Caroline Tucker
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) While everyone is talking about the presidential election, there is a race here at home that is heating up on the airwaves.
Virginia’s 10th Congressional District race between incumbent Barbara Comstock and Democrat Luann Bennett is getting fierce.
Ads are plastered across television screens and lots of money is being pumped from the outside into this race.
Some of the advertising is trying to connect Comstock with the GOP presidential nominee.
“I think there is plenty of reason to believe that she [Comstock] can run ahead of Donald Trump in her district. But the problem for her is that Trump may end up being being just toxic enough in the eastern part of the district, particularly in parts of Loudoun and Fairfax that are in the 10th, that it could make it difficult for her to run far enough ahead to win,” said Geoffrey Skellley, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
But Skelley says Comstock has won many close races during her political career. UVA’s Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which is a non-partisan report, has moved its rating for the race into the “toss-up” category.
When it comes down to fundraising, Skelley says Bennett is losing that race. He says the latest reports showed her with less than $100,000 in cash on hand at the end of September. Meanwhile, he says Comstock had about $2 million dollars of cash on hand.
Skelley says they will probably wait until the last minute to predict a winner in this race.
“That could be a day before or morning of kind of thing,” said Skelley.
This is the first political campaign for Bennett, while Comstock is a veteran politician and a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Copyright 2016 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: Barbara Comstock, Luann Bennett Facebook)
