Election week is finally here and the candidates vying for Virginia’s highly competitive 5th Congressional District are preparing for a busy yet momentous Tuesday.
On the eve of Election Day, both Bob Good (R) and Cameron Webb (D) are feeling confident in their odds of winning the race for a seat left vacant after freshman Representative Denver Riggleman (R-VA-05) lost in a Republican primary this summer.
“We are very encouraged by the intensity and enthusiasm for our campaign, and it is clear that the momentum is strongly behind us,” Good said in a statement sent to The Virginia Star. “We will have literally hundreds of volunteers on the ground [Tuesday], and we anticipate successfully closing the race with a great victory.”
Chris Shores, general consultant for the Good campaign, said Good spent much of last week in different counties throughout the district making a final push to secure votes by hosting events, knocking on doors and meeting with local voters.
The good campaign has gotten 32,545 voter contacts up to this point, according to Shores.
Even though Webb has vastly outraised Good by nearly $3.5 million, according to campaign finance data from the Federal Election Commission, during the race, Shores maintains fundraising for the campaign remains steady and that they have received help from numerous Republican Congressmen sending out emails on Good’s behalf.
The Star submitted questions to the Webb campaign, but did not get a response before press time.
In a recent interview with The Star a spokesperson for Webb said: “We are really confident [we can win the race]. We’ve followed our path to victory and the polls are showing voters are responding to our message. You never [really] know, it’s definitely a toss-up, it’s definitely going to be a close race and we can’t take a single vote for granted. But, based on how things look right now, we’re very confident.
“Our message of consensus building leadership, focused on the issues that matter most is clearly breaking through [to voters]”
One day out from the election the Cook Political Report 2020 House race ratings has the 5th district, the largest in Virginia, as a Republican toss-up.
The Cook Partisan Voter Index (PVI) for the 5th district is Republican +6, which means in the last two presidential elections the district’s results were 6 percentage points more Republican than the national average.
That PVI corresponds with voting trends as the 5th district has historically gone Republican. Since 2000, every Republican congressional candidate has won the district, except in 2008, with varying margins of victory, according to BallotPedia.
The closest margin of victory came in 2010 when former Representative Robert Hurt beat the Democratic nominee Thomas Perriello by just over three percentage points.
Recent polls from Global Strategy Group, which surveyed 400 likely voters in the district over a four-day span, and Public Policy Polling, which surveyed 910 voters in the district over two days, favor Webb by two and three points respectively.
Despite the race being tight, Shores said the Good campaign believes the race will be decided by Tuesday night.
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Jacob Taylor is a reporter at The Virginia Star and the Star News Digital Network. Follow Jacob on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Bob Good” by Bob Good. Photo “Cameron Webb” by Cameron Webb.
