| Conventional wisdom has it that going into Tuesday's primary, Creigh Deeds picking up the Washington Post endorsement on May 22nd legitimized him as a choice to win Northern Virginia. In fact, Creigh has gone so far as to emblazon "The Washington Post Endorses DEEDS" on 10,000 yard signs, in addition to touting the endorsement in multiple mailers.
This might not be as smart as it seems.
Buried deep inside last week's Suffolk University poll of the governor's race was a question:
Q18. On May 22nd the Washington Post endorsed Creigh Deeds in the Democratic Primary for Governor. Knowing this, will you be more likely or less likely to vote for Creigh Deeds?
Shockingly, 23% said more likely--and 21% less likely. Even worse, in Northern Virginia, where the Post is the paper of record, 22% said more likely, and 33% said less likely. The Washington Post editorials are, apparently, so distrusted by the Democratic primary electorate, that more voters want to vote against Creigh after his endorsement!
Since Deeds has been touting this endorsement in Northern Virginia and not the rest of the state, we can almost safely ignore the results of this question outside of Northern Virginia. Because the Washington Post is seen as a paper that is a fount of establishment-supporting editorials and aggravating center-right stances (the Post was a chief cheerleader in the run-up to the Iraq War), it seems that Deeds is spending the closing hours of his campaign touting an albatross around his neck in the most vote-rich region of the state.
It's worth noting that Fairfax County resident Harris Miller received the Post endorsement prior to his 2006 primary against Jim Webb, and was destroyed all across Northern Virginia.
Full crosstabs. Northern VA is listed as "NE VA" in the crosstabs, however, it is defined here as Prince William and Loudoun inbound towards DC. |
