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Popular former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner formally announced today that he is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. John Warner. The announcement immediately give the Democrats a strong frontrunner in a race that would help solidify a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, and makes the possibility of two Democrats representing the Commonwealth of Virginia for the first time since 1970 highly likely.
No other serious Democrat is likely to challenge Warner, who left office as one of the most popular governors in Virginia history after serving only one term. Republican challengers are likely to include Rep. Tom Davis or former governor Jim Gilmore, and of course, possibly "Pitchfork" Pat Buchanan.
Could Davis pose a serious threat to Warner? Matt Yglesias points to a Rasmussen Poll to say probably not:
In a match-up of former Virginia Governors, a Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds Warner leading Jim Gilmore by twenty percentage points, 54% to 34%. Warner also starts the season with a comfortable lead over Virginia Congressman Tom Davis. The Rasmussen Reports poll shows Warner attracting 57% of the vote while Davis earns 30%.This announcement only makes us more desperate for Buchanan to jump into the race, if only to give us something to write about. As last year's Allen vs. Webb campaign taught us, anything can happen the course of a Senate campaign in Virginia, but it's hard to imagine anyone giving Mark Warner a serious challenge at this point.
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Warner to replace Warner? My head hurts already..
Warner can find himself in trouble if he fails to address illegal immigration to the satisfaction of many NOVAns. I can easily see the gains the Dems have made in NOVA fall apart if they stumble on the illegal immigration issue. It will also be interesting to see how the SOVAns react to the possibility of their senate seats being occupied by Yankees.
He only served one term, because that's all he can serve by Virginia law. You make it sound like he left office early.
The Virginia constitution limits governors to one term.
No, the Virginia constitution limits governors to non-consecutive terms, not to one term. Mark Warner, Jim Gilmore, any of these guys can run for governor again after a 4-year absence from that office.
And I think the editors are discounting the challenges Warner will face in the senate race. Virginia as a whole is overwhelmingly Republican. "If the election were held today" polls have a nasty habit of swinging wildly over the course of a campaign. Remembering what was brought up about Warner when he ran for governor, I'm sure we'll see a lot of anti-Mark mongering after primary season. It certainly won't be a cakewalk.
Webb was just elected, so I think to say "Virginia as a whole is overwhelmingly Republican" is incorrect.
Virginia as a whole seems to be split pretty evenly.
I would never predict a cakewalk for any politician. Things can happen over the course of a year (see George "Macaca" Allen). That said, the Republicans have a tough task ahead of them. As the Post's "The Fix" blog points out, Warner's approval ratings are sky-high, around 70-75 pct.
If the war in Iraq carries on as is, or gets worse, in the next 10 months, I predict immigration becomes a non-issue in the campaign.
Yes, Everett, Virginia certainly isn't a blue state, but it's hardly overwhelmingly Republican.
The biggest problem with the poll is that at this point most people outside Northern Virginia have never heard of Tom Davis, whereas Mark Warner is known throughout Virginia. So for most of the state the poll might as well have been Mark Warner vs. Other.
Virginia certainly isn't a blue state, but it's hardly overwhelmingly Republican.
Virginia has a Democratic governor, a Democratic Senator, and the largest jurisdiction in the state (Fairfax - 1.1 million) went nicely for John Kerry in 2004. It ain't Vermont, but I think it's safe to say that Virginia is looking more and more like Ohio and Missouri and Florida and less and less like South Carolina and Georgia.
Jim Webb is to Democrat as Michael Bloomberg is to Republican.
DCist ate my long comment, so I'll boil it down to this:
Jim Webb is a Democrat like Ghandi was a Roman Catholic. (I swear I wrote that at 4:52.)
Also, see this map of the 2004 electoral results. Taking out the Northern Virginia districts from the 53% VA for Bush average, you'll see it's much closer to a 70% vote for Bush in that election. In this 50/50 polarized electorate environment, I have no problem calling that "overwhelming."
And please also consider:
VA has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the country.
VA has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.
VA has in the last few years put in what are probably unconstitutional restrictions on contracts when two people of the same gender try to set up health proxies or other paperwork that conservatives say approximate marriage rights.
VA had one of the harshest jail sentencing guidelines in the country against sodomy before the (conservative) Supreme Court struck down such rules. Read that as VA is more conservative than the already conservative Supreme Court.
Maybe it's not overwhelmingly Republican, but it sure as heck is overwhelmingly conservative.
Also, see this map of the 2004 electoral results. Taking out the Northern Virginia districts from the 53% VA for Bush average, you'll see it's much closer to a 70% vote for Bush in that election. In this 50/50 polarized electorate environment, I have no problem calling that "overwhelming."
So, essentially, what you're saying is that Virginia is overwhelmingly conservative if you ignore the parts that aren't conservative.
I'm aware that lots of people on both sides of the NoVa/RoVa dividing line wish they weren't in the same state, but they are, so you have to include NoVa when talking about Virginia "as a whole."
Sure, Jim Webb isn't a Democrat. I see lots of Republicans campaigning on the growing gap between rich and poor, opposing the war, and posting on Daily Kos.
And what sort of goalpost moving is it to exclude the most Democratic part of Virginia and then say "Well, the rest is overwhelmingly Republican"? Your claim was that "Virginia as a whole is overwhelmingly Republican", and that's simply not true. If it were, it would be amazing that the governor, immediate ex-governor, and one senator are Democrats, and that Democrats are likely to retake the state senate this year.
The people in Northern Virginia get to vote in this Senate election just as much as they did in the last, so it makes no sense to exclude them from your analysis. In fact, there'll probably be even more of them than there were last time, since the NoVa population is still growing relative to the rest of Virginia.
Virginia may be majority (or plurality) Republican, but if it's overwhelmingly so, then by your definition practically every state is overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic.
It's not goalpost moving, it's just that looking at the "average" of 53% doesn't get us the full picture of how a few densely populated, small in geographic area districts are set against a much larger population that has a very different political bent. I don't need to be a statistician to say that averages often don't tell the whole story. But for statistician-speak, it's not exactly out of hand to de-emphasize the outliers in a data set. Arlington, which went for Kerry by something like 75%, is certainly an outlier for the state in that election.
So a better measure of the political climate in Virginia, in my opinion, may be to look at how the state delegates and senators break out, which is much closer to the 2/3 republican, 1/3 democrat mix that is the force driving a lot of VIrginia's laws and priorities.
I'm not excluding NoVa from any "analysis," and I'm not even doing an "analysis" per se. I'm just trying to show why I saw VA is very majority Republican. Hey, I lived there for 8 years (in Arlington), I know first hand what it's like to vote one way and have the rest of the state ignore it.
And if you look at the district maps from the 2004 election, you'll see that very few states were as polarized as Virginia, on a district by district basis. And most of those polarized states, Texas for example, had gone through extensive redistricting by a Republican-majority legislature. Even Ohio, which people say was the state that "gave" the election to Bush, was very evenly split in most of its districts. This just wasn't the case in VA.
KC, also, I think a stronger argument on your side is to say that Mark Warner has enormous popularity in NoVa, since he's from there and has a ton of business ties, who we all know are great at the fundraising. So if he can draw a good turnout in NoVa, then that will only help him at the polls.
Again, I'm not saying he can't win it, just that I don't think I'd go as far as to say "it's hard to imagine anyone giving Mark Warner a serious challenge at this point."
a few densely populated, small in geographic area districts are set against a much larger population that has a very different political bent
What you've just described could apply to any number of "blueish" states. Pennsylvania, for example. Central PA is just as conservative as rural VA. But Metro Pittsburgh and Metro Philadelphia are much bigger relative to the population of rural PA than Richmond and NoVA. But the population trends are not favorable to Danville and Lynchburg.
Everett, it doesn't matter if every Democrat in the entire state of Virginia crowds into Arlington and the Republicans take over the rest of the state. Distribution is irrelevant. Every Virginian votes in one big group in a senatorial (or gubernatorial) election. There are no electoral votes, or districts, or any other complication involved: whoever gets the most votes statewide wins.
By saying that Northern Virginia doesn't count as the real Virginia, you're following in the footsteps of George Allen, but as he found out that logic doesn't lead to victory at the polls. Those people you're writing off as "outliers" get to vote just like any other Virginian.
KC, you're being disingenuous. I didn't say NoVa doesn't count. I can't believe I even have to argue the concept of "Virginia is overwhelmingly Republican." Only on DCist would such an idea be up for discussion.
I'm not saying people are outliers in real life. I'm saying that 53% of a VA average vote for Bush does not a whole picture present. That's it.
I don't need anyone to tell me how elections work, and going on about it is just to avoid discussing the actual point I made, which is not to consider Mark Warner's campaign for senator an easy task.
Everett - You are "having to argue" because your assertion that "Virginia is overwhelmingly Republican" is simply not supported by the facts. Just because the most of the geographical area of the state is (sparsely) inhabited by conservatives does not make your point true. It's only about population, and you just can seem to accept this. By any measure, VA is now purple.
Everett, I'm not saying that Mark Warner will necessarily have an easy time of it. I'm arguing against your assertion that "Virginia is overwhelmingly Republican." It's not true, and you haven't presented any evidence for it, except for an argument that involves writing off Northern Virginia as a bunch of outliers that can be excluded to show that the "real" Virginia is 70% Republican.
If having Democrats concentrated near urban centers while Republicans are spread out over a larger area makes a state "overwhelmingly Republican", then virtually the entire country is overwhelmingly Republican. It's a ridiculous definition and a silly claim, and I don't understand why you're so attached to it.
It's a ridiculous definition and a silly claim, and I don't understand why you're so attached to it.
That's a disingenuous claim, when you make it perfectly clear that you understand full well why GOP partisans are so attached to it -- "then virtually the entire country is overwhelmingly Republican."
Everett--
How about we just agree to meet back here again on November 5, 2008 to decide whether you were right or not? I'll even put some invisible blog money on the line. $100 DCist-dollars says Mark Warner walks away with it handily, excepting some left-field scandal.
~ g16
I'm having trouble finding voter counts by party affiliation, but there are 4,571,072 voters in Virginia as of 12/27/2006. There were 25 districts in VA reporting the election results from the 2004 gubernatorial election. 7 went for Kerry, the rest for Bush. Here's a map of the election by county and city: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/VA/P/00/map.html
Now please, stop saying there's not an overwhelming majority who vote Republican in Virginia. Look at the data.
I'm not saying the country is overwhelmingly Republican. Cripes, my friends watch this conversation in this thread and laugh that it's even an argument. Pennsylvania does not have Virginia's conservative sodomy laws, it didn't add restrictions against gays forming contracts. In fact, VA is the ONLY state in the country with such restrictions. It's clear to me that I'm not the one attached to a conclusion with no merit.