Virginia: Governor
ARLINGTON, Va. — National issues that have divided Democrats and Republicans have spilled into the Virginia gubernatorial race and colored the final hours of campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
President Barack Obama cast Republican Ken Cuccinelli on Sunday as part of an extreme Tea Party faction that shut down the government and threw the political weight of the White House behind Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
Polls show McAuliffe ahead. Seeking an upset, Cuccinelli cast the gubernatorial election as a referendum on Obama’s health care law. “No more Obamacare in Virginia. That’s the message we can send,” Cuccinelli said in Weyers Cave.
“This election is going to say a lot about Virginia’s future and about the country’s future,” Obama told a packed audience at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington.
Democrats hope Obama’s public backing of McAuliffe will excite the base in Virginia, particularly the coalition of young voters and blacks who helped propel Obama to victory in the state in 2008 and 2012.
New Jersey: Governor
HARRISON, N.J. — With a second term all but assured, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is casting himself as an inclusive Republican who transcends political lines.
“We need to send a message to all of America that the only way our state and our country gets better is if people work together across the aisle,” Christie said at a rally in the campaign’s waning days at an Elks Lodge packed with pro-Christie Democrats.
It’s a closing message that doubles as the opening argument for a prospective presidential run. But Democrats and Republicans agree that Christie always was positioned to win big in his first re-election test. Challenger Barbara Buono has struggled to attract support from even the Democratic Party’s most devoted allies.
Even with polls predicting a big victory, the Christie camp is trying to lower expectations in a state that Obama won by more than 17 points. Should Christie break the 50 percent mark, he would become the first Republican governor to do so in New Jersey since 1985.
New York: Mayor
NEW YORK — The topsy-turvy campaign to select Michael Bloomberg’s successor as mayor of the nation’s largest city has been a marathon marked by heated debates about hot-button issues, larger-than-life characters and stunning political implosions.
And, as voters get set to go to the polls, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio has emerged from the chaotic field poised to be the first Democrat chosen to lead the city since 1989.
Every poll taken since the September primary has de Blasio with a commanding lead over Republican nominee Joe Lhota, a one-time deputy mayor to Rudolph Giuliani.
An unabashed liberal, de Blasio has said he will usher in a new era of progressive governing by raising taxes on the rich, improving police and community relations, and reaching out to those who feel slighted by what they think were 12 years of Bloomberg’s Manhattan-centric policies.
De Blasio had the clearest message of any candidate, repeatedly describing the city’s income inequality as “a tale of two cities” while proposing a tax increase on the wealthy to fund universal prekindergarten.
The Associated Press
