With under two weeks until the Virginia House of Delegates election, Democrat Charles Martin and Republican Rob Bell are involved in one of the closest house races in Virginia.
Both men are vying for the open delegate seat in the 58th district, and there is no clear indication that either has the advantage.
According to Government and Foreign Affairs Professor Larry J. Sabato, there are several factors marking this as a close race.
"The 58th district has a Republican leaning and that favors Bell," Sabato said, but Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner the Democratic candidate for governor "is going to do surprisingly well and coat tail could help Martin."
The 58th district includes Greene, Orange, Albemarle and Fluvanna counties. Sabato added the race will be one of the 12 most competitive in the state. There are 100 delegate races in Virginia this year.
Both Martin and Bell raised nearly identical amounts of campaign funds for the month of September. Overall, Martin trails Bell in fund-raising efforts by an 8.7 percent margin. Sabato said that such a margin will not play a significant role in the outcome of the election.
While total campaign funds may not be important in the race, where those funds have been spent does vary between the two candidates. Martin has put nearly 23 percent more money than Bell into television, radio and mail investments. In fact, nearly every candidate who has raised between $80,000 and $110,000 hovers right around the 50 percent mark for media investments, except Martin.
"We started advertising earlier," Martin said. "We wanted to start before TV and radio got cluttered with political ads."
But Bell pointed out that his camp may have raised as much as Martin's, but he has not spent as much of that money.
"We have certainly raised in the same ballpark," Bell said. "But we have a substantially higher amount to spend as we head into the home stretch."
With the election only 12 days away, the pundits and candidates say all they can do is continue campaigning. "Certainly their schedule is intense, but most of the campaign is on auto-pilot," Sabato said.
Bell said he plans to work to get out the same message he has supported for the past six months. He aims to do so with "TV, radio, mail and grassroots efforts - we want to use all four," he said.
Martin agreed with Bell, saying, "We're going to keep going door to door and shaking hands."
Martin's campaign manager said that while she could not divulge any late election strategies, his most important issue was education. In a radio debate between Martin and Bell, both men opposed a race-based admissions process at the University.
The 58th district seat was previously held by Del. Paul Harris, who resigned to take a position in the Bush administration.
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