2009.11.03
Analysis: Are primary winners destined to be November losers?
Creigh Deeds won a big, come-from-behind win in the June Democratic primary to gain the Democratic nomination.
So what happened to all that momentum?
I repeat: Creigh Deeds won a big come-from-behind win in the June Democratic primary . . .
Virginia isn’t a state that doesn’t hold a lot of primaries. Republicans don’t much like them for one thing; they tend to prefer conventions. After all, it’s the party insiders who usually get to set the rules on whether it’s a primary or a convention -- and it’s the party insiders who have the most weight in a convention. Ergo, the party insiders usually pick the convention route.
Also, Virginia isn’t a state that has that much history with contested nominations for governor, of any sort. Usually, the Old Dominion has been a much more heiriarchal state, with both parties tending to prefer to rally around an annointed standard-bearer early on.
What history Virginia has had with primaries to pick candidates for governor may be illustrative: When it’s a primary winner vs. a candidate who won his party’s nomination by acclamation, the primary winner always loses.
The cases in point:
* 1969: Bill Battle emerges the winner in the Democratic primary; loses in November to Republican Linwood Holton.
* 1977: Henry Howell scores “the upset of the century” to win the Democratic primary; loses in November to Republican John Dalton.
* 1989: Marshall Coleman, considered a washed-up has-been, comes from behind to win a three-way Republican primary; loses (just barely) in November to Democrat Doug Wilder.
* 2009: Creigh Deeds rallies to upset Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe in the Democratic primary, then crashes and burns against Republican Bob McDonnell in November.
Now the “win primary, lose election” argument isn’t perfect. For instance, Jim Webb won a Democratic primary in 2006, before going on to upset Republican George Allen in that fall’s Senate race.
But that’s Senate, not governor.
In every gubernatorial case above, the euphoria of winning a primary has been short-lived. The winner has always emerged from the primary out of money, out of breath -- and out of time. I remember in ‘89, Coleman had to spend much of the summer patching up a bitterly-divided party and raising money. When Wilder started attacking him, he seemed blindsided.
Same thing this year. Deeds won the primary without much support for large parts of his party’s base, and had to spend the summer essentially getting to know his own people, while McDonnell pounded him one thing or another.
So what’s the lesson here? Clearly, it’s this: A united party doesn’t guarantee victory, but a fight the nomination guarantees defeat.
That’s the lesson I take from all this anyway.
And that’s why the Democrats really lost this election not tonight, not this fall, but four years ago. I’ll deal with that in an upcoming post.
-- Dwayne Yancey, senior editor
OTHER ELECTION ANALYSIS:
* Analysis: The most expensive governor's race ever
* Analysis: Where we'll be looking tonight
* Analysis: How many House seats will change hands tonight?
* Analysis: The biggest winning margin since . . .
* Analysis: The polls close; here's what's coming . . .
* Analysis: The saddest sight I've seen in politics
* Analysis: The first precinct reports in
* Analysis: An early return from Henrico County
* Analysis: A closer look at McDonnell's lead
* Analysis: McDonnell winning places that Democrats did four years ago
* Analysis: Henry County flips to McDonnell
* Analysis: Deeds running weaker in Northern Virginia
* Analysis: How Deeds did it -- a counter-factual look at McDonnell's victory
* Analysis: Three reasons why Obama hurt Deeds
* Analysis: Three reasons why Obama didn't matter
* Analysis: Are sweeps common or rare in Virginia?
* Analysis: Republicans take back the suburbs
We have complete results here.
