The challenge
So how, exactly, does one win the 5th? How does a candidate convince the 574,341 voting-age citizens who call it home that he’s the right farm-loving, plain-speaking, strong-on-
defense, shrewd-budgeting man for the job?
Those involved in the last two successful Congressional campaigns in the district said they won by putting boots on the ground.
In 2008, “we made a conscious decision to invest more in grassroots organizing and door knocking, which was unusual, because most campaigns put it all into ads,” said Tom Perriello.
It was through canvassing and phone banking—sheer effort—that they turned a young, unknown candidate into a force to be reckoned with, and ultimately toppled entrenched incumbent Virgil Goode in a narrowly won upset watched by the whole nation.
Republicans reeled, recovered, and then revised their own approach.
“We were amazed at how organized they were, from the ground level up,” said 5th District Republican Committee chair and state Senator Bill Stanley, who represents Virginia’s 20th State Senate district. Stanley and Hurt are close political allies, and have a lot in common—they both grew up in Southside and were in rival fraternities at Hampden Sydney (“Robert was taller than all of us, and had better hair than all of us, so naturally, we hated him,” Stanley joked). Both now run their own law firms in the southern part of the district, and it was Hurt’s departure from the State Senate for Congress that launched Stanley’s political career; he ran for and won Hurt’s seat and has held onto it since.
In 2008 he was a unit chair organizing for the Republicans in the 5th, and watched what he said was a disjointed GOP get beaten late in the game.
“At the polls on election day in ’08, there were people working for Tom Perriello that were from out of state,” Stanley said. “They were way more organized than we were, and they were able to upset what we thought would have been an easy victory for Virgil and put Tom in office. That only inspired us.”
When he took over as Committee chair, he said, he centralized operations. During Hurt’s 2010 campaign, the various county Republican groups within the 5th coordinated efforts in a way they never had on everything from signage to poll coverage to the last-minute get-out-the-vote push. “We had an e-mail chain to rival the Democrats,” Stanley said. “We became a pretty well-oiled machine. When the Dems were defeated, “they lost some of that organization, and they haven’t regained that momentum,” he said.
There are other, long-honored ways to make a candidate ubiquitous, pump up his stature, and increase his name recognition, though they’re not easy achievements—especially in the 5th, and especially for this year’s Democratic ticket.
The most obvious is advertising. But flooding the airwaves with political ads isn’t easy or cheap in a district as big and broad as the 5th—and it’s tougher than ever now. Candidates used to have to buy up ads in Charlottesville, Danville, Richmond, Lynchburg, Roanoke, and even Raleigh to make sure they were reaching all corners of the district, according to both campaigns. The three new counties added to the district are in another media market altogether—the much more costly Washington, D.C. universe.
It’s hard to predict the effect of the expansion of the ad-buy territory on either candidate’s chances. As known entities, incumbents have a little more wiggle room when it comes to blanketing an area with TV and radio spots. But Douglass campaign manager Gary Ritterstein pointed out that the General has a lot of built-in name recognition in the 5th’s northern spur already, and has held multiple events there, including the most recent debate.
But Hurt is far better poised to swamp his constituents with ads in the last weeks before the election, because he’s beating Douglass at the money game.
According to Federal Elections Commission filings compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Douglass has raised a little over $960,000. Hurt’s received almost twice that, 46 percent of it from political action committees (top-contributing PACs include those run by Phillip Morris parent company Altria Group and defense contractor Northrop Grumman).
That represents a major shift in the political landscape, said Perriello, though granted, not one that’s unique to the 5th. The Supreme Court’s landmark Citizen’s United ruling shoved open the floodgates of corporate money for campaigns. When Perriello approached $2 million in campaign donations in ’08, “that was a phenomenal amount of money. Now $2 million in a race like this is nothing.”
Douglass has turned it into a campaign issue, slamming Hurt for his reliance on PAC money. But Hurt shrugs off such attacks.
“When you have a district that runs from NoVA all the way down to North Carolina and from the mountains over to cattle country in Brunswick County, you have to have the media, and the only way to get it is to buy it. And you have to have the financial support to be able to do that.” Hurt said he’s proud of the people who have stepped up. “I don’t know what particular objection my opponent has to any one group that has supported us,” he said.
The Douglass camp may also be falling short when it comes to successfully riding the coattails of those at the top of the ticket.
As it happens, few Congressional candidates are having much luck there this time around. A New York Times reporter writing about the phenomenon last month explained it as the presidential candidates’ embracing a “survival of the fittest” mentality, speculating that Congress’ abysmal 9 percent approval rating is making Romney and Obama shy away from their legislative counterparts—even the ones who haven’t been elected yet.
Both parties’ rare co-stumping events have been concentrated in a handful of crucial swing states, Virginia being one of them. But when President Obama paid a late August visit to Charlottesville, his willingness to associate with down-ballot Democrats extended only to Senate hopeful Tim Kaine, who joined him at his rally at the nTelos Wireless Pavilion. Douglass did not. That’s in contrast with Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s stop in Danville a few weeks later, where Robert Hurt made an onstage introduction and got a handshake photo op.
Another small but symbolically significant detail: GOP volunteers and campaign staffers confirmed Romney-Ryan door knockers and phone bankers have been mentioning the names of all three candidates on the ballot—Romney, Kaine’s Senate race rival George Allen, and Hurt—when they talk to prospective voters. Obama for America volunteers have not, though a campaign spokesperson said that as the election approaches, OFA’s grassroots volunteer effort “is going to turn out votes for President Obama, General Douglass, and Democrats up and down the ticket.”
Does it matter if a down-ballot candidate isn’t offered a chance to hang with the big kids, even when name recognition is considered a key hurdle? Maybe not. After all, it was Perriello alone who eked out a narrow victory in the 5th in 2008; Obama lost the district to McCain.
Albemarle County Democratic Party Steering Committee chair Valerie L’Herrou said local party volunteers’ efforts have been focused on all candidates. “We have been working with all three campaigns to do this, so that Kaine and Douglass have not been neglected,” she said via e-mail. That may not be the case everywhere in the 5th, she said. “Decisions on how closely the campaigns work together are made at the national and state level, but locally, how closely the party works with the campaigns is made by us, and we are doing everything for all three candidates.”
Fred Hudson, chair of the 5th District Democratic Committee, rejected the notion that there’s been anything akin to disharmony in the party.
“We are sharing offices, we are sharing volunteers, we are sharing phone calls,” he said. “We’re cooperating, and any suggestion that there is a problem is simply wrong.”
And Douglass can stand on his own two feet, Hudson said. “He has debated the incumbent twice now, and in both cases, the Democratic candidate showed a grasp of the issues and a clarity of expression that, frankly, the incumbent was incapable of doing,” he said. “So there’s a strong possibility and probability that Mr. Hurt will be a one-time candidate.”
UVA’s Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato’s team is leaning the other way. Sabato’s oft-cited Crystal Ball website recently shifted Hurt into the “likely” Republican win column, largely because redistricting made the 5th a shade more red, said staffer Geoff Skelley.
Bill Stanley said Hurt’s strong position is due more to the candidate than where the lines are drawn.
“When he goes to Washington and represents us, you know that he reflects the values of so many people here in the district,” Stanley said.
Hurt is hardly lacking in confidence, on the debate stage or off it. But he was quick to point out a rarely reported fact that undermines assumptions about the 5th District shifting to a safe bet for the GOP: Hurt was the first Republican to make an initial run in the district as a Republican and win since —wait for it—1887. True, the parties and the district have changed a lot since the 19th century. But Hurt said the 5th is still swinging.
“Anybody who says that this is a walkaway Republican district, I’d say you’re wrong,” he said.
*Correction note: This story originally reported that General John Douglass’ first wife died while their children were young, which is incorrect.