Jigsaw Politics

In June 2006, a bit fewer than 156,000 voters turned out for the Democratic Senate primary that Jim Webb won en route to his upset of Republican incumbent George Allen that November.

That amounted to 3.5 percent of the total number of registered voters, even though Virginia does not register by party -- meaning that the primary was open not only to Democrats, but independents and Republicans as well.

In June 2005, just more than 175,000, or 4 percent of the total, showed up to vote in the Republican primary for governor won by Jerry Kilgore, who went on to lose that November to Democrat Tim Kaine.

It's not that Virginia voters are that politically apathetic. Turnout jumped to more than 2 million for the Kaine-Kilgore general election matchup in 2005, and topped 2.3 million for the Webb-Allen slugfest a year later.

It's that primary voting is just not a habit for Virginia voters. This is a state where most nominations for major office still are decided by conventions, as the election law allows the parties to choose their method for choosing their candidates.

For example, both the Democrats and Republicans used conventions to choose their nominees for the 2008 Senate race to replace Republican incumbent John W. Warner, who retired after five terms. Mark Warner, a popular former governor, was unopposed for the Democratic nomination that was confirmed by acclamation at his party's state convention. The Republican state convention, by a narrow margin, chose James S. Gilmore III, Warner's less-popular predecessor as governor. Warner won the general election in a landslide.

The statement that turnout will be crucial to the outcome of an election is probably the biggest "no, duh" cliche in politics. But it is indisputable that the candidate with the best grass-roots voter turnout operation is very likely to win.

The "ground game" is even more crucial in states like Virginia with a history of low-turnout primaries, in which every vote counts even more.