Dear John,
Tomorrow marks two weeks until Election Day, so I wanted to bring you up to speed with where we are in our campaign for one of the battleground districts for control of the Virginia state Senate:
1) We got some great press this weekend from the Richmond Times-Dispatch: a focus on me writing handwritten notes for my voters while discussing the work I've been doing to fix Route 28 versus the Republican message of supporting the Governor's proposed abortion ban. The best part: "However, the twin pillars of her campaign are much more basic: 'Fixing Roads. Feeding Kids.'" Yup.
2) Early voting numbers are on our side. Through yesterday (which was "Souls to the Polls" aka Sunday voting), more than 12,000 voters had already cast their ballots in SD-30. Our modeling leads us to believe we have a nice lead so far. This is where you come in: please donate $10, $25, $50, $100 or whatever you can today to help us reach as many of our voters as possible so we get out the vote and win this November 7.
3) The higher those numbers go, the better for our campaign. The sooner our voters cast their ballots, the sooner we don't have to call them, knock on their doors or send them mail reminding them to vote. We can then focus more time on people who don't vote every year but are likely to support us if they do vote.
4) We closed September with more money cash-on-hand than the other side but they're still making a last-minute push because, well:
-They think their polling is close enough to roll the dice on it. (I've seen Italian dishes with less generous portions than a +/-5.8% MoE. Mamma mia.)
-They don't have a choice: two of the most competitive House of Delegates races statewide are right here in western Prince William County (HD-21 and HD-22) and if the Republican candidate at the top of the ticket tanks on Election Day, then they'll lose all three seats and, subsequently, any shot of a Republican trifecta.
4) So the Governor dumped $113,000 into their campaign October 16 and then they started probing price rates to prepare for a broadcast television buy in the Washington, D.C. media market because they know they can't win without it.
5) Their "Secure Your Vote" program hasn't turned out as many low-propensity/high-support voters for their side as our campaign has for our side (shout-out to our phenomenal field team), so that means they still need to spend a lot of money during the last two weeks because they know they'll be trailing us going into Election Day.
6) So will they douse us in negative advertising during the last two weeks? Yes. Are we panicking over it? No.
This has all been expected since their first mail piece dropped just five weeks after their primary. As I mentioned in the subject line last week, this is the oncoming storm from them we've been preparing for, it's arrived and we're doing what we must to meet the moment, turn out our voters and win.
We've knocked more than 16,000 doors during the last two weekends alone, we're one step away from our full-fledged GOTV program and I'm counting on my Netroots and grassroots donors to power us through Election Day. We're ready to go empty net: the less time I spend on the phone means the more time I can spend on doors. Let's make it happen. Please give big to help us win big this November 7.
Warmly,
Danica
