After one of the nation’s hardest fought congressional
campaigns, Democratic Congressman Gerry Connolly is
leading by less than 1,000 votes ahead of Republican
businessman and challenger, Keith Fimian in northern Virginia’s
11th congressional district, part of suburban Washington, D.C.
Connolly is ahead with the narrowest of margins, 49.2
percent versus Fimian’s 48.8 percent. Over 220,000 votes were cast
in the race.
I have previously observed
on this site that, if Keith Fimian won this race, the Republicans
would far exceed their success in 1994. As it turns out, a recount
is a very real possibility. Whatever the outcome, the tenacity of
Fimian’s campaign in a district heavily populated by federal
employees and employees of federal contractors was consistent with
the remarkable victory of the GOP throughout the nation.
While Connolly will most likely be declared the victor,
Fimian is not conceding the race. His campaign manager, Tim Edson,
sent out an e-mail letter on November 3 informing supporters that
they had hired “an experienced election lawyer and continue paying
staff to engage a strike force of several dozen volunteers who are
vigilantly monitoring the process.”
A campaign insider told me that the lawyer is Chris Ashby,
one of the best in the country for this kind of thing. He has been
involved in previous recounts in Virginia. Moreover, the campaign
is calling and e-mailing
supporters for additional contributions in order to stay in the
game until its final resolution, whatever that may be.
Fairfax County (VA) Republican Committee Chair Anthony
Bedell sent out an e-mail on Friday, November 5, noting that the
Connolly-Fimian contest “remains one of the closest elections in
the country,” and citing several developments which may or may not
give Fimian supporters some measure of hope for a successful
recount, or at least justifying a closer look and playing out the
hand.
In Fairfax County voting machines failed to register over
800 ballots. In several precincts there were actually more votes
than voters with voting machines reporting higher numbers of votes
than the number of voters marked on the pollbooks as having voted.
And there were 1,150 absentee ballots that had been mailed out to
military personnel and other overseas voters but not yet received
or tallied. Finally, adjoining Prince William County rejected over
280 absentee ballots. Fairfax County rejected another
200-300.
Approximately 1.8 percent of the vote was taken by three
independent including one Libertarian. This is just a small
indicator of how fortunate the Republicans were that the Tea Party
movement stayed within the fold, even at the cost of a few
unsettling primary results, rather than undertake third-party
campaigns such as those by Ross Perot or George Wallace in previous
presidential races.
Moreover, the national Democratic Party seemed to put more
value on the 11th congressional district than the Republicans given
the last minute
deployment of $1 million in negative advertising against
Fimian, bringing the total support to $1.5 million, a substantial
sum not matched by the national Republican Party. This was a
measure of how Democratic the district has become over the past few
years and the desperation with which that party fought to hold on
to the seat.
The GOP either did not have the extra cash or thought the
race less competitive than it turned out to be.
Charles Krauthammer has a point, up to a point, when he
says that this election was a reversion to the norm in that the
Republicans recovered ground lost in 2006 and 2008 and then some.
But this election also reflected a hardening of areas both blue and
red. The coasts and urban areas are still very much Democratic.
Moreover, the South is almost completely purged of Democrats of any
stripe. The Midwest and Pennsylvania, however, were game
changers.
It is interesting to speculate whether or not the Midwest,
Pennsylvania, as well as Virginia’s 11th district, will
be as competitive for Republicans in a full-blown presidential
election year with its much higher voter turnout.
Virginia’s 11th, located in the expanding suburbs of
Washington, D.C., is on the frontier between red and blue Virginia
with Democratic and Republican districts on either side of it. It
is the crest of the suburban wave. Again, it is unique because it’s
a bedroom community for the federal workforce and workplace for
those who support them. If there is any place in America that gains
hard economic value from a growing, expanding government it is
here. In addition, GOP gains by statewide candidates (governor,
attorney general, etc.) and well as Fimian’s strong showing came in
non-presidential years with lower turnouts, presumably an advantage
to them. 2012 will be a different story.
After 9/11 the federal government grew larger. After the
Great Recession, it grew some more. Keith Fimian represents a
fearful future for many residents in northern Virginia. Congressman
Connolly embodies the unsatisfactory present for many
others.
A Republican majority in Congress is a problem for the
former group and deliverance for the latter.
Hence the importance of a ballot recount that tilts the
race Keith Fimian’s way.
