Rozell: Does Trump Have A Wilder Effect At Play In VA?

Mark Rozell was a former professor of mine at Catholic University before he moved on to George Mason (where a good number of CUA alum decided to roost after the glory days of the CUA Politics department of the 1980s).  True, I was a lowly undergraduate… but we learned a thing or two.

Of course, Rozell doesn’t think for a moment that Trump has a snowball’s chance.  However, should Trump manage a win in Virginia, the possible explanation for it will not be a Bradley Effect… but a Wilder Effect.  From the Washington Post:

Democrat L. Douglas Wilder’s 1989 gubernatorial win in Virginia made him the nation’s first elected African American governor. His victory was touted as a historic shift in U.S. politics, especially because it happened in the one-time capital of the Confederacy. Wilder won what was at the time the closest statewide race ever,by less than 7,000 votes (out of 1.8 million), leading to a recount. Pre-election polls had him way up over his GOP opponent. Even more telling, exit polls that asked people how they voted showed that Wilder should have won the race in a landslide. How could the polls, and especially exit polls, have been so incredibly wrong?

. . .

Could there be a similar effect going on in this election, with many voters secretly supporting Trump while telling friends, relatives and pollsters that they will not vote for him? This would represent perfectly rational behavior on the part of those Trump supporters who have good reason to believe that many will look down on them for admitting their true preferences. It is natural for people to want to be seen as smart, open-minded and tolerant.

Of course, as the Roger Chesley mentions in the Roanoke Times, Clinton is probably not up by 16 points in Virginia.  But is she up by half of that?

The good news to date is that the Democrats have utterly failed to nationalize the race.  This will not be 2008, most of that in no small part to the committed band of conservatives who are pushing away from the Republican nominee and his absurd statements.  Should Clinton manage to win, the likelihood of the Democrats taking the U.S. Senate becomes much more thin — even jeopardized if Virginia votes Republican for the presumed special election in 2017 as Kaine ascends to the Naval Observatory in Washington.

That’s a bit of a rabbit trail, but useful to note that Virginia is not a blue state yet — just a red state that hasn’t gotten its act together.