State of the Race: February 2010

Now that all of the numbers are in from the end of 2009, or should be win, we can take a step back and analyze the state of the race in the Virginia 5th. The "Real" Fifth District blog has already put together their own well done ranking of the candidates on some key metrics. I also want to give a shout out to Southside Central for another well done rankings of the candidates.

First, let's look on the cash on hand. Currently, with a 500k loan, Jim McKelvey comes in on top. Robert Hurt is second, then Verga, Boyd, McPadden, and Morton. And Ferrin is . . . somewhere else?

McKelvey, Hurt, and Verga are clearly in the top tier in terms of cash on hand in this race. Boyd and McPadden are probably well positioned to pick up the pace as the race continues. Morton's lackluster quarter really hurts her, but as I've said before you can't rule anyone out . . . yet.

There is, of course, another candidate with a large cash on hand advantage. Perriello has $873,878 sitting in the bank just waiting for the Republican nominee. For comparison, he had $243,559 cash on hand at this point in 2008. Virgil Goode, with campaign manager Tucker Watkins asleep at the wheel thinking he had this in the bag, had only $384,161 cash on hand at this point in 2008. We all know this is going to be a difficult race, but it's worth noting that Perriello now has almost $500k more than Goode did at this point in the race in 2008.

So the real food chain for money goes:

Perriello > McKelvey > Hurt > Verga > Boyd > McPadden > Morton

Now onto donors. There's something fishy with Hurt's claim of over 450 donors. First, this obviously counts unreported donors. I count 213 reported individual donors, including several who donated to his campaign twice. This is far short of Hurt's claim of over 450 donors. He'd have to make up the remaining 237 among his unreported donors, who have to be under $200. With $20,708 unreported this averages out to just at $87 per donor. Is this plausible? Maybe, but we'll have to trust Hurt's word for it.

I think that closes the appearance of a gap between Hurt and Boyd by a significant amount. So we have the following ranking in donors:

Hurt > Boyd > Morton > Verga > McPadden > McKelvey

But, in reality, it's more like this:

Perriello > Hurt > Boyd > Morton > Verga > McPadden > McKelvey

And Facebook? Here:

Perriello (2,107) > Hurt (802) > McPadden (188) > Ferrin (174) > Morton (173) > Boyd (107) > Verga (105) > McKelvey (104)

In a convention I'd be optimistic that the conservative opponents of Hurt would fall in line against him as they are eliminated one by one. But in a primary, I'm worried that the field will remain too large and give Hurt the chance to face off against Perriello. Is Hurt tough enough to take Perriello on? We'll see.