14th District House Race – Update #2

Let’s see what’s been going on in the 14th District House of Delegates race in this (probably final) update…

Here’s what we wrote for Update #1…

Recap: Incumbent Danny Marshall (R) is facing challengers Gary Miller (D) and Mary Martin (I).

Notes since last update:

• Marshall: Danny Marshall is doing the standard Danny Marshall campaign routine. He’s taking no chances and is running on his General Assembly record. Money’s never an object for a Danny Marshall campaign and he’s got enough to do whatever he wants to in the last week.
• Miller: Gary Miller has run a mysteriously quiet campaign. He’s put out some decent position papers and could be a viable challenger if his campaign would try to sell him to the district’s independent voters. Time’s almost up on that and I’m wondering if it’s too late.
• Martin: She’s still breathing. We think so, at least.

Thoughts:

• The “We’re Gonna Get Danny Marshall Because He Raised Taxes” grassroots movement failed to materialize yet again. Marshall is well-liked in the district and is always going to be hard to beat.
• Come on, Gary Miller! Quit hanging out with the faithful Democrats that are always going to vote for Democrats and give independent voters reasons that you’re actually different from Danny Marshall.
• The only thing we find interesting about Mary Martin’s campaign is that she hasn’t said that she works for Star News (not that we’ve been able to find).

Danny Marshall is cruising. Gary Miller could have done better. Mary Martin is nothing. We started this season’s analysis thinking that Mary Martin could possibly siphon off enough Danny Marshall votes to make this a tougher race, then we sobered up and realized that Mary Martin has no campaign money and was useless. We’re tempted yet again to go ahead and move this race into the “Safe” column, but Gary Miller has ran good enough of a campaign to not completely count him out… yet. We’re going to keep this race’s rating at “Strongly Likely – Marshall”.