VCC Magazine Fall 2019

Campaign Finance: A Leading Political Indicator By Stephen J. Farnsworth With the Republican Party’s narrow

control of both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly at risk in November, and with little polling regarding individual legislative contests, campaign contribution totals offer key evidence regarding candidates’ prospects. While they lack the rigor of a professionally conducted survey, the health of a campaign’s fundraising demonstrates that donors with money to spend view the candidate as a good investment. Spending

hen it comes to events no one throws a party like David Napier.

After Ralph Northam successfully made gun control a central focus of his messaging strategy in his 2017 gubernatorial bid, Virginia Democrats learned that the politics of guns in the Commonwealth have changed over the past decade. Indeed, for the first time ever, exit polling in Virginia revealed the same percent of Virginia voters motivated to the polls to advance gun control as to prevent it. And with many of the competitive Senate and House of Delegate districts overlapping the Virginia Beach area, the scene of the state’s latest mass shooting, guns are sure to be a major issue in the 2019 cycle. May the most passionate voters win. Rachel Bitecofer is Assistant Director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University. In her position with the Wason Center she conducts survey research on public policy issues and election campaigns. She has been featured in many media outlets including national outlets such as the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and NPR and she is a regular contributor on CBC Radio. money on someone likely to lose by a substantial amount is a waste of resources. This is particularly true when partisan control of the legislature is uncertain, as is it this year. The huge fundraising hauls by many candidates so far this year suggest that donors are going all-in in both the most competitive districts as well as some of those drawn to give one party or the other a notable advantage. Money for these races has come from Virginia, and from around the country, as both parties hope to brag about successes in Virginia in November 2019 during the 2020 presidential campaign next year. Donors have contributed more than $30 million to the 40 Senate seats before the voters this year, with the Democrats enjoying a $1 million fundraising advantage. The Democrats have a roughly $2 million advantage in fundraising for the 100 House seats, where a total of more than $33 million has been collected. With Republicans dominating the rural districts and Democrats dominating the inner cities and nearby suburbs, control of the legislature may depend on districts that have voters in outer-ring suburban communities, or communities that are a mix of suburban and more rural precincts. The GOP’s narrow majority in the Senate of Virginia may turn on two open-seat contests, the 7th District (parts of Virginia Beach and Norfolk) and the 13th District (parts of Loudoun and Fairfax), seats held during the past session by Republicans. The two candidates in the 13th District raised more than $1 million in total as of August 31, while the two candidates in the 7th District have raised more than $800,000 in total. But things are not quiet elsewhere. Strong fundraising has also taken place in a number of districts where Republican incumbent senators are facing aggressive Democratic challengers. More than a million dollars has been raised so far, for example, to wage the Continued from previous page See Campaign Finance , continued on page 15

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