How early TV ads helped Avula brush off attacks and become Richmond’s next mayor

Dr. Danny Avula defined himself for Richmond voters by running political ads early and often. Those commercials served a dual purpose: portraying Avula as a community leader devoted to progressive causes and defusing some of his political vulnerabilities as a former member of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration.

Despite efforts by rival Harrison Roday and his allies to recast Avula as a closet conservative, those attacks didn’t land with enough impact to knock Avula off his path to victory.

Michelle Mosby — who had significantly less money than Avula and Roday to communicate a message of her own — wasn’t able to expand beyond her base of support in areas with the highest concentration of Black voters. She also didn’t see the type of turnout surge for Vice President Kamala Harris that could’ve lifted her past Avula.

Those dynamics added up to a convincing victory for Avula, who won six of the city’s nine political districts and appears on track to win more than 45% of the popular vote in a five-person race. Mosby won three districts. Roday, City Councilor Andreas Addison (1st District) and community organizer Maurice Neblett didn’t carry any districts.

The keys to Avula’s win, according to longtime political analyst Bob Holsworth, were his ability to raise money, the local visibility he already had from his public health career and his decision to start running TV ads long before his opponents did. 

In a contest that featured few major policy disagreements and a good amount of unity among the candidates on priorities like housing affordability, City Hall reform, safe streets and more funding for public schools, strategists with several campaigns agreed that broadcast ads played a big role in their plans to reach voters and break through the noise of a presidential election.

Roday, Holsworth said, made a “huge strategic miscalculation” by ceding the TV airwaves to Avula for several weeks in September and into early October.

“So long as Roday didn’t win any districts, Avula was in good shape,” Holsworth said. “Because Mosby didn’t have the resources to be able to compete citywide.”

Mosby campaign adviser Don Mark agreed that money was a major hurdle for her and limited her ability to compete with Avula in the ad wars.

“He just communicated earlier and with more frequency than anybody else in the race,” Mark said.

The Mosby campaign was anticipating that Roday would use some of his campaign cash to go after Avula.

“Roday did attack Danny but it came too late and landed too weak. I just don’t think those hits stuck,” Mark said.