The Virginia governor’s race is set to enter its last full month overwhelmed by negative campaigning, with Democrat Creigh Deeds on Tuesday deploying another ad on his opponent’s 20-year-old master’s thesis and a poll showing voters with increasingly sour perceptions of both candidates.
The TV spot seeks to link Republican Bob McDonnell’s legislative career to an academic document he penned in 1989 criticizing gays, co-habitators and working women. It also mounts a sharper attack on character than earlier ads, with the announcer asking, “What kind of person writes a thesis calling working women detrimental to the family?”
Going sour
A poll released Tuesday show both Virginia candidates viewed more negatively:
McDonnell September 47 42
August 53 31
Deeds September 43 42
August 47 35
Deeds’ onslaught, based largely on social issues, is widely seen as responsible for closing McDonnell’s once-commanding lead in the polls. But the tactic falls short in that it “doesn’t make the case for Deeds,” said political analyst Bob Holsworth, who heads the blog Virginia Tomorrow. “And I think he’s had some trouble making the affirmative case right now,” he said.
Meanwhile, McDonnell has invested his energy in painting Deeds as an avowed tax increaser, seizing on a recent op-ed in which the Democrat signaled his support for raising taxes to pay for transportation.
Going sour
A poll released Tuesday show both Virginia candidates viewed more negatively:
McDonnell September 47 42
August 53 31
Deeds September 43 42
August 47 35
The increasingly bare-knuckled nature of the race appears to be ratcheting up negative views of both candidates and driving down favorable ones, a Public Policy Polling survey released on Tuesday suggests. That poll still showed McDonnell up five points, while another from SurveyUSA showed McDonnell leading Deeds by 14 points. “The give and take of the campaign is bringing both of them down,” Holsworth said, while criticizing the Public Policy Polling survey as “heavily tilted toward the Democrats.”
The vitriol now mirrors, to a degree, the primary fight that vaulted Deeds to the Democratic nomination in June. But during that election, Deeds mostly sat in the background as the two presumed front-runners — Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe — tore into each other.
“This is not how Deeds won the primary,” said University of Richmond political science professor Dan Palazzolo. “He won the primary by sitting back and letting the other two guys beat each other up. We don’t have any evidence that he can succeed as an attack politician.”
