A Huge Night for the GOP in Virginia
In the end, it wasn’t even a contest. Bob McDonnell didn’t simply beat Creigh Deeds in Tuesday’s Virginia governor’s race; he annihilated him.
Based on the returns as of Wednesday morning, McDonnell beat Deeds by 17.4 points, matching the numbers that were seen in the late polls that showed him surging to a huge lead on the eve of Election Day. McDonnell’s margin of victory tied the record that George Allen set back in 1993 as the largest margin of victory in a gubernatorial election in modern Virginia history.
McDonnell also proved to have strong coattails. Both of his ticketmates, Bill Bolling and Ken Cuccinelli, posted similarly large victories over their Democratic opponents in the races for lieutenant governor and attorney general. Virginia Republicans also ended their recent string of defeats in the state legislature by adding as many as seven seats to what had been an extremely thin two-seat majority in the House of Delegates. When McDonnell takes office in January, he will do so with a strong Republican majority in the House of Delegates and a razor-thin Democratic majority in the state Senate.
The full extent of McDonnell’s victory can be best understood by looking at Northern Virginia, the source of many of the Democratic victories that the state has seen over the past four years. In Prince William County, for example, where Obama won last year by six points, McDonnell beat Deeds by seven. In Loudoun County, where Obama won by eight points last year, McDonnell beat Deeds this year by an astounding twenty-two points. And, perhaps most significantly, in Fairfax County, the largest county in the area, which had gone for Obama by 21 points last year, McDonnell beat Deeds by 4,000 votess. To understand the significance of that final result, note that Fairfax had not gone for a Republican candidate for governor since 1997 and that four years ago the county had gone for Democrat Tim Kaine by 23 points. Some thought Fairfax County, and perhaps all of Northern Virginia, was lost to Republicans forever. Last night, Bob McDonnell proved them wrong.
I disagree. The GOP wins in the very blue Virginia & New Jersey wounds President Obama’s radical agenda to the point–if the Democrats were listening–would put a halt to ObamaCare, Crap & Tax, Card Check, & Amnesty 2.0; however, I fully expect President Obama not to listen since he is arrogant & believes his own vapid hype. The Congress is another matter completely since 2010 is just around the corner. Senator Harry Reid has shelved ObamaCare until 2010, despite whatever happens in the Socialist controlled House of Nancy Pelosi. President Obama’s agenda has been on the skids since this early Spring & Summer; it should not come to a halt with these two elections. But I don’t expect President Obama nor Nancy Pelosi to listen to their own regret.
Mr. Mataconis:
I think McDonnel’s big win will mean I-66 gets widened to eight lanes all the way through Arlington.
We can cede what’s left over back to the District, and then Arlingtonians can realize their dream of living under a life-long Democratic regime.
Beg to differ on one point with the NoVa lawyer/author:
Virginia is not a “purple” state – NOT EVEN CLOSE.
It is traditional.
It is conservative.
Above all, it is ALWAYS contrarian.
We live close enough to the septic tank otherwise known as the Nation’s Capital.
(Breaks my heart to say so, I grew up there.)
We know what to fight against/”resist”.
SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS
Bob McDonnell’s “reactionary” college thesis might have doomed his campaign in 2008, but this is 2009. The secularist yuppies would have tended to vote on behalf of their cultural war values. Alas, these folks are now worrying, first, last, and foremost, about their pocketbook issues. Money talks, and bovine excrement walks. Virginians have no interest in becoming blue state losers. The blue states will probably get bluer—-and the purple and red states will get more red.
By the way, New Jersey will unlikely be able to save itself. It’s too far gone. The voters only gave Chris Christie a roughly five point victory. That’s not good enough. He needed a 15-20 point mandate. The voters in Virginia did not make that mistake. Their message was clear.
Mr. Mataconis lives in Northern Va., and I suspect he is somewhat out of touch with what Virginians in the rest of the state think. As a lifelong Virginian, and one with ties to all areas of the state except NOVA, I can tell you that when people say their vote is reflective of their concerns over the economy, they are referring to the national deficit and its likely long-term effects on the economy. So this vote was indeed a vote against Obama’s policies. People in Va. voted for Obama last year partly b/c he campaigned on a platform of bipartisanship and fiscal responsibility, saying he would go line by line through the budget and eliminate waste. Bush had put the country in debt, and we didn’t like it. Virginians are pragmatic and fiscally conservative, and they understand quite well that you can’t run a country on red ink. We are also very strong believers in individual liberty, and THAT, Mr. Mataconis, is why neither party has enjoyed a long run in this state in recent decades. Sic Semper Tyrannis. Virginians take that motto to heart.
Obama did not abandon Deeds because they saw his campaign was a lost cause. Deeds kept Obama at arms length throughout because early on, when Obama made an appearance with him, his numbers went even farther down. Deeds did not want Obama campaigning for him because he, as a Virginian, recognized that Virginians are revolting against the huge spending going on in Washington. And he didn’t want to be associated with that. McDonnell ran a largely very positive campaign in which he articulated his positions and stayed on point. The thesis was a non-factor because everyone could look at McDonnell’s record and see that he didn’t govern according to the principles in that 20-year-old thesis. They could look at his family and see that his daughter was a commander over in Iraq and now in a position of leadership at the Pentagon – clearly this is not a man who lives according to the statements in that thesis. Perhaps at the time he was merely giving the college administration what it wanted to hear – and what student hasn’t done that at some point in his/her college career?
Virginia will continue to move to the right as long as Washington continues to move to the left.