Obama Campaigns for Democrats in N.J. and Va. Governor's Race
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President Barack Obama retuned to the campaign trail this week to support Democratic candidates running for governor seats in key states.
Polls suggest Creigh Deeds of Virginia and Jon Corzine of New Jersey are facing tough opposition in the final stretch of the governor’s race.
Deeds, a state senator from the rural western part of Virginia, currently trails his Republican opponent, former Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, CNN reported.
"I have made the national issues an issue in this race," McDonnell told CNN.
"The race in Virginia is partially about the broad national environment, how the two political parties are doing, and how the president is doing," Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, told CNN.
At a debate last month, Deeds was asked by the moderator if he was a "Barack Obama Democrat."
"I would try to escape that by saying I'm a Creigh Deeds Democrat," responded Deeds, who also acknowledges that "a lot of what's going on in Washington has made it very tough."
In New Jersey, incumbent Corzine trailed former New Jersey federal prosecutor Chris Christie in polls during the summer but has pulled even in recent surveys, CNN reported.
"The New Jersey race is about Governor Corzine's performance. It's about the state's economy and jobs. In this regard the governor is on the hook and that's why the election is overwhelmingly a referendum on his performance," Rothenberg said.
"It’s a mobilization effort and they know who they need to get," Ross Baker, Rutgers University political scientist, told NJ.com. "There are very distinct phases to a campaign. And everybody knows at the very outset what the last couple of weeks looks like."
