How Creigh Deeds lost Virginia

All polls point to Creigh Deeds getting absolutely crushed by Bob McDonnell in the Virginia gubernatorial election. But how did it happen? Only 4 years ago in the same matchup for the Attorney General's office, Deeds lost by only 360 votes out of almost 2 million cast. The answer is North Virginia.

Contrary to popular belief, Virginia is not a "purple state": It's blue in the northern D.C. suburbs and red to deep red almost everywhere else (exceptions include Richmond and other urban areas). Deeds, was a rare Democrat in Virginia politics coming from the Bath County in the state's western reaches. His campaign was focused heavily on campaigning in the rural and suburban stretches of Virginia, but his campaign contributed a relatively small amount of time in the Democratic bastion of Northern Virginia. On the contrary McDonnell campaigned extensively in the northern reaches of the state, speaking avidly about his upbringing in Fairfax County. The Republicans learned from their mistakes from the past 4 elections ( 2001 election Mark Warner, 2005 election of Tim Kaine, 2006 election of Jim Webb, and 2008 elections of Mark Warner and Barack Obama) where they put very little focus and attention into campaigning in Northern Virginia and often campaigned on social issues. Over the last 10 or so years, more Democrats have moved into the North making the number one issue, TRANSPORTATION as that region has some of the worst road infrastructure in the county.

Instead of campaigning on those kind of issues, Deeds started to run an extremely negative campaign focused on McDonnell's past writings as a college student. These writings were very controversial, and downright offensive to many but the McDonnell campaign ran specifically on issues where as the Deeds campaign tried to create the impression that McDonnell was a conservative ideologue who would promote his conservative demagoguery onto Virginians. It was a gamble, and one that failed miserably as voters in the region began disenchanted with the negativity. McDonnell responded to that ad campaign with one of his own that point out that he is the son of a working mother and has two daughters, including one who has served in Iraq. Two months after the Deeds attack, McDonnell had a small lead amongst women voters. A recent poll showed that 60% of Virginians primarily associate the Deeds campaign of being primarily negative compared to McDonnell's 37%. Creigh Deeds would need to outpace the past margin of victories of Kaine and Warner and win Northern Virginia by 60%, something that is simply not likely to happen given McDonnell focus in the area.

Some will argue that other factors such as his embarrassing and rambling answer about increasing taxes to fund transportation torpedoed his campaign, but it was rather his lack of a campaign in the most Democratic part of the state. Don't be surprised if McDonnell almost ties Deeds' in this area of Virginia.