Turnout will be bleak.
Absentee voting applications indicate a low turnout for primary elections Tuesday, the secretary of the state Board of Election said today.
Nancy Rodrigues said 11,549 absentee applications were sent to Democratic primary voters and 5,331 were received. A total of 1,024 were sent to Republican primary voters and 273 were received.
The Senate primary in 2006 between Harris Miller and Jim Webb had a turnout of only 3.65%. Now, no one thought the Dems could take out George Allen, so turnout might've been artificially depressed, but Virginia has a history of low-turnout Democratic primaries. The question isn't whether the turnout will be high or low, rather, how abysmally low it will be.
Anticipating heightened interest in a race involving McAuliffe, a national figure from his days as a high-profile Democratic moneyman, and residual partisan interest following a historic presidential election, some pollsters are eyeing a larger turnout than a usually primary would attract.
Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling said he is expecting a "considerably higher" turnout "somewhere in the range of 300,000 voters."
But others expect a depressed turnout figures, believing that the number of undecided voters is a sign of voter fatigue and disinterest in any of the three candidates. Jarding, for example, told The Washington Post that he predicts a turnout of around 200,000.
Given the absentee totals, I'd put my money on the low end of the scale, which means GOTV will play an outsized role. McAuliffe has the money to pay for good field, and Moran has the NoVa political machine behind him (supposedly). Deeds always had the smallest staff, and laid a bunch of it off to have more money for the air war. He's hoping to ride the Washington Post endorsement to decent results in NoVa, while hoping strong turnout in the rest of the state carries him over.
Deeds has had a bit of a free ride this election, as McAuliffe and Moran beat the crap out of each other. But his surge in the polls painted a big bulls eye on his back, and he's now the subject of multiple attack mail pieces from both the Moran and McAuliffe campaigns. The latest McAuliffe piece, for example, hits Deeds on his gun record.
The race is volatile, but the last round, from mid-week, had McAuliffe with Joementum, Moran increasing slightly, and Deeds skyrocketing:
What had been a boring race is proving loaded with last-minute drama.