Congratulations to Scott Rigell for winning the Republican nomination in Tuesday’s primary. He won decisively – by nearly 13% – in a crowded field of candidates, although with less than 40% of the votes cast. No doubt the higher turnout helped. Many predicted turnout in the 7% range; instead, it was closer to 10%.
Rigell will face first-term Democratic incumbent Glenn Nye as well as Republican-turned-Independent Kenny Golden in November. I don’t know how much of an impact Golden will have on the race, especially given the propensity of Republicans for party discipline. Will the anti-Rigell Hampton Roads Tea Party get behind Golden? If so, that just might siphon away enough votes from him to allow a Nye win.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
I think you underestimate Nye in your last sentence. I don’t think Golden’s siphoning of votes is critical to a Nye win…but it will help.
Not at all. I just think this race will be close.
I think it could go either way– reason being the BIGGEST race on the ballot is this congressional race. So its a matter of who is going to come out. Each candidate will top 2 million in money spent.
I give Rigell the edge since he has name ID, deep ties to the community, and Nye is still an unknown quantity throughout district. Rigell’s roots are deep here and he’s a self made man with a lot of integrity and values. Not to mention, McDonnell will be able to pull in hundreds of thousands for Rigell and Rigell has a huge fortune to draw on.
Nye has a chance since he voted against health care and cap and trade. I did vote for Glenn Nye last election, but I will not this time. I thought his youthfulness and experience in international affairs would provide a refreshing perspective. He’s been barely visible and I don’t think hes reached out and embraced this community like he needs to.
I think it could go either way. I disagree that Rigell has higher name ID than Nye.
Well, GOP gloaters are busy dividing conservatives and laughing at the Tea Party’s inability to corral enough votes to beat the establishment candidate in a field of several candidates. That’s going to leave a bad taste for Tea Partiers when they decide IF they want to team up with those guys or not.
Add to that Nye’s voting record which strongly follows what the Tea party will ask for, and you can’t count out Tea Partiers actually voting for Glenn Nye.
Some from Bearing Drift seem to think the Tea Party has to go to Rigell rather than the other way around. If Glenn Nye wants to pick up a few percentage points, he might want to go out to the Tea Party and like minded groups. He could say, “Didn’t I vote your way on Health Care? Didn’t I vote your way on Cap & Trade? Isn’t my record probably better than what you could hope from many elected moderate Republicans? I think you should consider giving ME your vote”.
Good points, although I’m not sure Nye will pursue the Tea Party.
He (Nye) better be doing this (actively going after the tea party folks); politically he’s painted himself into the same corner with regular Dem voters that Bearing Drift seems to think that Rigel’s in with the Tea Partiers (specifically, that the mountain should have to come to Mohamed because Mohamed’s not particularly interested in coming out to the mountain, and really, where else is that mountain planning on going, anyway?).
Problem is, the tea “party” isn’t actually organized in any meaningful way, which makes finding them a difficult proposition (which I imagine is a large part of why Loyola couldn’t pull within 10 points despite spending more than $900k on the primary).
Personally, I think it’s a toss-up or maybe a slight-lean Republican. Nye’s currently sitting on $1 million while Rigel’s got less than 1/3rd of that — it’s a deep deficit to make up. On the other hand, I’m still not sure if Glenn Nye understands the political calculus of why he won in 2008, and I likewise believe that as of right now, he doesn’t understand the calculus behind November’s election. I expect he’s going to see below-average turnout among Democratic voters in November because of his health care vote; furthermore, I expect he’s going to discover what Loyola learned on Tuesday — that there aren’t actually enough reliable, independent tea party voters out there to swing an election, particularly when you have soft support in the partisan base.
Dead on, Silence.
“Rigell’s roots are deep here…”
Nye has the NA alumni. Roots don’t get any deeper around here.
Warren, if you go out in the community and ask around about Glenn Nye, what you will find is very few people know him personally. He doesn’t have the same connections as Rigell whose firmly ingrained. Yes, Nye went to NA but how many people know that? Rigell built Freedom Ford- a well known business throughout Hampton Roads. Nye has no solid base.. whereas a lot of people know Rigell and those who do generally like him and are gung ho.
As much as I do not like Thelma Drake, she was savvy politician and as delegate she won in dem Norfolk because of her constituent services and personal touch. Nye just doesnt even have that
Agreed that there are fewer truly independent voters than Nye’s 2-year strategy would imply. And, agreed that Nye’s local visibility has been moderate at best over the past 2 years.
An earlier commenter mentioned the dynamics of 2008. While we’re still 5 months from Election Day, the dynamics of 2010 seem to suggest that the GOP base will be out voting in force. Rigell’s only worry is whether Golden will divert any significant number of them. But if Nye’s 2008 base sits on its hands, he will lose even if independent voters break big for him (which seems unlikely). As of today, I would put money on Rigell minus 5%.
Nye has 5 months to unequivocally tell his district the story of what he’s done in his first term – and why he deserves a second. He’d better get started soon, or else he’ll end up just a character in Rigell’s story, instead.
“Nye went to NA but how many people know that?”
Not many, but much.