Election night is an unofficial holiday for political junkies and journalists alike — even when the race isn’t a nail-biter. So Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s unexpectedly slim victory over Republican Ken Cuccinelli had our entire newsroom on edge.
We’re mostly just glad that the gubernatorial race — one of the most toxic and intellectually unproductive in recent memory — is over. But unpleasant as the race was, the results point to some interesting developments in Virginia politics. They also confirm some traditional wisdom.
Here are our top five lessons from the election.
1. Advance polls don’t tell us everything.
McAuliffe had been leading Cuccinelli in the polls since July. The most recent aggregation of polling data from Real Clear Politics put the Democratic challenger six points ahead of the attorney general.
McAuliffe’s projected six-point margin did not hold up at the ballot boxes. As results trickled in, Cuccinelli was leading for much of the night. McAuliffe ultimately scored 47.9 percent of the vote with 99 percent of precincts reporting — eking out a victory by a 2.4-point margin over his Republican opponent.
2. Write-in campaigns don’t work.
Bill Bolling, Virginia’s outgoing lieutenant governor, cast a shadow over the gubernatorial race from the start. Bolling, known as a moderate, would have stood a decent chance of trouncing McAuliffe. But Cuccinelli edged out his GOP rival when the commonwealth’s Republican Party chose to hold a convention instead of a primary.
A write-in campaign for Bolling never took off, despite a push on the part of The Daily Progress. Just .43 percent of voters cast write-in votes for the governor’s race. Albemarle County, perhaps most influenced by the Daily Progress’ editorial, cast 358 write-in votes — slightly more than 1 percent of the county’s total gubernatorial ballots.
Where did the votes for Bolling go? Some certainly went to McAuliffe. And Bolling’s more conservative supporters likely opted for Cuccinelli.
But we think a major reason why Bolling’s write-in campaign didn’t capture more steam was that voters dissatisfied with the two major-party candidates already had a third option: Libertarian Robert Sarvis.
And so we arrive at lesson three:
3. People want a third party.
Sarvis, who polled as high as 10 percent during the race, earned a sizable showing for a third-party candidate. He scored 6.6 percent of the vote.
Sarvis’ numbers reinforce the extent to which Virginia voters wanted an alternative — and he sets a precedent for third-party candidates able to siphon a significant minority of votes.
4. Political identification is relative.
The closest race of the big three was the attorney general contest. Mark Obenshain, a Republican, earned approximately 7,500 votes more than his Democratic opponent Mark Herring in a race that is, as of press time, still too close to call.
One reason why Obenshain fared better than his Republican colleagues is that he appeared moderate alongside Cuccinelli and Jackson. Yet Obenshain’s political commitments — such as his support of “personhood” legislation that would extend legal rights to unborn children — mark him as a resolute conservative. Only in the company of Cuccinelli and Jackson does he seem like a moderate candidate.
5. Voter turnout remains a problem.
Virginia has 5.2 million voters registered and eligible to vote in the gubernatorial election. Roughly 2.16 million voted in this election — a turnout of slightly more than 41 percent. This figure is distressingly low. It is also roughly on par with turnout figures for past Virginia elections, such as the 2009 contest that saw outgoing Gov. Bob McDonnell elected. Turnout remains a problem that Virginia voters need to fix.
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