Analyzing Kaine's Winning Formula

Why did Timothy M. Kaine win?

That's the question pundits, political operatives, lobbyists and reporters have been trying to answer since the Democrat thumped Republican Jerry W. Kilgore in the Nov. 8 race for governor.

Voters in Virginia were not polled on their thoughts as they left the precincts. Such exit polling, although illuminating, is extremely expensive.

Fear not. Kaine's pollster, Pete Brodnitz , did the next-best thing: a post-election poll of 962 people, conducted Nov. 8 to 10. The idea was "to analyze how previously undecided voters arrived at their choice," according to a presentation Brodnitz developed.

The results of the poll, which has a margin of error of three percentage points, challenges a notion popular in conservative circles: that Kilgore lost because he was too moderate and too willing to waffle on the ironclad principles of the right wing of the party.

In an e-mail this week, activist and former state Senate candidate Paul Jost once again chided Kilgore for being "on both sides" of the abortion issue and for refusing to make a no-tax pledge. "How Republican is that?" Jost asked.

"Throughout the campaign, and in fact throughout his term as [attorney general], Kilgore was hardly a Republican," Jost said. "He gave up his Republican principles four years ago, and he has now paid the price for it."

The Brodnitz numbers don't tell the same story. Instead, the poll strongly suggests that Kaine won by appealing to moderates and independents who swung strongly in his direction by the end of the campaign.

In the poll, 61 percent of independents reported voting for Kaine and 32 percent for Kilgore. That's 2-1 among a group that makes up nearly 30 percent of all Virginia voters.

That outcome among independents wasn't a foregone conclusion when the race began, according to Kaine's internal polling.

In May, Brodnitz reported that independent men favored Kilgore over Kaine by six percentage points, while Kaine led among independent women by two percentage points.

At that moment early in the campaign, independent-minded voters were just about canceling each other out. Six months later, that same group decided the election for Kaine.