Matthew Berry says he’s “feeling very good” about his chances in today’s Republican congressional primary.
The former government lawyer has a more than 2-to-1 fundraising advantage over his opponent, retired Army colonel Patrick Murray, and Berry says his campaign’s internal numbers “look very good.”
Voters “seem to be responding well to our positive message,” Berry said. He has spent much of the past 48 hours knocking on doors, calling likely voters and attending events.
One might think Berry would be envious of Murray’s slick, air conditioned campaign bus, which has been making dozens of stops around the 8th District over the past five days, but Berry insists that old-fashioned door-to-door campaigning is actually more effective.
“My focus is on targeting likely primary voters,” he said in a telephone interview conducted Sunday night. “I personally don’t think the best way to do that is get on a bus and wander around the district, but everybody makes their own campaign choices.”
Berry, an unabashed policy wonk whose main campaign focus has been on fiscal issues, says Republican voters should support him because he has more specific solutions to the country’s problems than his opponent.
He also says that he would be more electable in the general election (a claim also made by Murray).
Berry points to the Murray campaign’s attempts to paint him as the “establishment” or “insider” candidate as an indication of why Murray may be vulnerable in the fall.
“He’s said that I spent too much time inside the Beltway — and the last time I looked at a map most people in Virginia’s 8th District happen to live inside the Beltway,” Berry said. “If his strategy for getting elected in the 8th District is to denigrate people who live inside the Beltway, then he’s going to get slaughtered in the general election.”