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Brandon Bell

Ralph Smith

Updated Friday 12:43 p.m. with some more number-crunching.

Well, this is getting interesting, isn’t it?

Just when it looked like Democrats were going to give up the ghost and let state Sen. Ralph Smith, formerly R-Botetourt but now R-Roanoke County, run unopposed — up pops former Republican state Sen. Brandon Bell! As an independent!

Mason Adams had a blog post about this yesterday, plus a more complete story in today’s Roanoke Times. Basically, Bell is actively pursuing an independent candidacy against Smith, who defeated him in the 2007 Republican primary.

So how would Bell fare in an independent run against Smith in that district, which stretches all the way from parts of Bedford County to Wythe County?

Some quick thoughts:

* That district voted 69% for Bob McDonnell in the 2009 governor’s race. In a normal year, it’s a district that should elect a Republican — perhaps one reason we haven’t seen Democrats rushing to get into the race. But what would voters there do when offered a choice between Bell, who’s perceived as mildly right of center, and Smith, who is definitely right of center? “Rock solid,” as his campaign slogan says. Let’s consider:

* In that 2007 Republican primary, Bell beat Smith in Montgomery County and Salem and just barely lost to him in Roanoke County. In fact, Bell thumped Smith in those first two localities. Bell took 66% of the vote in Montgomery, 65% in Salem. In Roanoke County, Smith won 51% to 49%. (It was Botetourt — which came in 60% for Smith — that helped put him over the top that year. But Botetourt’s no longer in the district, thanks to redistricting.)

UPDATED Friday 12:43 p.m.: Some more number-crunching is in order. The figures above are correct. However, they don’t take into account the fact that some of those Roanoke County precincts are no longer in this reconfigured district. In the Roanoke County precincts that remain in the district, Bell actually beat Smith by 51% to 49%.

Those three localities — Roanoke County, Salem and Montgomery County — account for 58 percent of the current district. Add up those 2007 totals and Bell has already beaten Smith there by 2,836 to 2,557.

(UPDATED: As noted above, some of those Roanoke County precincts are now in another district.  When you factor those in — or, more accurately, out — Bell beat Smith by 2,260 1,846 in the heart of the district.)

Now, that was in the narrow confines of a Republican primary. Let’s assume that the Republican primary electorate is more conservative than the district as a whole (maybe not by much, but work with us here). Since Bell has already shown he can beat Smith in a GOP primary in those localities, does that mean he could beat him in a general election there, as well? Surely that’s part of what is prompting Bell to consider the race.

* However, Bell hasn’t run in 42 percent of the district – the precincts in Bedford County, Franklin County, Floyd County, Wythe County and Carroll County. Of course, neither has Smith — but Smith, as a party nominee, is going to have certain logistical advantages there that an independent won’t. (We’ll deal with those shortly.) So Bell needs to only win in Roanoke County-Salem-Montgomery County, he’s got to beat Smith like a drum there — because he can’t count on any residual name ID or other connections in the outlying parts of the district.

And that’s where certain practical difficulties come into play.

* Where will Bell’s money come from? The Virginia Public Access Project reports that Smith has already raised more than $86,000. As a party nominee, he’ll be able to not only raise money within the district but also count on money from his state party. Independents start from scratch and have no such statewide networks to draw from — one reason we see so few of them. The last credible independent candidate for the state Senate that I can remember in this part of the state (and please correct my memory if it’s wrong) was Frank Longaker in 1991. He was a largely self-funded candidate who spent nearly $250,000. He took 29 percent of the vote in a 3-way race, impressive for an independent but not enough to win.

Money, of course, isn’t everything. But this district is geographically huge; as big as some congressional districts used to be. It takes money to get the word out.

* Where will Bell’s organization come from? Even the lamest nominee of a major party can count on a cadre of die-hard party supporters. Independents can’t. Maybe Democrats will secretly help Bell put up signs and such. But, as we’ve seen, Democrats aren’t a majority in that district. Maybe Bell knows enough people on his own in the heart of the district. But who’s he going to turn to out in Wythe County and Carroll County?

* It’s almost August. Is it too late to mount this kind of campaign? In doing research for this post, I came across a story I wrote after the 1991 campaign, in which Republican Malfourd “Bo” Trumbo defeated Longaker and Democrat Carole Pratt. It said, in part:

“Pratt . . . didn’t get into the race until August. She found herself spending valuable campaigning time in September dealing with organizational and fund-raising details her opponents had taken care of in the spring. Trumbo supporters concede she’d have been much more troublesome had she started sooner.”

And she was a party nominee!

All that said, there is this wild card, which Bell alluded to in Mason’s story:

* Are the times ripe for an independent campaign? The more there’s partisan gridlock in D.C., does that help the chances for someone like Bell to run as an independent and make the case that it’s time to send a message to the partisans?

– Dwayne Yancey