Expect A Very Competitive Race for Governor

People who live for politics appreciate what real votes in real elections mean. It's pure heroin for junkies. Six months after a president is chosen, the political community has the shakes. And that is why New Jersey's and Virginia's contests for governor always assume a larger role than their actual importance merits.

Here we are in the off-off year again, and sure enough, the statehouse battles in the Garden State and the Old Dominion are the focus of a surprising degree of attention.

The match-up in New Jersey is a straightforward partisan clash about the incumbent. One-term Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine has had a controversial governorship, full of mishaps, girlfriend problems, and tax increases. Corzine has simply worn out his welcome with many New Jerseyans.

Yet is New Jersey now so Democratic that even the disliked Corzine can manage to scrape to victory? There is little doubt that President Obama and Vice President Biden will be making a "party unity" argument in multiple fall appearances for Corzine. And Republican candidates have been known to sport decent leads in summer polls -- which GOP nominee Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney, has right now -- only to lose them by Election Day.

The open-seated statehouse fight in Virginia has a substantially different cast. For much of the year, national and state political observers tagged the unopposed Republican nominee, former state Attorney General Bob McDonnell, as the autumn favorite. In part, this is because of a three-decades-long Virginia trend to elect a governor opposite to the party of the president. It has happened for eight consecutive elections since 1977. But remember: This voting pattern is a tendency, not an iron rule. Someday the string will be broken.

A second reason why McDonnell was considered the early favorite was because of the identity of his potential Democratic opponent. Even though Democrats had a splendid decade in Virginia. the party was seen as having a weak field for the 2009 gubernatorial contest.

Former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, a late entry into the gubernatorial sweepstakes, had scads of money and staff, but no major Virginia connections. Privately, few senior Democrats believed he would be able to defeat McDonnell, though they never said so publicly.

The second candidate, former Alexandria Del. Brian Moran, had been the presumed Democratic favorite before McAuliffe entered the primary. Moran soon was moving left to try to outflank McAuliffe among the small electorate of liberal Democratic Party activists -- which would have left Moran highly vulnerable in a general election in centrist Virginia.

More important, Moran began attacking McAuliffe on the campaign stump and in advertising. This triggered a classic campaign formula that catapulted a little-known candidate into the winner's circle: Trailing Candidate B (Moran) went negative on the leading but flawed Candidate A (McAuliffe), reinforcing doubts about A but also generating a backlash against B. An opening was thus created for little-known Candidate C (state Sen. Creigh Deeds).

The single most important moment of the primary came on May 22, when The Washington Post unexpectedly endorsed Deeds. The Post's editorial constituency is overwhelmingly Democratic, and the high-information voters likely to vote in a Democratic primary were susceptible to the paper's influence. Everything came together beautifully for Deeds in what is now a textbook case-study of how an underdog can score an upset.

Deeds' big, unexpected win over McAuliffe has given him the aura of a giant-killer. Once trailing McDonnell by double digits, Deeds led McDonnell by 47 percent to 41 percent in one immediate post-primary poll.

Of course, there is every reason to believe that this will be a close, competitive election. First, we have only to remember the original Deeds-McDonnell confrontation in 2005 for state attorney general. This produced the closest statewide election in Virginia history: an astonishingly small, recounted margin of 360 votes for the Republican. McDonnell outspent Deeds by a substantial sum in 2005, by the way -- and was considered a substantial favorite before Election Day.

But Democrat Tim Kaine's considerable 113,000-vote plurality for governor that year generated some coattails for his ticketmates.

In 2009, Deeds will be well-funded, as will McDonnell. On the other hand, as the nominee at the top of the ticket, it is Deeds' responsibility to produce coattails this time.

A rural, western Democrat, Deeds is ideologically well positioned for the campaign. A moderate Democrat overall, with a conservative position on the Second Amendment, Deeds nicely fits the profile of Virginia's modern successful Democratic candidates.

Moreover, McDonnell has no truly popular, vote-moving GOP figure, state or national, to campaign by his side. And sooner or later, McDonnell's close ties to fundamentalist preachers Pat Robertson, whose university awarded McDonnell his law degree, and Jerry Falwell Jr. (whose Liberty University is in a well-publicized scrape with the campus Young Democrats) will prove controversial.

However, McDonnell has several key advantages. During his years as state attorney general, he has tried to project a moderate-conservative image that is more palatable to Virginians. The Republican's polished, low-key TV persona and physical attractiveness can prove a significant asset in suburbia, which usually delivers six out of every 10 votes cast in statewide elections. Deeds has a pronounced rural twang and is far less comfortable or refined on television.

Though born in Pennsylvania, McDonnell grew up in Fairfax County and lived most of his life in Virginia Beach -- the state's two largest suburban jurisdictions. McDonnell's service in the military also has special resonance in a state whose economy and culture is partly defined by the armed forces.

The tie-breakers in this election will be President Obama, the state of the economy, and the specific issues developed by both sides as the campaign progresses. So far, Obama has maintained his Virginia popularity. If that remains true, presidential appearances for Deeds could be very helpful, especially in Northern Virginia and among African-Americans. If Obama's popularity goes south, then Virginians may send the usual off-year message of "change and balance" by voting Republican.

Also, the candidates differ considerably on transportation, taxes, education, social issues, and a host of other concerns. Often a couple of these come to dominate a campaign, and the skill with which the candidates present their platforms can swing an election.

I would caution against reading too much into isolated off-off year elections. (See the accompanying table.)

In the 11 New Jersey and Virginia contests from 1965-2005, there has been a clear, compelling connection between the off-off year outcome and the following year's midterm elections exactly twice: 1993's GOP victories in the Garden State and the Old Dominion heralded the 1994 Republican landslide; and in 2005 when twin Democratic triumphs augured the waning of the Bush era.

Larry Sabato is the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Contact him at .