No, I’m not talking about those disastrous Quinnipiac University poll numbers which show Clinton losing the Commonwealth to Bush, Walker, or Rubio. I’m actually a little bearish on our odds of carrying Virginia in 2016. Long story short, I think the intraparty warfare has done its damage and the demographics get worse by the day.
That being said, there are other issues brewing for Clinton in Virginia, despite the fact that long time family friend and bag man Terry McAuliffe currently resides in the Governor’s Mansion. I’m talking about the insurgent Sanders campaign, which is more emblematic of anti-Clinton populism than it is of Sanders himself.
The Virginia subreddit (a forum organized under the Reddit website) for Sanders is at first glance pretty slow. This is partially an outgrowth of the Sanders campaign having no organized presence in the Commonwealth. Beneath it all, however, there’s more. There is another volunteer organizing hub. There’s also a Meetup page with a few hundred folks.
The biggest red flag for Clinton however comes through an organizing page for July 29th events that will focus on building a grassroots army for the Vermont socialist. Dozens of events dot the Commonwealth, with some pretty sizable RSVP counts:
- 170 have RSVP’d in Vienna
- 141 have RSVP’d in Charlottesville
- 93 have RSVP’d in Roanoke
- 62 have RSVP’d in Blacksburg
- 98 have RSVP’d in Norfolk
- 70 have RSVP’d in Reston
- 69 have RSVP’d in Wise
On top of all this, dozens have RSVP’d in places like Spotsylvania, Harrisonburg, Williamsburg, Lynchburg, Tazewell, Front Royal, and Yorktown. Add all of the RSVPs together and you have a volunteer force organizing in the thousands, right in the Clinton-McAuliffe home turf.
For note, I don’t see a path to the nomination for Sanders, but this grassroots energy could easily be transferred to another candidate (say, a late entry by Elizabeth Warren). Republicans should also take note, as there’s no comparable organizing going on among our crowded field. The GOP still has plenty of time to play catch up as we sort through our nominating slog. Clinton on the other hand, well, let’s just say that Fast Terry has some work to do.
