Wednesday June 21, 2023
Election take-aways
Election take-aways
by Martin Davis
It was a good night for the establishment.
Tara Durant crushed Matt Strickland - the “Crush the Establishment” candidate - in the Republican Primary for Senate District 27. With more than 14,000 votes counted at press time, Durant won 57.2%.
Less than three miles away from Durant’s campaign staff celebrated their victory at Amy’s Cafe in Falmouth, Joel Griffin’s supporters were partying at Rebellion Bourbon Bar and Kitchen in downtown Fredericksburg.
A late-comer to the race, Joel leveraged a huge cash advantage to defeat Ben Litchfield’s army of dedicated door-knockers. With more than 10,000 votes counted, Griffin won 59.8%.
Here are some early take-aways for the election.
Durant is early favorite
In a race the Democrats cannot afford to lose if they want to ensure that Gov. Glenn Youngkin doesn’t control all three branches of government, they have to consider themselves starting the run to November a step or two behind Durant.
She won all but four precincts in her home county of Stafford and all precincts in Fredericksburg. She’s carrying the endorsements of the sitting governor, lt. governor, and attorney general, and will not face any financial issues in the general election.
In a pre-Trump world, that’s a winning hand 9,999 times out of 10,000.
But this isn’t a pre-Trump world.
Abortion not on this ballot
While Republicans want to paint abortion as a black-and-white issue (you favor killing babies, or you don’t), the truth is the reality is far more nuanced. And Virginians consistently show that they understand this and do not support tightening abortion laws. By a wide margin.
Whether a woman should have the right to control her own body is a hot issue not just with Democrats, but with Virginia women in general.
Griffin is adamant that he will protect a woman’s right to choose. Durant is strong pro-life. That should help Griffin, whom we learned last night that …
Stafford loves Griffin, too
Griffin took all but one precinct in Stafford. And that was against a candidate - Litchfield - who also calls Stafford home. This fact alone makes his victory more impressive than Durant’s.
But while there some 9,500 Republican voters in Stafford, there were just some 6,300 Democratic voters in the county. Which begs the question …
Can Democrats get voters to the polls?
This primary featured debates and candidate forums and lots of campaigning and ads encouraging voters to turn out.
They didn’t. Especially the Democrats.
VPAP records just over 155,000 registered voters in the 27th. The total turnout at press time was some 24,400. That’s only 15% of registered voters.
14,000 Republicans turned out to vote on Tuesday. A paltry 10,000 Dems.
Can Democrats do better in November? If they are to have any hope of beating Durant, they’re going to have to do much better on Election Day in November. (See abortion entry above.)
The Spotsylvania Question
Neither Durant nor Griffin made strong showings in Spotsylvania. This raises several troubling questions, mostly for Durant.
Strickland’s supporters aren’t a group known for compromising and supporting the party. Strickland, after all, called Youngkin an AINO (American in Name Only). Will those voters get behind Durant in the general election? Don’t bet on it.
Litchfield’s supporters, on the other hand, should get behind Griffin and support him.
In his concession speech, Litchfield said: “We have a Democratic nominee; his name is Joel Griffin. He is a good man. We must unite behind him. We must defeat Tara Durant in November. We must deny Glenn Youngkin his Senate majority.”
Expect his followers to do that.
If the Dems are to win this election, it must start with winning Spotsylvania.
More than the Senate
That Durant could not soundly defeat Strickland in Spotsylvania shows that the far right still has a tight hold on the county. And that must be of concern to those running to take the school board back from the four Tea Party members of the board and their superintendent, Mark Taylor, whose arrogance and ignorance have poisoned the educational well.
Hold on
This is going to be a very tight race, and a lot of money is going to be spent to win it.
Don’t expect blow-out numbers and early results this November.
From the Campaign Trail - Emptying My Notebook
by Martin Davis
Ben Litchfield prepares to address his supporters after it became clear he would not win the Democratic nomination for State Senate on Tuesday night.
In journalism, to “empty your notebook” is to cram every quote, every interview, every piece of research you did for a story into the final printed project. It’s a mistake that journalists make early in their careers, though not for long.
One learns what to report, and what to hang on to.
My notebook from this election is packed. This morning, I’d like to empty just a bit more of my notebook about this race than I normally would.
Over my 25-year career, rarely have I gotten to know a candidate as well as I’ve gotten to know Ben Litchfield. For more than a year, we have shared emails, text messages, phone calls, and Chinese food. Rarely a week has gone by since we met last January that we didn’t connect at least once. Some weeks we connected daily.
In many ways, this made my job harder. I have to ask questions - sometimes uncomfortable ones. Sometimes those questions can cost you your access.
And I have to write things, sometimes knowing full well it will not go down well with the candidate.
That’s part of the job.
When I was selected to moderate the Democratic debate between Litchfield and Griffin, I had to call Litchfield and tell him that for a period of about a month, we could not connect like we usually did.
I needed the space to prepare for a debate that would be fair to both candidates. And I couldn’t risk advantaging him over Griffin, even if inadvertently, as I prepped.
Litchfield never questioned my need to temporarily terminate our discussions. I have known too many candidates who would have not been as understanding.
I did not forget his graciousness and his professionalism and his commitment to the common good he displayed by respecting my request for some distance.
Being one person, I could not be present at three speeches Tuesday night. While I attended the watch parties for Tara Durant, Griffin, and Litchfield, when it became clear that Litchfield would lose, I left Griffin’s party and walked 10 minutes to the home where Litchfield’s watch party was being held.
His was the speech I wanted to hear, and he did not disappoint.
“Final results are not in,” he began, “but it appears that we were not successful in this election.”
A person in the back of the room said: “This time.”
“This time,” he echoed back.
From there he made a point to his team about why he ran.
“I set out to prove a point,” he began, “that ideas matter, that policy matters, experience matters, compassion matters, humanity matters, this community matters.
“A few moments ago, this campaign came to an end. But the cares that you have shared with me. Your concerns, your issues, your troubles, your day-to-day complaints and problems that seem so insurmountable for each and every one of you, we carry those with us and we carry them forward. We carry them forward in the hope that our party, the Democratic Party, will stand with the people always.”
Words of a politician, one might say.
I would say to you, no.
These are the words of a man who followed President Obama’s advice and put his name on a ballet and took a stand.
His run certainly garnered him some friends, but it cost him other friendships and relationships. Such is the behind-the-curtain reality of any campaign.
I saw him on days he was confident and feeling grand, and days when he was low and struggling just to get through the breakneck schedule a race places on any candidate.
But mostly, I saw a man who day in and day out, put others above himself.
It’s a character trait in far too short a supply.
And he will continue to do so. “We have a Democratic nominee,” he told his campaign workers - most all of them young, enthusiastic, and full of the optimism that has long sense left too many voters. “His name is Joel Griffin. He is a good man. We must unite behind him. We must defeat Tara Durant in November. We must deny Glenn Youngkin his Senate majority.”
And so beginning tomorrow, Litchfield’s public political life ends for a bit. But his work to make our community better goes on.
We could all learn a great deal from Litchfield.
Politics, like life, favors the winners.
But life, like politics, only works when we live for something beyond ourselves.
As such, we all enjoy a few moments in the sun. But it’s what do when the klieg lights aren’t on us that reveals who we are.
Ben lost … this time. Our community, and our democracy, however, are better and stronger for his having run. But he won’t stop just because he is no longer the person people like me regularly talk with and write about.
As I see it, Litchfield showed us all what true American exceptionalism is. A campaign run and lost by a selfless, optimistic young man.
This time …
Next time, Ben.
I met Ben last Fall and supported him from the very beginning as a volunteer. As a 22 year veteran, loyalty is important to me. However, as a very former 36 year Republican, I was slow to learn the pitfalls of blind loyalty. As I came to know Ben better through the last few months, I am still convinced my loyalty was well-place. Ben is a man of strong principles and integrity. Another hard lesson learned from having once been a straight GOP ticket voter is that character is the most important measure for me in a candidate. Second for me is intellect. I’ve learned so much from Ben just by listening. So this campaign may have come to an end, but I will standby waiting for him to run for office again. When he does, I will again be one of his first volunteers and contributor.