Party ties in Virginia become shady
By
Matthew Cahill
The
2008 elections brought Virginia from a “battleground state” to a “swing
state,” but political analysts are not so quick to call it a “blue
state.”
At
first glance, Virginia does not appear to be a blue state at all.
Of the state’s 95 counties, only 23 voted for President-elect
Barack Obama, giving Virginia an overwhelmingly red hue on the election
results maps provided by CNN and the Associated Press.
Also,
2008 marked the first time Virginia voted Democratic in a presidential
election since 1964, which had been the first year since 1948. So, in 60
years, the state voted Democratic three times.
“Virginia is a really unique case,” said Erica Woods-Warrior, a
political science professor at Hampton University. “The shift has not
been gradual.”
However, by also picking up a second U.S. Senate seat for the first time
since 1970, the Democrats fared well in Virginia in 2008, following a
number of political successes in recent years.
“This
election has perpetuated a voting bloc we have not seen before,”
Woods-Warrior said.
John
McGlennon, a political science professor at the College of William and
Mary, said the Republicans stand to lose more offices if they do not
make serious adjustments.
McGlennon, who specializes in state and local politics, said, “It's not
really a "blue" state yet, but with two governors, two U.S. Senators and
a presidential win, the Democrats are certainly on a roll.”
Though most of Virginia’s counties voted Republican in the presidential
election, significant increases in Democratic support occurred in
Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, as well as in many of Virginia’s
independent cities, according to the Virginia Elections Board.
“It's
a sign of changing demographics, changing attitudes toward the parties
and policy issues, and likely a long-term change,” McGlennon said.
“Virginia has always been more conservative in style than ideology, and
I expect that it will continue to be so, though inevitably, it will be
pulled toward new policy initiatives.”
Novelle Dickenson, a political science professor at Hampton University,
also pointed to demographics and voter attitudes as having an effect on
this election.
“In
electoral terms, one uses the concept, realignment,” Dickenson said.
“The elements were in place. It just blossomed this time, for obvious
reasons.”
Dickenson specializes in political science research and analysis. He
said other conditions contributed to the victories of Obama and the
Democrats, including a failing economy and a surge of young voters.
“People vote on three basic factors: candidate personality, party
affiliation, and campaign message,” Dickenson said. “What we saw was a
combination of all three.”
Dickenson said a state’s ideology cannot be measured by voting patterns,
but by state government programs.
Democrats took control of the Virginia Senate last year, winning
Republican districts such as the 1st and 6th in
the General Assembly.
However, state Sen. Mamie Locke,
dean of
Hampton University’s School of Liberal Arts,
said
Virginia is still culturally conservative and cannot be considered a
blue state until next year’s state elections.
Like
Dickenson, Locke said a large part of the Democratic victories in the
2008 election were due to the campaigns.
“The
Democratic Party has started to do some of the things the Republican
Party is good at,” she said. “Their game was a very grass-roots,
ground-level campaign. That had never been a Democratic focus.”
Locke
also said Barack Obama’s relationship with Gov.
Tim Kaine helped win Virginia voters.
Kaine,
the state’s second consecutive Democratic governor, has held majority
approval ratings during his term, according to SurveyUSA polls.
Sen.-elect Mark R. Warner, succeeding Republican Sen. John W. Warner in
the U.S. Senate, helped to realign party attitudes in Virginia as
governor in 2001.
Warner’s Democratic gubernatorial administration had high approval
ratings, in the 70 percent range, for three years after he left office,
according to Quentin Kidd, a political science professor at Christopher
Newport University.
Kidd
said Warner’s support did not come from specific policies, but from his
focus on governing:
“He
promised a more business-like approach to governing, less ideological
and more pragmatic. He is seen as a centrist who is more focused on
results than on partisanship.”
An
NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that voters preferred a Democratic
Congress to a Republican Congress, 52 percent to 33 percent, even though
79 percent disapprove of Congress as a whole.
“There has been in recent years a shift away from Republican
identification and towards Independent and Democratic,” Kidd said. “This
has been caused by the tarnished image of Republican office-holders at
the federal level on down to the General Assembly.”
According to the Washington Post, two prominent Republicans, Vincent
Callahan, former chairman of the state House Appropriations Committee,
and John Chichester, former state Senate president, endorsed Warner for
the U.S. Senate.
“I
interpret it as dissatisfaction with the Republicans who have run
Virginia for a decade, frustration with President Bush, and fear of bad
economy,” Kidd said.
Kidd
said Virginia is still culturally conservative, “even with its blue
hue.”
Asked
if 2012 could be similar, he said, “Who knows? Hell, that’s like another
lifetime from now.”
The writer is a senior at
