Just days out from the Nov. 2 congressional election, national Democrats are pumping more money into the campaigns of two Democratic incumbents in Virginia who remain in difficult campaign fights to hold on to their seats.
Freshman Rep. Glenn Nye, who represents the Norfolk-centered 2nd District, got $90,000 from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the campaign’s home stretch. Rep. Tom Perriello, another freshman from the sprawling 5th District, which stretches from north of Charlottesville to the North Carolina border, got $140,000.
The DCCC has spent about $800,000 on Nye’s campaign and $600,000 on Perriello in 2010, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign-finance watchdog group.
Perriello trails Republican state Sen. Robert Hurt by 6 percentage points in the latest independent poll. Nye was in a virtual dead heat with auto dealer Scott Rigell, with independent candidate Kenny Golden garnering 5 percent of the vote, in the most recent poll for the 2nd District.
Perriello’s race has been closely watched as a national bellwether, and garnered even more attention this week after President Obama announced that he would be making a last-minute campaign stop on Friday in Charlottesville to support Perriello, who has suffered on the campaign trail mainly because of his support of Obama’s agenda.
Obama’s trip is “almost like a gamble,” said Dan Palazzolo, a political science professor at the University of Richmond. The president’s trip indicates that Democrats are focused on turning out the party’s core constituents rather than independent voters who have turned away from Obama in droves since helping elect him in 2008, he said.
“Every speech Obama gives is not about independents — it’s about the base,” Palazzolo said.
Meanwhile, Republicans are deriding the visit.
“Much like Perriello’s misguided policies, this 11th-hour visit from President Obama will likely do more harm than good to his sinking campaign,” said Rachel Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.
The money the DCCC is pumping into Perriello and Nye’s races pales in comparison with the more than $1 million it’s investing in the Northern Virginia district of Rep. Gerry Connolly, whose seat was once considered safe. That infusion raised DCCC’s contributions to Connolly to $1.5 million.
“If Gerry Connolly is in trouble,” said George Mason University’s Mark Rozell, “that suggests that there are some other vulnerable Democrats in Virginia that are very vulnerable right now.”
