5th District Congress Race – Update #1

It’s baaaaaack! It’s that time again where we have to choose our representative for the U.S. House. Let’s look at the field and see where we’re standing in our first update for the season.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 4th (80 days away from this publishing day). Here’s the candidates that we’ll have to choose from.

• Robert Hurt – Republican (Incumbent) – Going for his third 2-year term
• Lawrence Gaughan – Democrat – First political campaign
• Paul Jones – Libertarian – First political campaign
• Ken Hildebrandt – Independent Green – Ran in 2012 against Hurt

Let’s look at the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate.

Robert Hurt:

• Strengths: Incumbent, high name recognition, lots of campaign money, can easily get more campaign money, loved by establishment party faithful
• Weaknesses: Hasn’t “made a name for himself” in 4 years of Congress, has semi-alienated far-right extreme of 5th District Republicans

Lawrence Gaughan:

• Strengths: Not from the extreme left of the Democratic party, good grassroots presence in Southside, staying clear of unpopular Obama & Obamacare
• Weaknesses: Low name recognition, not well funded, total newcomer to politics.

Paul Jones:

• Strengths: Um. He’s on the ballot.
• Weaknesses: I’ll put it this way. He visited Martinsville on his first media tour. He said “Wow. Really?” when he heard about Martinsville’s high unemployment rate then said it was his first time visiting that area. Also, no real funding and not much chance to get any. Zero name recognition.

Ken Hildebrandt:

• Strengths: Ken Hildebrandt is a strong proponent of growing hemp as a crop. Ken Hildebrandt is also a strong proponent of growing hemp as a crop. Ken Hildebrandt also supports hemp growing. Get my point?
• Weaknesses: No funding, not going to get any funding, makes slightly bizarre homemade campaign videos, close to zero name recognition.

Analysis: We can easily mark Ken Hildebrandt and Paul Jones off as No Chance. Jones may pull 2 to 4% of the vote just because he’s got Libertarian after his name. Now let’s look at the real race. This is the only election that the Southside region still controls. the 5th District runs up Route 29 all the way up to Fauquier County. The district was drawn that way to give any Republican a distinct advantage. It was also drawn to neutralize the Democratic stronghold of Charlottesville, because Southside has enough votes to more than cancel that Democratic advantage. That northern area is solidly Republican but there’s not many votes to really make a difference. We know that Robert Hurt will win the north and we know that Gaughan will win Charlottesville. Let’s talk about Southside.

80 days from the election and Robert Hurt has been mostly invisible in his campaign as well as Southside. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine have been here more than he has. Lawrence Gaughan’s campaign has taken advantage of that and established a decent presence in Southside. Gaughan and his campaign have also been very smart so far in his message, as he’s stayed away from Obama & Obamacare (very unpopular items in Southside). He’s also talking about the benefits of bipartisanship and denouncing the lack of compromise in Washington. His message is good so far and it just may be starting to connect with independent voters.

Hurt’s message so far? Nothing. I’m betting that Hurt’s campaign strategy will be to use his natural incumbent advantage and to avoid most contact with Gaughan’s campaign. We may be lucky to get up to two debates between these two, but I’m betting on just one (and wouldn’t be surprised by zero). Two years ago against John Douglass, that strategy worked perfectly because Douglass was a non-factor from the start in Southside.

If this 5th District race was like last time, I’d be pushing the Safe button by now and moving along. I can’t do that now. Lawrence gaughan has impressed me, even more so as a total newcomer. Robert Hurt has to make a strong Southside move and get his word out. Look at what happened to Eric Cantor. The district is drawn Republican enough that I’m rating this race as LIKELY – ROBERT HURT now (note that I didn’t even rate it Strongly Likely), but I’m going to watch it closely to see what Hurt’s response and his Southside activity will be.