Collegiate Times

Deeds_center

State senator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds has been down and out before.

Trailing by as many as 6 points in a SurveyUSA poll taken only a week before the primary vote, Deeds surprised many by defeating Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran despite being outspent by both opponents.

Yet with only a few days left until voters hit the polling booths, Deeds now finds himself with his toughest challenge yet: returning from what appears to be an insurmountable deficit to defeat his Republican opponent Bob McDonnell.

Deeds lost by a scant 360 votes when the two matched up in the attorney general election in 2005.

Speaking at a tailgate in front of Lane Stadium before Thursday night’s home football game between Virginia Tech and University of North Carolina, Deeds was confident about his chances.

“Polls don’t matter,” Deeds said. “I’ve been down in other races. The only poll that matters is the one that’s going to be taken November 3.”

The numbers for Deeds have been less than encouraging. A Rasmussen poll released Wednesday, Oct. 28 has McDonnell up by 13 points, and a Roanoke College poll taken Oct. 21-27 had Deeds trailing by 17 points.

“This is not where he thought he would be, and it’s certainly not where he wants to be,” said Isaac Wood, assistant communication director for the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

A major issue going into Election Day is how many voters will make it to the polls. Deeds said he felt confident in a large turnout to the polls.

“I’m going to win this race because we’re going to get the right turnout,” Deeds said.

Craig Brians, an associate professor of political science at Tech, predicted turnout between 35 and 45 percent. “This will be a low turnout election,” he said.

Wood said motivation has been an issue for Democrats statewide.

“There has been a definite lack of energy from all proposed Democrats,” Wood said. “Even other Democrats who agree with him haven’t been motivated to work. They don’t have that same hunger and drive as in years before.”

Kathleen Newbould, a senior communication major and the president of the Young Democrats at Virginia Tech, said fatigue from the 2008 presidential election might have negatively affected student political activity.

“There were some key players in the Obama campaign who just were not as active this time around,” Newbould said. “I can’t explain why this was the case this time around.”

Brians criticized Deeds for not reaching out more to younger voters.

“They aren’t being mobilized, at least from what I’m seeing,” Brians said. “You have to cultivate those relationships.”

He said that this cultivation was important in developing what he described as a voting habit.

“If young people aren’t asked to vote, they won’t go out,” Brians said. “They have to be asked over and over again.”

A major issue for the Deeds campaign has been how to approach a controversial master’s thesis that McDonnell wrote as a 34-year-old student at Regent University.

Reported by the Washington Post in August, the 93-page thesis, written by McDonnell in 1989, drew criticism for its views on the impact of non-traditional families, working women, and his critique of a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing contraceptive use from unmarried couples.

“It puts into context his entire record,” Deeds said. “It helps explain why candidate Bob talks about jobs and education, but legislator Bob never focused on jobs or education, and never wrote a bill to create a job or expand educational opportunities.

“He was focused on the social agenda that’s described in the thesis.”

The thesis made a large impact in the polls when it was first discovered, Wood said.

Continue Reading: 12 Next »