National Parties Battle in VA and NJ to Set Stage for 2010

Oct. 7, 2009— -- The populations of Virginia and New Jersey combined only make up just north of 5 percent of the total American population. But that won't stop every national political observer looking for clues about where the country and President Obama stand politically one year after his historic 2008 election.

Although the two marquee gubernatorial contests in 2009 will largely be decided on local issues, how the economy is playing in each of those states, and the particular accomplishments and flaws of the candidates on the ballots, the national Democratic and Republican parties are pouring unprecedented amounts of money and muscle into these races on the belief they will be viewed as setting the stage for the critically important 2010 midterm elections next year when 37 governorships, 38 senate seats, and the entire House of Representatives are up for grabs.

"These two are clearly very important, and a 0-2 scenario is the one both parties will go to almost any financial length to avoid," said Republican strategist Phil Musser, who ran the Republican Governors Association during the 2006 cycle.

In Virginia alone, the Democratic Governors Association and the Democratic National Committee have pumped a combined $10 million into the effort to help Creigh Deeds hang on to the seat that has been in Democratic hands since 2002.

The Republican National Committee and the Republican Governors Association have contributed more than $12 million to the race in an attempt to help former Attorney General Bob McDonnell win the seat back for the GOP. The RNC recently gave an additional $900,000 to the RGA to help pay for its current TV ad campaign running against Deeds.

One Democratic strategist said the New Jersey and Virginia contests will tell us less about the national political environment than they will about the state of the Democratic and Republican parties.

"The GOP will clearly use a win in Virginia to rally the troops as a sign they have stemmed the blue tide there. Democratic wins in Virginia over the last two cycles have been tough for the GOP to swallow, so a win there could help them make an argument that the GOP is making a comeback heading into 2010," said former DNC communications director Karen Finney.

Obama was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia since 1964. Without him on the ballot this year, the challenge for Democrats will be to get a huge swath of those newly registered voters (approximately 500,000 in the last couple of years) as enthused and active as they were last year.

"On balance, the president is an asset in this state or any other state," Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, said at a Hotline forum last month. In addition to fundraising, Daschle specifically pointed to those "500,000 surge voters" as a place where Obama can be helpful to the Deeds campaign.

The president has held campaign rallies and fundraisers with both Deeds and N.J. Governor Jon Corzine and is expected to hit the trail again in both states before Election Day.

History is also not on the Democrats' side in the Old Dominion. Since 1973, the party to win the White House in the previous year has lost the governor's race in Virginia.

Recent polls show a competitive race in Virginia, but one with McDonnell still sitting on top. Deeds a state senator and his allies have hammered away at McDonnell's graduate thesis in which he wrote of working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family. For his part, McDonnell and the Republicans have been heavily advertising a terribly bungled post-debate press conference where Deeds appeared to contradict himself on whether or not he would raise taxes – a central issue to many Virginia voters. It's clearly no accident that the popular Democratic senator and former governor Mark Warner touts Deeds' commitment to keeping taxes low in his latest television ad for Deeds.

In New Jersey, where, today, Vice President Joe Biden has returned yet again to share the stage with Corzine, Republicans are pressing to take advantage of a terrible economic climate to finally follow through on repeated brief threats in recent years and place the reliably Democratic state in GOP hands.

"In New Jersey, the governor's race is about the governor's record," said RGA executive director Nick Ayers at the recent Hotline forum. He went on to charge Corzine for failing to deliver on his 2005 campaign promise of property tax relief for all New Jersey home owners.

Unlike the open seat in Virginia, the New Jersey race was shaping up to be a referendum on Corzine. A look at today's new poll from Farleigh Dickinson University shows why that has had Republicans rather excited about the opportunity in the Garden State. Corzine scored a 37 percent favorable rating compared to 54 percent who have an unfavorable view. Just 23 percent say the state is moving in the right direction according to the poll.

Enter Corzine's personal fortune. The governor has launched a massive spending blitz on TV ads aimed at tearing down his Republican opponent, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie.

"His opponent is fundamentally flawed for the state," said Daschle when discussing Christie. He added that Christie's positions on social issues are "outside the mainstream" in New Jersey and "a string of ethical lapses" have put Christie on the defensive in recent weeks.

Democrats in New Jersey have come to the realization that rehabilitating Corzine's image with Garden State voters may be a bridge too far. The only plausible path to victory seems to be defining Christie in a negative light and hoping enough of the anti-Corzine vote gets scooped up by independent candidate Chris Daggett allowing Corzine to eke out a plurality of the vote. It's a tricky bank shot, but the tightening in recent polls suggests it's possible and that has Democrats breathing a bit more easily about this contest than they were a couple of months ago.

"The most important thing to watch will be the role of the credible independent candidate, and his impact on the ultimate outcome, as fewer and fewer Americans self identify with major political parties," said Musser.

If the parties split victories in the 2009 contests, it will be a bit of a stretch to reach any broad and sweeping conclusions about what the results mean for Obama or both political parties as they head into 2010. But, party strategists say there are a couple of key groups to watch, including new Obama voters and independents.

"In both races, it will be interesting to see what happens with Democratic turnout. We know that many of the new voters that Obama brought in to the political process see themselves as 'Obama voters,' not Democratic Party voters, so they should not be counted as base votes or party faithful," said Finney.

"The GOP lost a good chunk of its core of support to independents in 2006 and 2008," said Musser. "And Obama has scared away much of that center/center left share of independents that propelled him to victory."