The race for governor between Democrat Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell is tougher and more negative than his own election four years ago, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Wednesday.
Several pundits have said Kaine won that race in 2005 because his opponent, Republican Jerry Kilgore, ran too many negative, attack-style TV ads.
“This one has a tougher tone,” Kaine said in an interview during a ceremonial train ride from Charlottesville to Lynchburg.
“It might be there is a feeling,” in the Deeds and McDonnell campaigns, “that because there are so many other issues out there, that the sharper tone cuts through the other issues,” Kaine said.
Across the state, the public seems to be focused on the economy, Kaine said.
“What I see is, jobs, education and health care are the number one, two and three issues,” Kaine said, although transportation is a front-burner topic in Northern Virginia.
The sharp tone also could be occurring because the candidates are trying to get voters’ attention, Kaine suggested.
“I don’t know that the citizens have really woken up to the race,” Kaine said.
“There are so many issues out there, the economy and others, that I think this is one of those races that is going to be decided relatively late” in the campaign, Kaine said.
Although polls show likely voters leaning toward McDonnell, the numbers tightened up during September, Kaine said.
“My sense is, there could be a lot of movement in the numbers here in the last month, just because there are so many things on people’s minds,” he said.
Kaine said he thought the Deeds-McDonnell race might be similar to the polling trend in his race against Kilgore.
“In my race, we didn’t go ahead in any internal poll — and I had a very good pollster, so I completely believed him — until Oct. 20,” Kaine said.
Nevertheless, Deeds is in a challenging race, Kaine said.
“I’m convinced this 32-year trend of, the White House goes one way, the governorship goes the other, is not just a coincidence,” Kaine said, referring to the Democratic landslide in 2008 elections.
“The average president loses 28 seats in mid-term elections,” the governor said, seeming to switch into his other role as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
“Chuck Todd (chief political analyst for NBC News) has said Virginia is the perfect bellwether state, and I really believe that,” Kaine said.
“I don’t think we’ve moved this from a red state to a blue state, we’ve just moved from a red state to a completely competitive state,” Kaine said.
“I think Creigh understands that,” Kaine said. “He has the mindset of, ‘I’m the underdog, I’ve got to work harder, and work smarter.’”
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