must hire professional political mail vendors, or risk themselves being seen as unprofessional and far outside the mainstream. Microsoft Word is not acceptable for political mail, nor should candidates be wasting their own money obtaining USPS authorization to do their own bulk mail, in house, as Guevara did by paying $440 to USPS on March 23rd for his mailing permit and annual mailing fee.
As the campaign shambled on, Guevara just couldn’t cut himself a break, frequently abandoning message discipline, building up to a climactic meltdown at the Aug. 31st debate, where, following a generally productive and on-message performance, he gave into his own bad habits by launching a personal attack against Smith’s family, before ending to laughter and base-driven applause as he invoked the ongoing controversy concerning transgender students’ access to restrooms in public schools.
While this issue might rile up the base, as do many others like it, mainstream voters simply don’t care – as the polling confirms.
Fairfax Republican Supervisor Pat Herrity went out of his way to help Guevara and his campaign understand the issues at hand in the district, spending $5000 from his own campaign account to commission a poll for Guevara’s benefit. Had Guevara heeded the results of the poll – or even common sense – he would have understood that Sully District voters primarily concern themselves with transportation and education policy in local races, and to a lesser degree, taxes, though the tax issue is much less capable of persuading in-play swing voters in Sully District than are messages concerning transportation and education.
As for the bathroom issue? The intensity is virtually zero. Therefore, candidates whose advocacy allows it to define them will lose substantial support as voters pass judgement on what they believe to be a misplaced set of priorities.
Candidates must remain on-message 100% of the time. 99% message discipline is insufficient, as one’s opponents will seize upon that 1% failure, echoing it over and over.
As Guevara continued veering off the road to victory, Fairfax Republicans rallied to his defense, hoping to save the race from impending disaster. Among Guevara’s last minute boosters was Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, who feverishly attempted to raise funds and rally the base, doing what she could to support the entire Republican ticket in her district.
None of this help was sufficient to rescue Guevara’s campaign from the ditch.
In the end, Guevara fell apart after a summer of unproductive field operations, wretchedly low quality mail, breaks in message discipline, and his inability to counter the “Tea Party” label which experts widely warned would hinder his campaign in his moderate, Democratic majority district.
Across the county, campaign operations in Dranesville followed a remarkably different trajectory.
Chronis took heed of the concerns of Dranesville’s citizens, running a researched, issue-heavy campaign centered around transportation and education, while paying a limited and generally proportional mention to taxes and Foust’s politically-toxic vote raising his own pay by 27%.
Chronis not only remained on-message throughout the course of her campaign, she made core issues, as voters understood them, her top focus; all but one of her 15 non-GOTV mail pieces reinforced her core platform.
Based on currently available financial reports, Chronis devoted 61% of her campaign’s total budget to paid communications reinforcing her core message – the largest amount of the four candidates in these two races, in both percentage of fundraising total as well as total dollars spent. Her professional-quality mail reinforced her credibility as a candidate.
In general, voters had a clear idea of who Chronis was and why she was running.
Unlike Guevara, Chronis avoided issues not aligned with the priorities of mainstream voters in her district. For this issue-oriented focus on the district’s top priorities, she was rewarded at the polls on election day with a record-setting vote percentage for a Republican running in Dranesville district.
Optimism for her potential victory was well-warranted. On October 15th, Foust paid $14,600 for a survey far more extensive (and expensive) than a traditional last-minute tracking poll. Shortly thereafter, Foust went negative, launching a patently false and misleading smear campaign against Chronis, attacking her on guns and education funding from a position wholly without factual merit.
In all likelihood, the poll probably told Foust two things: first, Chronis was within striking distance and positioned to possibly pull off the upset of the 2015 cycle; and, second, the forthcoming smear campaign would prove effective in turning voters against Chronis, despite her months of solid, on-message campaigning.
Foust’s last-minute lie worked. Chronis lost, but not before she had accumulated more support than any other Republican in Dranesville in recent history – including her ticket mates running up ballot.
Chronis certainly could have done better, particularly with better targeting, expanded digital spending, and a more data-driven approach to campaigning, all in pursuit of the flips necessary for overcoming the district’s substantial partisan bias favoring Democrats.
Furthermore, the organizational and fundraising gap existing between Fairfax County’s Democratic and Republican committees didn’t work in her favor, but ultimately, remained beyond her control. Substantially reforming and reinvigorating the Fairfax County Republican Committee is a task too big for any one candidate to tackle in an election year.
That being said, the final results are quite the accomplishment of which she should be proud. In an election cycle where one supervisor’s district was squandered and two winnable house races lost, her overperformance stands out as a shining example of how Republicans must campaign in Fairfax if they expect to regain lost ground and challenge Democrats in statewide races in 2016 and beyond.
By contrast, Guevara’s campaign was a nonstop train wreck which will serve as an example of what Republicans cannot do for years to come.
Chronis can prepare for a career as a rising star in Republican politics in Fairfax County.
As for Guevara, saddle up, partner.
Running 22 points behind the retiring Republican supervisor doesn’t leave any opportunities open for careers in Fairfax Republican politics.
May this unfortunate tale of two districts ultimately serve a greater good by encouraging Republicans to replicate the successes and avoid the failures documented herein, for those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
