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Virginia Capitol C onnections, Summer 2016 15
Clinton is not without weaknesses. Her lack of support in college
towns suggests a challenge in motivating these key voters. However, her
improved performance in Williamsburg and Charlottesville compared
to her results against Barack Obama in 2008 shows her potential to
win over young voters. Given Trump’s poor performance here in the
Republican primary, Clinton may benefit from negative motivation
against the GOP standard bearer. Clinton’s poor performance in rural
areas like Southwest and the Valley are unlikely to concern Democrats
too much, as the region offers limited additional gains for the already
dominant GOP.
Bernie Sanders’ strengths and weaknesses were the exact opposite
of Clinton’s. His support among young voters could inspire their
turnout for the general election. But he did not perform as well in some
college towns as did Obama. His greatest support came from white
rural voters in Southwest and the Valley, areas with the lowest turnout
for the Democratic primaries and where Democrats are likely to be
uncompetitive in November. Most importantly, his weaknesses in the
population centers of metro Richmond, Hampton Roads and Northern
Virginia would be major problems because these areas represent the
Democratic base, lots of voters, and the keys to a Democratic win in
November.
Republicans
While Clinton’s advantage as a nominee over Sanders is convincing,
divining the omens from the GOP primary is more challenging. The
coalitions assembled by each candidate suggest strength in very different
facets of a general electorate. Essentially, Trump or Cruz would more
likely to generate turnout among rural whites while John Kasich and
Marco Rubio could more easily reach out to other demographics.
Support for Trump and Cruz was in areas of high Republican
primary turnout. Either of these candidates would excite rural white
voters that have recently anchored the GOP’s coalition. Both performed
very well in the Southwest and Shenandoah Valley. Trump’s support
was highly correlated with lower median (though not low) income.
Despite Trump’s claims that he would draw new voters to the
Republicans, his support in Virginia was largely correlated with Mitt
Romney’s 2012 general election performance (0.39), with almost no
relationship between support for Trump and a locality’s increase in
total turnout since 2008. While Trump swept a larger GOP turnout in
Grayson County, the two-party vote in the county remained static from
2008 to 2016, while it increased statewide.
Rubio and Kasich, had less appeal to rural voters but more to new
primary voters. Their support was concentrated in greater Richmond,
the suburbs around D.C., and in college towns. Unlike Cruz and Trump,
the performances of Rubio and Kasich were positively correlated with
Hispanic, student, and higher median income populations. Support
for both candidates was negatively correlated with Romney’s general
election performance. So in Loudoun County, which Obama carried in
two general elections, Democratic turnout was only down slightly while
GOP turnout almost doubled as Rubio won the county easily.
The primary demonstrated that Rubio/Kasich had more appeal
than Trump/Cruz to voters who might upset the tilt of Virginia to the
Democrats. But Republican primary turnout in these areas was still low,
suggesting GOP may have a low potential support ceiling here.
So, Trump would effectively forfeit new demographic groups
and more populated localities, hoping to overcome this deficit by
maximizing turnout in Republican-leaning areas. But these rural areas
have fewer potential votes, and Clinton’s unpopularity even among
Democrats in these localities suggests any Republican nominee will do
well here.
Conclusion
Record-breaking turnout in Virginia’s primary offers clues to the
November outcome in a true “swing state”. The nomination contests
produced two winners who have gone on to claim their party’s nods and
who are well suited to replicate the broad coalitions of support evident
in recent Presidential contests in the Commonwealth.
While that template would suggest a narrow but clear advantage
for Hillary Clinton, there are enough questions about the ability to
mobilize voters for or against these particular candidates to shift the
balance slightly. But those who are expecting that the battle lines to be
significantly redrawn are likely to be disappointed.
John McGlennon is a professor of government at the College of
William & Mary, Jakob A. Deel recently graduated from the College
of William and Mary class of 2016 with a B.A. in Government and
Public Policy.
“Tall poppy” is a term that’s common in Australia for someone who
stands above the rest.
But even with all of her achievements, the going hasn’t been
easy—especially in recent years. In 2012, her 102-year-old mother,
whom Atwood cared for at home, passed away. And in 2013, she
herself was diagnosed with leukemia. But while her illness slowed
her down temporarily, she stayed active throughout the treatment and
recovery process. She credits her son and her friends for helping her
get through it all.
Today Atwood continues to work as a writer, legislative
consultant, human rights advocate, and more. When asked what the
common thread might be through all that she’s done and continues to
do, she simply said, “I like to find meaning in things, and I would like
to feel as though I’m enhancing the human conversation.”
It’s because of that approach that Atwood has been singled out
and recognized for her work so often throughout the years. She
received her latest communications award this past April, and she
says she was particularly honored to receive this one because of the
organization that bestowed it.
The “Communicator of Achievement” award is the highest award
given by the Virginia Professional Communicators. The VPC, as it is
known, started out as theVirginia PressWomen. The organization was
originally formed to help women work together and strengthen each
other in response to the discrimination that early female journalists
faced in the workplace.
About a year ago, the name was changed to Virginia Professional
Communicators in order to become more inclusive of men and
communicators who are not necessarily part of the newspaper
industry. That inclusiveness has also expanded their outreach.
As a statewide winner of this award, Atwood will advance to
the national level with the National Federation of Press Women. A
national winner will be selected by that organization in September.
Here’s to Bonnie Atwood standing tall as she represents Virginia
communicators nationally in September. And here’s to her proving
once again that no dream is really impossible, if you have enough
passion to try.
Sarah Alderson is an award-winning freelance writer who also
works in the Senate broadcast control room during sessions and
the Capitol Studio throughout the year. She can be reached at
Communicator of Achievement from page 13
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