Their a number of different theories on how Creigh Deeds won the nomination last night. One of the main theories is that the Washington Post endorsement turned around the race. This theory says that this was an endorsement Moran was counting on, and when Creigh Deeds received it Moran had the wind sucked out of his sails, and Deeds catapaulted to first place.
A couple other ideas are that the SWAC bloggers bringing up McAuliffe's past connections lead to McAuliffe's downfall, and Ben Tribbett's endorsement had an unintended effect.
So how did Creight Deeds actually win? First of all make no doubt about it, Creigh Deeds won this race. Sure the other candidates made mistakes, but so does everyone. Moran and McAuliffe didn't have big "macacca" where they gave it up. Instead Moran and McAuliffe spent months telling the state that the other candidate was horrible. Eventually enough people voted for neither of them and realized Deeds was the only one who wasn't horrible. As rule 39 in Morton Blackwell's Rules of the Public Policy Process states, "Winners aren't perfect. They made fewer mistakes than their rivals." Also they remembered that it was a long election cycle, and didn't give up when they were behind so that when McAuliffe and Moran stumbled they were in position to take advantage of the opportunity.
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