Terry McAuliffe, left, got a hand from Bill Clinton last week in his race for governor against Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, right.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Their cheeks brushed as they whispered into each other’s ears, Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe, together again.
“I love Terry McAuliffe and his wife and their kids,” the former president croaked hoarsely last week, explaining why he was on this three-day, nine-city swing through Virginia on behalf of Mr. McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor. “They’ve been great friends to Hillary and to Chelsea and to me for a very long time.”
After many years as Mr. Clinton’s chief fund-raiser and then as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. McAuliffe has amassed one of the largest favor banks in American politics. And now as he reaches for elected office himself, Democrats are returning the favors with endorsements, strategic advice and, of course, an avalanche of money.
“It was all part of the family, if you will,” said Jennifer M. Granholm, a former governor of Michigan, who came to Virginia to campaign with Mr. McAuliffe recently. “He’s been very good to all of us.”
Armed with a much larger war chest, Mr. McAuliffe has battered his opponent, Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, with a barrage of negative ads and has put himself in a position that would have surprised many Democrats just a year ago: ahead in the polls just two days from the election.
To close the gap, Mr. Cuccinelli was ending his campaign with a whirlwind of events, campaigning alongside a roster of Republican governors and presidential hopefuls. Mr. McAuliffe, meanwhile, was keeping a low profile in preparation for an event on Sunday with President Obama.
Mr. McAuliffe has gained front-runner status despite having to answer ethical questions arising from decades in politics and business — as old as his 1994 innovation to offer access to the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom for major campaign donors, and as new as a federal investigation this year into whether he used political ties to benefit his troubled electric car company. Mr. Cuccinelli calls him “Tricky Terry” wherever he goes, but so far the label has not quite stuck.
But Mr. McAuliffe also seems to have learned from his first run for governor of Virginia in 2009, when he was tagged as a carpetbagger and lost in the Democratic primary. In the years since, he has applied his famously effective scratch-my-back skills to the state’s Democratic hierarchy, which rewarded him by preventing a primary challenge this year.
“He’s been the highlight of fund-raisers, hundreds of them all over the state in the last four years,” said Richard Saslaw, the Democratic leader in the State Senate.
As a political moneyman, Mr. McAuliffe was known for a Barnum-like exuberance, with Al Gore once lightly mocking him as “the greatest fund-raiser in the history of the universe.” This year he has far outdone his rival. His campaign has collected $34.4 million, compared with Mr. Cuccinelli’s $19.7 million, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project.
Mr. McAuliffe’s list of top donors is a roll call of former business partners and politicians he has helped elect. The top tier of Clinton associates (Fred Eychaner, a Chicago media mogul; Douglas J. Band, a longtime adviser to Mr. Clinton; Ron Burkle, a Los Angeles billionaire) has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Mr. McAuliffe’s campaign, exploiting Virginia’s no-limits contributions policy. The lobbying firm founded by Richard A. Gephardt, a former House majority leader for whom Mr. McAuliffe toiled during the 1988 presidential campaign, kicked in $25,000.
Labor unions have also stepped up, contributing a total of $2.5 million to Mr. McAuliffe’s campaign during the election cycle. But his largest individual contributor is Sean Parker, a billionaire and early Facebook investor, who was introduced to Mr. McAuliffe by another Virginia politician just this year and quickly became a donor, writing a $500,000 check to his campaign.
Jerry Lundergan, a former chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party, recalled that when the organization was “left for dead” in 2005, Mr. McAuliffe sent a check for $150,000 from the Democratic National Committee. This year, Mr. Lundergan gave Mr. McAuliffe $100,000. “I believe in Terry McAuliffe,” he said.
Campaigning, Mr. McAuliffe has largely buried the goofily exuberant side of his personality, which once led him to wrestle an alligator for a party donation. In search of a sober image, he visited all 23 of Virginia’s community colleges, where he could be found talking with a handful of professors and students about clean energy jobs and studiously taking notes.
Mr. McAuliffe has found himself well positioned to exploit the growing split between Tea Party conservatives and the Republican Party’s business wing. A number of Virginia business leaders, some prominent Republicans among them, have abandoned Mr. Cuccinelli to back Mr. McAuliffe, arguing that he would be more effective at creating a positive business climate in the state.
Michael D. Shear contributed reporting from Washington.
