Worried Democrats Express Panic Over Ralph Northam’s Lackluster Campaign In Virginia

With polls showing the Virginia gubernatorial race between Republican Ed Gillespie and Democrat Ralph Northam as a dead heat, Democrats are starting to worry about their nominee’s chances in November, with some of Northam’s own campaign staff “panicking” in their remarks to the media. The Daily Beast reports that “Democratic operatives working on the race and those closely following it are more openly panicked that complacency has set in.”

To make matters worse, Democrat voters’ lack of enthusiasm toward Northam has become increasingly apparent with groups like Bernie Sanders’ Our Revolution going “completely dark.” Virginia’s top liberal blog Blue Virginia showed a similar lack of enthusiasm for Northam recently when it published an article in August shredding his “lackluster campaign.”

Despite Northam’s advantages in fundraising and favorable media attention in a blue-trending state, even his own campaign staff is hitting the panic button, fearing the worst for their party’s chances on Election Day.

The Daily Beast reports:

“…With just a month to go before the vote, Democratic operatives working on the race and those closely following it are more openly panicked that complacency has set in.

In 2017, there are two such elections: the governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia. While the former appears to be a drama-free cakewalk for Democrats, the latter is—perhaps unexpectedly—quite close. A Washington Post poll released on Thursday had Northam up by 13 points over Gillespie. But three Democratic sources have told The Daily Beast that Northam’s internal campaign polling has the race within the margin of error, and not at the outer edges of that range…

Privately, Democratic operatives in and around the state say Northam isn’t blameless for the lack of enthusiasm. The Lt. Governor has a folksy, small-town doctor approach to campaigning that has worked well for other Democrats who run statewide in the past but seems out of place for the age of Donald Trump and doesn’t exactly elicit passionate devotion.

Northam has stuck to the progressive platform that he outlined during the primary—a $15-an-hour minimum wage, criminal justice reform, and debt free college—and he’s taken stances that count as political brave in the commonwealth, such as calling for the relocation of Confederate statues. But he also has tried to sand down the dramatic edges, including running an ad in which he said he’d opportunistically work with Trump, a man he previously called a ‘narcissistic maniac.’

…Our Revolution, the progressive political action organization birthed from Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, has stayed notable silent. The organization endorsed Northam’s opponent, former Rep. Tom Perriello, during their primary. And then, as one operative put it, they ‘went completely dark’…

But veterans of Virginia elections past are nervous that the party is too confident that things will simply fall into place. In 2014, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) appeared to be cruising to a re-election in the weeks leading up to the vote, only to have to endure a nail-biter. Warner won that race by less than 20,000 votes. His opponent was Gillespie.”