Can anyone tell me why was the Virginian senate race such a close call for Warner?

[simon93]

Warner was always leading by double digits during public polls! Gillespie faced a lot of disadvantages:
- he was unknown in Virginia and facing the popular ex-governor
- his campaign budget was almost 3 times smaller than Warner's
But the result was an extremely narrow victory for Warner, 1%+
How to explain this surprising result? What were the themes of their platforms? In the end, what allowed Gillespie to almost win? Is it only thanks to the sagging popularity of Obama?
Thanks

 

[Dot Com]

Gillespie seemed like an OK guy to me. I prolly disagree w/ a lot of his ideas (I'm a Progressive) but his concession speech was very well done/delivered

 

[simon93]

So you would say Gillespie's victory is personality based?

 

[sarahgop]

Warner was caught up in a political scandal and it was shown he isnt a moderate.

 

[Zander]

To me it shows that opinion polls are basically worthless.

I get called by polling companies quite often. I never tell them the truth- EVER. Why should I? It's none of their business. Apparently I am not alone.....

It's probably best to ignore them. ........unless you're a big fat bald loser.

 

[TheOldSchool]

People forget how many ignorant rubes there are in Virginia. That's why one of the people who have done the most to benefit the state was in such a close race.

 

[Interpol]

Low voter turnout. It's been well-documented that a great big chunk of the voters who didn't show up were people who voted for Obama twice. They like him, they support his overall vision, but they sat on their hands because too many Democratic candidates made a point of running away from perhaps the only politician they actually like.

Because their guy wasn't directly on the ballot and because no candidate sounded anything like him, why vote for any of these stupid people, right?

It was certainly a resounding win for Republicans, but it was by default because even their numbers were much lower than their watershed 2010 win.

Like Reagan, Obama taps into what Nixon called "the silent majority". Like it or not, Reagan and Obama have that in common, and they both lost big in both of their midterms because those two men are only two Presidents in the last 30 years to have gotten people out to vote for them who had never really voted before. They were center-right under Reagan and now they're center-left.

As far as the midterms are concerned, the electorate gave Republicans the mandate to legalize weed, raise the minimum wage, pass background checks on guns, forge a pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers who have been here for a number of years and who contribute in positive ways to the country.

Those were the top items that those voters got behind by a solid majority, except they voted for Republicans to do it.

Warner would have won by a bigger margin if more Obama voters had showed up. Plain and simple. We'll see another correction in two years as the country swings back to the left when tens of millions of those voters get interested in the presidential race again.