Thesis - Robert Sarvis has been beneficial to Virginia politics for the past two years. Back up: When Democrat Terry McAuliffe beat Republican Ken Cuccinelli in last year’s race for governor by a much smaller than expected margin, some conservatives blamed Libertarian Robert Sarvis. If Sarvis hadn’t run, they speculated, Cuccinelli could have won. The speculation was wrong. According to exit polls, only 3 percent of self-described conservatives voted for Sarvis. By contrast, 7 percent of self-described liberals voted for him. In other words, even if you want to argue that Sarvis took votes away from the two major-party candidates, then he took at least twice as many votes from the Democrat as from the Republican. But since McAuliffe won anyway, Sarvis’ presence did change the outcome. But Sarvis probably did not take votes from either major-party candidate. A higher percentage of voters viewed both McAuliffe and Cuccinelli unfavorably than favorably. Sarvis, meanwhile, enjoyed roughly the same level of support in precincts that voted either heavily Republican or heavily Democrat — all of which suggests he drew in disaffected voters who might otherwise have left that ballot blank. Now Sarvis is running for Senate — where he is polling about 6 percent, according to the latest results. They come from a Quinnipiac University survey that shows Republican Ed Gillespie closing in on Democrat Mark Warner. Warner’s lead has shrunk, to 48 percent vs. 39 percent, among likely voters. That’s 9 percentage points. A comfortable advantage. But if Warner wins by a smaller margin than that, Republicans once again might be tempted to blame the third-party interloper rather than their own candidate’s shortcomings. If they do, they would simply be repeating a mistake. Because according to Quinnipiac, “With Sarvis out of the race, Sen. Warner has a 50-41 percent likely voter lead.” That is also 9 percentage points. In short, it looks as if the Libertarian is not so much “stealing” votes from either of the two major parties as offering a more pleasing alternative to voters who don’t care for either the Republicans or the Democrats. We’d say that qualifies as a healthy development.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 17:33:00 +0000