As Election Day nears, with seven candidates jockeying for three at-large seats on Lynchburg City Council, campaign promotions are no strange sight to Lynchburg residents.
Yard signs adorn front lawns and street corners. Billboards featuring smiling candidates are spread across the city. Numerous pamphlets and flyers have been handed out as candidates go door-to-door asking residents for their support ahead of Election Day on Nov. 8.
According to the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project, the seven candidates had raised more than $150,000, well over twice the amount that was spent on the 2018 at-large city council elections, which came in just above $65,000. Both elections featured seven total candidates running for the three seats.
Here’s how much each candidate has raised, according to VPAP, as of Sept. 30:
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Stephanie Reed: $58,876
Larry Taylor: $31,655
Beau Wright: $26,850
Martin Misjuns: $25,610
Treney Tweedy: $20,140
Patrick Earl: $13,975
Walter Virgil Jr.: $13,588
For each candidate, a majority of donations are under $3,000.
Campaign costs go beyond yard signs and flyers. Candidates often spend money on their websites, digital advertising on social media sites, photography services and even consultant services for campaign managers.
With all this money invested in November’s at-large city council election, the question remains: Will having the most money translate to getting the most votes?
David Richards, chair of the political science department at the University of Lynchburg, said in a recent interview with The News & Advance that while money is “everything” on a federal election level, it’s not as much of a sure sign of success on the local level.
“Traditionally, it hasn’t mattered as much,” Richards said, “especially in places where you have incumbents who just tend to get reelected.”
However, he said, fundraising plays an “increasing role” for challengers because it allows them to “get their name out there and become better known.”
For local elections like this one, Richards said typically it comes down to personal connections and endorsements, which he says are “almost as good as money.”
“Local elections are about who you know,” Richards said. “It’s about who you have contact with in the city, because if you have contact with certain groups of people, those people can be turned out to vote.”
In each election where council’s three at-large seats are up for grabs, the top three vote-getters are the winners. In 2018, according to the Virginia Department of Elections, the difference between the third-place finisher, Wright, and the fourth-place finisher, Katie Cyphert, was only 461 votes in a city with 52,493 total registered voters at the time, showing the importance of turning supporters out to the polls on Election Day.
Nonetheless, Richards said, fundraising at the local level is hardly a futile effort. With the push in recent years by both major political parties to “drill down the local level,” Richards said, more money is flowing into local campaigns as issues closer to home become more important to voters.
With two incumbents running to be reelected to council, Richards said they carry a built-in fundraising advantage because they have a “proven track record” and also have an advantage at the ballot box due to name recognition.
Richards said having the name recognition of an incumbent is important because normally, candidates do not run as a member of one of the two major political parties in city council elections. This means voters often choose names they recognize over their preferred political party.
This year has three exceptions: Misjuns, Taylor and Reed were publicly endorsed by the Lynchburg Republican City Committee during a convention held May 14, another sign of the push by the major parties to get their candidates elected at a local level.
Unlike most elections, turnout might not be the best indicator to determine who will have a chance to win the three seats.
In the 2018 council elections, only about 12% of registered voters actually voted in Lynchburg. That number could drastically increase this year because the election will be held in November, following a 2021 bill passed in the Virginia General Assembly that required all local elections be moved from May to November.
New this year, city council elections will be on the same ballot as federal elections in Lynchburg, which could lead to higher turnout. Also on Lynchburg residents’ ballots will be the 5th Congressional District race between incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Good and Democratic challenger Josh Throneburg.
Even if there is high turnout, that doesn’t mean incumbents are a lock to retain their seats, Richards said.
“Just by the sheer number of seven people running around Lynchburg saying ‘I’m running for city council,’ people are more aware of the race than before. And so if there’s a lot of interest, then a high turnout, even the incumbent may not have the base to overcome somebody new who taps into the voters who are coming in who haven’t voted before or don’t normally vote,” Richards said.
With less than three weeks to go until Election Day, as more signs and posters promoting candidates pop up across the city, Richards believes there’s an answer to the age-old question, “Do yard signs win elections?”
“I’m sure there’s papers, and many papers about that, but you know what actually helps is somebody has to ... go to the office to pick up that yard sign, they are committed to that candidate. That’s where it helps,” he said.
Richards later added, “Maybe your neighbors will say, ‘Oh why do you have that yard sign?’ and you can give that spiel of why they should go vote for that person, but in terms of people driving by at 30 miles per hour, I can’t imagine it does a whole lot of good.”