A recent poll gauging the race in Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District showed that Republican Denver Riggleman and Democrat Leslie Cockburn are essentially tied. The Daily Progress reported that out of the 501 respondents pollsters spoke to, 46 percent said they would be voting for Cockburn and 45 percent said they would be voting for Riggleman, with about 10 percent saying they were undecided or declined to answer, all with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 points.
The New York Times, which published the poll conducted by Siena College addressed the uncertainty of the poll claiming, “If sampling error were the only type of error in a poll, we would expect candidates who trail by one point in a poll of 501 people to win about two out of every five races. But this probably understates the total error by a factor of two.”
Nevertheless, Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the University of Virginia’s Sabato’s Crystal Ball, says the poll is “good” for Cockburn.
Two years ago, when then-candidate Donald Trump and then-candidate Tom Garrett, now the district’s congressional representative, were on the campaign trail, The Washington Post reported at the time that while internal polls commissioned by both campaigns showed Democratic challenger Jane Dittmar trailing Garrett with varying margins, Dittmar had raised twice as much money as Garrett, which led the University of Virginia Center for Politics to move the voting area from “likely Republican” to the more competitive “leans Republican” category. As well, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) added the Democratic candidate its “Red to Blue” list of candidates who might win in Republican districts.
While many saw this race as seemingly close in the run-up to Election Day, Garrett won in a landslide by 16 percentage points, even more than Trump did.
So far this election cycle, Cockburn has led Riggleman in the money race. She raised $2.8 million this cycle through pre-general filing period that closed October 17, Roll Call reports. Riggleman, meanwhile, has raised $1.4 million.
Banking on the results of 2016’s election, money is not the driving factor to victory. Moreover, neither is the political sentiment in the liberal leviathan of Charlottesville sitting in the heart of the district. There is much more ground to cover in Virginia’s largest district that extends nearly the entire length of the Commonwealth, from bottom to top.
Despite what many are led to believe in the national narrative, President Trump is still popular in the district.
Central Virginia, once a hub for production in everything from textiles to tobacco, has been disillusioned with politics since the 1990s when Bill Clinton was president, which led to the institution of international trade agreements that cost the region vital manufacturing jobs. Following Trump’s work to bring manufacturing jobs back to the states, his clout is good for Riggleman.
As reported by The Post, “Trump is helpful in Southside and hurts a lot in Charlottesville, and that’s how it always is in the 5th,” said David Wasserman, House editor of the Cook Political Report. “The challenge for Democrats is there’s a lot more of Southside than there is Charlottesville.”
The problem for the polls highlighting the district is that it sees through a national looking glass, which has biases of its own – that is the true understated total error.
As Garrett won by a very hefty margin in the previous election cycle, and considering Trump still has the good graces of many in VA-5, do not be surprised if Riggleman wins by a pretty sufficient margin.