A look back at the 51st District
The 51st district, located in eastern Prince William County was one of the most wild elections of 2007. The race started as a potential battle between Faisal Gill and Jeff Dion. Faisal was clearly a weak Republican candidate, having once served of spokesman of a Muslim group that saw some leadership later jailed for terrorism. In fact, Faisal once participated in a walkout at the Bush White House when one person was asked to leave, who was later convicted of terrorism related crimes. Meanwhile Jeff had just recently lost a race for Supervisor in Prince William after having his sexual orientation made an issue. It wasn't fair to him to make that an issue but he had put up a personals ad on a gay website with his picture- and a personals ad for someone of any sexual orientation who is running for office is going to be made an issue. It didn't help Jeff that this was an area that leaned Democratic, but also voted strongly for the marriage amendment which makes it very politically distinct from most Fairfax districts.
It seemed like either side could almost certainly win by changing candidates, and Julie Lucas, a member of the Prince William School Board jumped in. Julie is a conservative with a very moderate tone, and most people thought she would cruise to a nomination victory over Faisal.
Meanwhile, Democrats were also trying to make a change, and after Governors Warner and Kaine sent out statements saying how great he was, Jeff Dion agreed to withdraw so Paul Nichols could run. Nichols strikes me more as an opportunist than a Democrat, as he was never that active in Democratic politics before running, and even contributed to Republicans like Corey Stewart. However, Democrats were interested in a pickup, and Nichols certainly sounded like a progressive on the campaign trail, so I'm withholding judgment until I see his voting record on his real political leanings.
Facing a credible Democratic candidate, Republicans fell into even more chaos. Many Gill Delegates had multiple convention forms submitted- often with different signatures- indicating clear fraud. Yet the credentials committee headed by outgoing Delegate Michele McQuigg and Mike May decided that those Delegates with multiple signatures could just say which one was real when they showed up to the convention, and seemed unconcerned with the fact that fraudulent forms had clearly been submitted.
The chaos continued as the convention was conducted on June 2nd. Some precincts had more ballots cast than Delegates who showed up and checked in- clearly indicating something had gone terribly wrong at this convention. Attendees I interviewed saw suspicious ballots with Faisal's name already checked in people's hands in line to vote before they were supposed to even have a ballot. In addition there were math errors in one precinct's tally of people that attended, showing it did not in fact overvote. Assuming that was corrected, Lucas emerged as the winner if the other (real) overvoted precincts were thrown out in accordance with the RPV plan. However, if every overvote was assumed to be for Faisal and only overvotes were thrown out (assuming all that checked in stayed to vote) than Faisal was still the winner. Does this sound like a clusterfuck? It was.
Emerging as the nominee Faisal Gill clearly had a divided party. But Paul Nichols had a long way to go as a first time candidate. He fired one campaign manager after a dispute over walking sheets. She had printed the entire precinct, with voters on each street, and the streets in alphabetical order. That way Paul could go in any direction in the precinct and flip to the correct page. Instead Paul drove from street to street in the precinct so he could walk each one in alphabetical order, and then actually complained to committee members that she didn't explain that he could just flip to the next page where he actually was. Oy.
The other factor here was Corey Stewart as he lead Prince William's war on illegal immigrants. Much of this district is in the Occoquan magisterial district which Stewart represented before running for Chairman. He has a large following here, and as you will see below, the precincts where Corey was organized had a strong impact on the results.
By election day, Faisal benefiting from Nichols mistakes and Stewart/Jay O'Brien coattails almost pulled it out. This was the 2007 opportunity for history in the General Assembly, with the first elected member with serious ties to groups involved in international terrorism. But he came up just short:
Paul Nichols 6,343 (52.0%)
Faisal Gill 5,844 (48.0%)
Breaking down what happened here, I saw three very distinct groups of results. First there were the precincts where the George Barker-Jay O'Brien Senate race was going on upballot, which included all three Coles District precincts and most of the Occoquan District. Second, there were the Occoquan District precincts where Faisal had some of the old Stewart organization helping him but no Senate race up ballot. Finally, there are four precincts in Neabsco and Woodbridge districts that do not overlap with O'Brien and where Stewart does not have the same level of organization.
Starting with the precincts in Neabsco and Woodbridge, Faisal ran worse by percentage than Jerry Kilgore. Almost no other Republican candidate in Northern Virginia ran worse than Kilgore percentage in any precinct. Kilgore percentage in Northern Virginia is considered the low point possible for a Republican candidate. The couple other places this happened, it was due to a Democratic candidate's strength in a home precinct or area. Nichols does not live in this part of the district, this was totally Faisal's weakness coming into play. In the two Neabsco precincts Faisal got 38.9% to Kilgore 40.0% and in the two Woodbridge precincts Faisal got 38.0% to Kilgore's 39.3%. It's worth nothing these precincts are small so even with the great percentage Nichols winning margin here was only 1,144-718. In other words- only 426 votes margin, which could certainly be overcome.
In the precincts where Corey Stewart was District Supervisor and there was no Senate race Faisal began to make his comeback. Faisal finished 5% above Jerry Kilgore numbers (48.1%-43.1%). This is a significant shift because Faisal couldn't even reach Kilgore percentage in precincts that he didn't have Stewart's old organization. This helped Faisal keep this area to a very small Nichols victory of 1,318-1,222 or a margin of only 96 votes.
That left Faisal down 522 votes going into the precincts where he overlapped with Jay O'Brien's Senate race. Yet this race was still totally winnable if Faisal could hold GOP votes. Even though Tim Kaine, Leslie Byrne, Creigh Deeds and Jim Webb all won this area, Jay O'Brien smoked George Barker 4,034-3,397 in the overlap with the 51st. (I'll explore Faisal's impact on O'Brien another time, right now I just want to focus on O'Brien's impact on Faisal). O'Brien's margin of 637 votes was enough to tip the Delegate race to Republicans even with Faisal's weak showing elsewhere. Yet Faisal could not keep his end of the bargain here as he only won by a 3,691-3,679 margin or 12 votes.
What was really interesting in the crossover vote against Faisal in these precincts was how unequal it was. The crossover by percentage in each O'Brien/Gill precinct is below. Keep in mind, this is margin of crossover- so if there were any Barker/Gill voters, this is the percentage the other crossover voters outvoted them by, since we can't see every ballot:
8.05% O'Brien/Nichols Vote in Old Bridge precinct
7.41% O'Brien/Nichols Vote in Rockledge precinct
6.28% O'Brien/Nichols Vote in Penn precinct
4.21% O'Brien/Nichols Vote in McCourt precinct
3.57% O'Brien/Nichols Vote in Westridge precinct
2.26% O'Brien/Nichols Vote in Springwoods precinct
0.95% O'Brien/Nichols Vote in Mohican precinct
0.39% O'Brien/Nichols Vote in Lake Ridge precinct
What could explain these huge variances by precinct? Well, since I was able to attend and cover the Republican convention, I have the votes by precinct between Faisal Gill and Julie Lucas. Boy does this match up!! In the four precincts above with the biggest crossover, Lucas crushed Gill 134-75 at the convention. In the four precinct above with the smallest crossover, Gill defeated Lucas 93-70 at the convention.
With that it seems clear to me that despite all his weaknesses as a candidate, Faisal Gill still could have won this election if he had won the convention in a more legitimate manner and united the party behind him. However with everything that happened, Gill was never able to unite the grassroots Republicans who didn't vote for him at the convention behind his candidacy. In the end, Tom Kopko and his advisor's were Faisal's final undoing, and appear to have cost the Republican Party this seat.
What amazes me from these numbers is that Faisal actually could have won this election if he had not upset so many people at the convention, which I would have never guessed. It just goes to show what matters in a local race- ties to terrorist suspects that are funding overseas killers- Prince William didn't seem to care. Cheating at a convention against a well liked school board candidate- voters cared and that actually moved votes. Amazing, and a sad look at what actually moves the electorate.
Nichols campaigned like a progressive on the campaign trail?
Please! He sounded like a commonsense Republican alternative to Gill. Nichols came out strong against illegal immigration. This probably really ticked off the progressives. Nichols won because of a divided GOP and the fact he campaigned as a very conservative democrat in a swing district.
It would not suprise me at all if a progressive candidate goes after Nichols from the left in two years.
Lucas does bear plenty of the blame with regards to the convention. First, she decided way too late to really make a good run and yet she still almost won. This thing should have been a major blowout for her. She was a very, very lazy campaigner and did not make a real effort until right before the convention when it was really too late. She then tried some last minute sleazy tactics which divided the party further. It takes a real committment to win a convention and she really did not seem up to par until the weekend before. Up to the convention, Faisal completely outworked her. This was probably because Faisal had a big time consultant and Lucas was essentially doing things on her own. The convention was not that well attended and Lucas should have won this thing in a blowout. If you are not going to give 100% and have good advisors it useless to enter a convention against savy professionals. I really don't think she deserves another chance in 2 years.
Posted by: | January 05, 2008 at 02:38 PM
That's an interesting perspective- I only attended one Nichols event, and his speech sounded like he lined up with me on almost every issue which would make him a progressive. I don't see addressing the illegal immigrant issue as making him less progressive- was there anything else you thought he ran as a "conservative Democrat" on?
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | January 05, 2008 at 02:40 PM
I attended several forums and debates between Nichols and Gill and Nichols just came across on the issues as a "less controversial" alternative to the GOP Gill. The only two issues were Gill and Nichols seemed to disagee was illegal immigration (Nichols implied that Gill was weak on it because he worked at a firm representing illegals) and abortion. (Nichols was pro-choice and labeled Gill out of touch in this area.) On the other stuff Nichols seemed like a big business type Democrat. He really appeared like he was from opposite ends of the spectrum from a more progessive candidate like George Barker.
Posted by: | January 05, 2008 at 02:50 PM
Really... expanding Senior Health option, finally getting a homestead exemptions so people can stay in their homes, expanding mass transportation, increasing teacher pay, opposing vouchers, protecting the right to choose. Im just not seeing him running as a republican.
Posted by: | January 05, 2008 at 03:27 PM
First, Faisal didn't cheat. He won fair and square, as dmonstrated by the appeals rulings, by both Kopko (no one has every attacked its merits) and by the 11th District Committee. You're confusing sour grapes with meritorious criticisms, Ben.
Second, you demonstrate pretty handily that Faisal was defeated not by Nichols, but by turncoat Republicans.
Posted by: James Young | January 05, 2008 at 04:46 PM
On another note, I hope there isn't too much crying amongst the beltway folks when the 'skins get it handed to them.
Posted by: | January 05, 2008 at 05:06 PM
"...turncoat Republicans."
Sounds redundant.
~
Posted by: ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© | January 05, 2008 at 05:16 PM
The bottom line is that Faisal was probably a terrible candidate but that is the fault of his primary opposition within the GOP NOT the Gill faction. Gill simply outworked all his opposition.
1.The controversy he created by entering the race has divided the GOP in PWC for the forseable future. His candidacy split the party.
2. The fact the Lucas could not beat this type of candidate indirectly accused of ties with questionable people really says alot about the future viability of any Lucas candidacy. ANYONE who could not beat Faisal Gill in any type of setting by a landslide really should never run for this seat again. Lucas should have beat this guy at least 60-40 in a convention. She ran an embarrsassingly bad race. Lucas is a nice friendly schoolboard member albeit potentially sometimes appearing very shallowbut clearly has no grasp of what it takes to win big time state GA races so even the moderates in PWC now know to find someone else to run against Nichols in 09.
Posted by: | January 05, 2008 at 07:17 PM
This last comment makes a lot of sense. Lucas has a great profile but is a terrible candidate when it comes to real campaigns.
It is obvious she is not ready for prime time. Like many school-boarders, they just do not get it.
Posted by: | January 05, 2008 at 07:49 PM
The last to Anons' comments are certainly one analysis which is defensible. Of course, the Gill-haters are such nihilists that they have to camouflage their own candidate's weaknesses (and their own) by whining about "cheating," and "fraud," when her Convention loss was more a function of their incompetence. Whether that incompetence is shared by their candidate is, of course, not necessarily the case.
Posted by: James Young | January 05, 2008 at 10:09 PM
Oh, come on.
The campaign against Gill, as reflected on the Good Bye Faisal Gill and the BVBL blogs, focused largely on his religion/ethnicity and the fact that his law practice included representing clients on immigration issues.
Nichols ran to the right of the Republican leadership platform on immigration as a contrast to Gill who was being attacked simply for offering legal services to people who are entitled to a fair hearing on issues related to their immigration status.
Nichols has already offered legislation that would grant immunity from suit to state/county officials who say they are enforcing immigration laws even if they are doing so in bad faith. He also wants to turn every mortgage broker/bank officer into an immigration enforcement officer, and establish a 100 person legal presence division in the department of State Police.
Bottom line, if Gill had not been a Muslim or if he had not been an immigration lawyer, pro-developer lawyer Nichols would not be a delegate.
Posted by: Lovell Reiley | January 05, 2008 at 10:14 PM
"""Bottom line, if Gill had not been a Muslim"""
If Gill had not been the former Director of Government Relations for the imprisoned Abdurahman Alamoudi's American Muslim Council then Gill's chances of winning would have improved.
""" or if he had not been an immigration lawyer,"""
But he was an immigration lawyer, to the extent that anyone could figure out what he did for a living.
"""pro-developer lawyer Nichols would not be a delegate."""
i.e., if someone other than the real-life Faisal Gill had run against Nichols then that imaginary Faisal Gill would have done better than the real life one did.
But so what? The PWCRC didn't nominate some other imaginary Faisal Gill, it nominated the real life one who carried a lot of baggage.
Posted by: Jonathan Mark | January 06, 2008 at 08:19 AM
If you want to know who is more electable, let's look at who was elected. What a novel idea!
Gill WAS NOT ELECTED to the GA, but Lucas WAS RE-ELECTED to the School Board after getting in the race very late, facing a three way contest and running as a Republican in a Democrat district, Neabsco, where Ben pointed out that Gill lost big time.
Incidentally, in that three way race, Lucas got a majority, 70%. I think that alone proves the woman is electable.
The support she got from her own party in her School Board race can be summed up by the fact that at the victory part, Tom Kopko would not even introduce her. And yet still, she won. Why? Julie is a very hard worker and a smart campaigner, anyone who has met her and is not drinking Kopko Kool-Aid will tell you that.
Gill won the convention because it was fixed. No amount of hard work could overcome that. Gill lost the election because the leaders in the PWCRC are so arogent that all they thought they had to do to win the seat was get the nomination. Wrong on that one boys.
If Julie Lucas been given a fair shake at the convention she would have won it, no question. And then she would have gone on to win the general. Just look at the numbers she pulled in Neabsco. That alone would have propelled her to victory.
Posted by: Anon | January 06, 2008 at 08:41 AM
Anon 8:41,
Lucas lost because she was a God-awful candidate who did nothing at all whatsoever until she knew she was going to lose. I though Gill was a terrible candidate as well with his past baggage but if Lucas was such a great GA candidate she should have won this convention big time. It should have never been close in the first place. Lucas for the most part was unwilling to do what it takes to beat a very savy Gill. With all the stuff floating around about Gill, Lucas should have won the convention by a 2:1 margin. She did not because she just expected the nomination to be handed to her without doing the work necessary to win. She expected to win with a nice handshake and smile just like she wins school board races. School board is a world away from the General Assembly and thats why she was not capable of winning any convention.
Yes she might have felt cheated the day of the convention but in reality if she was such a great candidate this should have been a blowout the day of the convention with all of Gills baggage.
I hope the 51 GOP finds a real good challenger to Nichols in 09, not Lucas or Gill.
Posted by: | January 06, 2008 at 09:27 AM
Anon 8:41, I don't want to take anything away from Julie regarding her reelection to the School Board, but if you believe that she had a tough race there, you're a fool. Her opponents were buffoons. As for Kopko not introducing her, why should he have done so? She did not seek the GOP endorsement, even after she lost the Convention (which was not fixed, your fantasies/misrepresentations to the contrary notwithstanding). That, and she had allowed/encouraged her operatives to trash Kopko for months, and did not support the GOP ticket.
He shouldn't have introduced her. If she runs for HOD again, he should oppose her. I will.
Posted by: James Young | January 06, 2008 at 02:30 PM
Well said James Young!!!
I might add,as long has Lucas and her people keep trashing every conservative who supported Gill she will have absolutely no chance at doing anything in PWC. Until her supporters stop trashing good conservatives like state senator Ken Cuccinelli, delegate Scott Lingamfelter, Lt. Governor Bolling, and every other right wing conservative who supported Gill in the primary she will not go anywere. She forgets that most committees around the state are made up of right wingers. Constantly trashing this wing of the party just gets her in more trouble.
Posted by: | January 06, 2008 at 02:54 PM
Should Lucas choose to run for the 51st again (she does not have the impediment of a race for School Board should she do so in 2009), she deserves the same courtesy from Conservatives that she and her supporters demonstrated in 2007: they should sit on their hands.
Posted by: James Young | January 06, 2008 at 04:09 PM
Well, Anon, I know you and you know me...and since you did not support the Lucas campaign you're hardly qualified to comment upon how hard she worked. I did support her and I know...she worked that campaign very, very hard.
There are several reasons that Julie was not the Republican nominee but lack of hard work is not one of them. If you had been there, been a part of the campaign, you would know that to be true, but you weren't.
Julie was not the Republican nominee for the following reasons:
1. Money. Faisal Gill reported giving a lot of money to prominent politicians; was it all reported? We don't know for sure, but that brings up a second issue concerning money -- as the son of a DC taxicab driver, as a former Govt employee, as a Navy reservist and 35 yr old lawyer fresh out of law school, Faisal Gill does not appear to be "a man of means." Yet, among other donations, Faisal Gill gave Bill Bolling $14K and Tom Kopko $2K. It seems incredible to me. Just where did all that money come from? I have no idea...maybe he delivered newspapers as a boy, But as Bill Bolling said at Gill's "kick-off", "...he was there for me and I'm here for him."
2. Delegates. Julie Lucas and her team
worked very hard to recruit a cadre of delegates who were interested in the issues and the candidates. However, while Gill had some legitimate delegates, he mustered a block of 400 common-religion based voters who knew nothing of the issues, and most of which were first time voters who attended the convention for one reason and one reason alone -- to put Muslim "brother Gill" in the Virginia HOD.
3. Uncorrected Voting Irregularities. As NLS pointed out, there were two over-voted precincts; a third was thought to be overvoted but recount of credentials committee records revealed that it was not. Tom Kopko took two months before deciding to ignore the RPV recommendatio to throw out overvoted precincts and further refused to correct the human error that at at the time of the convention was thought to be overvoted. In his words, the error should have been detected at the convention.
The convention Elections Committee has been criticized for not having a check-off sheet for use by each voting station, to ensure that "double-voters" could be identified, but with all the complications of credentialling those with names that didn't match signatures etc, there is no way the Credentials Committeed could have provided such a list.
The convention is over, the election is over. While the PWCRC Chairman nominated Faisal Gill, we of the 51st District have a Delegate in whom I have complete confidence will represent us, the state and our nation well.
Posted by: Freedom | January 06, 2008 at 05:15 PM
Freedom, what a bunch of crap. Blame the brown skinned people. Nice job of racism and total bigotry! Its easier to blame a relatively small group of people than admit your candidate was outworked and did not have what it took to win a convention in what should have been a blowout..but was not because your candidate did not figure out how to campaign correctly(This is not the school board)until it was too late.
Posted by: | January 06, 2008 at 05:40 PM
anon 2:54- You're right, we do have a state party that is run by a bunch of right wingers (namely on State Central). How's that working out for us? Lost the Governor's mansion twice, lost the Senate seat, lost control of the State Senate, lost seats in the House of Delegates, had to have a re-count on the AG race and just barely squeaked by. You're right, having the right wing in charge is really producing some amazing candidate and we are taking the state by storm. Maybe it is time to stop drinking the Kool-Aid and take a look at reality and not what you would like reality to be.
Posted by: Anon | January 06, 2008 at 05:52 PM
Anon 5:40 whips out what actually worked pretty well for Gill - anyone who criticizes him is a racist bigot. Gill has huge irregularities in his past and has associated with some horrendous people. It's shame netiehr Lucas or Nichols were able to properly articulate the real problems with Gill's past. I still cannot believe how close the general election was.
Posted by: Loudoun Insider | January 06, 2008 at 06:16 PM
"somebody" claims me to be racist..."blaming the brown-skinned people."
Think what you wish, it doesn't bother me at all; my heart is pure and the person who is important knows...but listen, when you have 400 of them show up at a convention for the first time EVER, and for the sole purpose of getting their boy nominated, you tell ME who the racist is...:(
Oh, I forgot, only caucasians can be racist, huh?
Posted by: Freedom | January 06, 2008 at 06:42 PM
Gill used "his people" to help him win. No doubt, but
there are a lot more of Lucas's "type" people( non brown skinned and non Muslim) that lived in the district. She had every opportunity to use "her people" and failed to get them out. By that reasoning she should have won by an even larger margin. As long as I am reading the comments I certainly will not let comments like Freedom's go unquestioned even if he is "pure" at heart. Are Muslim American's NOT allowed to participate in the political process in the US? I would certainly like to believe all citizens are equal.
Posted by: | January 06, 2008 at 07:44 PM
"Loudmouthed Inciter" and "Fredo" are both adept at playing the "victim" card, but I'll say what they are loathe to admit: (1) not all those who opposed Gill are racists; and (2) a significant portion (probably not a majority) of those who did are bigots and racists. Sadly, the latter were more than happy to allow the racist-motivated oppposition of the latter to go unchecked in their opposition to Gill, probably because they lacked the courage (see their largely anonymous/pseudonymous attacks) to reveal that the root of their opposition was to a true, principled Conservative, and they know that such views are anathema in the GOP.
Posted by: James Young | January 06, 2008 at 07:53 PM
Strike "oppostion of the latter"; substitution "opposition of the former."
Posted by: James Young | January 06, 2008 at 07:54 PM