A few months ago I noted that if any of the three Democratic candidates for Governor could gain substantial inroads in the African-American community, he would stand a very good chance of obtaining the party’s nomination.
At the moment, this does not seem to have happened.
A survey released about three weeks ago by Public Policy Polling was very instructive in this regard.
Among likely Democratic primary voters (and I’ve been a broken record about the difficulty of identifying who is really going to vote in this primary), Moran had support from 22%, McAuliffe 18% and Deeds 15%. Undecided was beating each of the candidates by at least a 2 to 1 margin.
Among likely, African-American, Democratic primary voters, Moran had 15%, McAuliffe14%, Deeds 11% and 61% were undecided.
No, that’s not a typo. It’s 61% Undecided.
A 4 to 1 lead over any candidate running in the primary.
Among a group that is likely to constitute about a third of the Democratic primary electorate.
What’s the explanation?
In part, it may be that that none of the candidates entered the race with very large African-American constituencies and none of them are that well known by rank and file African-American voters across the state.
In part, it may be that neither Doug Wilder nor Bobby Scott has endorsed and actively campaigned for a candidate.
But it could have something to do with the nature of the campaigns that have been run up to now.
I was struck by the inital reporting about the forum held last evening by the Richmond Crusade for Voters.
The candidates spoke about supporting education in order to prevent incarceration. They talked about the restoration of voting rights for felons who had paid their debt to society. And they spoke about shutting down payday lenders and providing better access to health care.
Jobs. Education. Health Care.
There doesn’t seem to have been much emphasis on turning chicken waste into energy, preventing coal-fired power plants from being built and offshore exploration from occurring, and arguing about whose money is the purest- the matters that have dominated the public dialogue in the campaign.
There’s more than 45 days left until the June Democratic primary.
And what I said a few months back still holds true.
If any candidate can gain a solid plurality of the American-American vote, he is likely to be the Democratic candidate for Governor.
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