Democrat Creigh Deeds has narrowed the gap in the Virginia governor’s race after pouring vast time and resources into hammering his opponent on social issues, recent polls show.
But entering the final weeks of the campaign, Republican Bob McDonnell has a cash edge for a late media push, while Deeds faces the challenge of finding a fresh line of attack and more money to replace a single-issue strategy experts say risks growing stale.
A Rasmussen Reports poll last week showed McDonnell, a former attorney general, leading Deeds by a slim 48 percent to 46 percent, leading the firm to call the race a “tossup.” A Washington Post Poll shows the Republican leading Deeds 51 to 47 among committed voters. Just a month ago, similar polls showed McDonnell leading Deeds by double digits.
The Democrat has spent the past month focused almost single-mindedly on a 20-year-old master’s thesis McDonnell wrote at Regent University, in which he criticized homosexuality, cohabitation, working mothers and feminists. McDonnell has said his views have changed since he wrote the document in 1989.
“I think the [thesis] issue has basically been played out at this point,” said George Mason University political science professor Stephen Farnsworth. “I think what we’re looking at right now is a question of credibility between the two candidates.”
That battle over credibility will be fought over television and radio airwaves in the coming weeks, as national political parties further open the spigot on donations to McDonnell and Deeds.
While Deeds raised more money in July and August, McDonnell ended the fundraising period with $1.5 million more in the bank and expects to receive $7 million from the Republican National Committee.
McDonnell spokeswoman Crystal Cameron declined to comment on how those funds would be spent. But, the money will likely be used to flood airwaves, including in the expensive Northern Virginia media market. McDonnell has so far relied on a well-defined bundle of issues: opposing national Democrats’ aims on health care, global warming and unions, and trying to tether Deeds to his party’s positions.
Deeds’ campaign, though, is unlikely to abandon its most effective measure so far — the assault on McDonnell’s past. Deeds spokesman Jared Leopold said, “It’ll take more than $7 million for Bob McDonnell to erase those 18 years of out-of-the-mainstream votes.”
