Drake Loss May Be Nye
Roll Call Staff
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A week removed from Election Day and with Republican prospects for winning the White House seeming more grim, there isn’t much talk about Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) potential coattails.
But here in Virginia’s 2nd district, Rep. Thelma Drake (R) may be clinging to them.
The battle-tested two-term Congresswoman is fighting for re-election amid a political environment that appears increasingly toxic for Republicans and in a swing district that has trended toward Democrats in recent years.
To this point Drake has been considered favored to win — after all, she was heavily targeted in 2006 and narrowly won despite the national Democratic wave, defeating a local elected official from a well-known political family.
This year, she faces Democrat Glenn Nye, a 34-year-old former foreign service officer who has never run for office before and began the race as a complete unknown.
With Republican strategists increasingly anxious about the downballot effect of the presidential race and Democratic turnout efforts led by Sen. Barack Obama’s (Ill.) White House campaign, whether incumbents like Drake can hang on will determine the size of the Democratic majority in the 111th Congress.
If she’s worried, Drake doesn’t show it.
She said she feels good about the race and that she’s holding her own on TV despite the onslaught of money from national Democrats to her opponent.
Drake has one big reason to be confident: The Navy’s Atlantic fleet is based here, and the population of active-duty and retired military personnel is around 300,000 — one of the largest concentrations anywhere.
“John McCain will win this district,” she said confidently in between mingling with donors at a small fundraiser Thursday evening at the Norfolk Yacht & Country Club. As for whether the Arizona Senator will win the Old Dominion — where polls have consistently shown him trailing — she said she can’t comment because she’s focused on her own territory.
But as the 50 or so attendees sipped cocktails and watched as the sun set on the Lafayette River, there was a palpable unease among the party faithful about the presidential race and McCain’s campaign in general.
Ed O’Neil, a retired Navy aviator who served in McCain’s sister squadron in Vietnam, admitted he’s better off when he’s not thinking about the elections and the current state of the race.
He and his wife, Susan — she was sipping white wine and he was drinking a Budweiser — said they were floored by the number of Obama yard signs they had seen while driving to the event through their old neighborhood in Norfolk, an area largely populated by affluent liberals.
They hosted a meet-and-greet for Drake over the weekend at their Virginia Beach retirement community, and they believe she will be fine on Election Day.
“I don’t think there’s going to be any problem there,” Susan O’Neil said. “But she always runs like she’s behind, which is the only way to run.”
Champion Door-Knockers
Drake’s campaign touts its grass-roots outreach as a key component in her ability to survive. Since April, the campaign has knocked on close to 75,000 doors and has had the most voter contact of any Congressional district in the country, according to tracking the McCain campaign began in June.
But based on anecdotal evidence Nye has seen on the campaign trail, he argues the voters of the district are ready for a change and that his ability to tap into Drake’s support in the military community will be key.
He knows McCain will do well in the area, and he touts his civilian service in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Iraq as a way of reaching out to that population.
“Veterans identify very readily with my candidacy because they know I understand the challenges they face in the field and they know that when I talk about supporting veterans that it’s a very personal thing for me, having worked with soldiers out in the field,” Nye said.
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