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Will Republican-leaning
Virginia go for Kerry in 2004?
by Larry J. Sabato
For Virginia Business
October 2004
Democratic
presidential nominee John Kerry sent a shock wave through
the national political community in late May when his
campaign announced it would seriously contest President
Bush for Virginia’s 13 electoral votes. It sounded
like a purely political maneuver to force the Republicans
to spend money in a state that has not voted for a national
Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Of course, that
theory appeared somewhat less convincing after Kerry
spent Memorial Day stumping in Portsmouth, Va. It’s
hard to believe, but the last Democrat to contest Virginia
seriously was Jimmy Carter in 1976; Carter won the nation
but lost the state narrowly, with Virginia the only
Southern state to deny the Georgian its electoral votes.
Democrats are pumped about their prospects in Virginia
in 2004, and given President Bush’s manifest problems,
from the divisive Iraq war to the troubled economy,
it is far from impossible that Kerry will be able to
pull off a surprising upset here. Virginia is changing
demographically, with more heft in moderate Northern
Virginia’s vote. And despite all the controversies
over his military service, Vietnam veteran John Kerry
may be able to attract a higher proportion of the veteran
vote than most Democrats. Still, it is highly doubtful
that Virginia will be the state that puts John Kerry
at the front of the Electoral College class. Since it
last picked a Democratic president, Virginia has been,
on average, about six points more Republican than the
national popular vote. Despite the enthusiastic backing
of Democratic Gov. Mark Warner, Virginia would be inclined
to go Democratic only if Kerry were running well ahead
of President Bush in the national popular vote. Thus,
should Virginia swing to Kerry on Election Day, the
state won’t make the difference — the contest
will already be in the Democrat’s pocket, and
he may be taking more than 300 electoral votes overall.
If the Democratic nominee gets this unexpected Southern
prize, he will be “Kerry-ing us back to ol’
Virginny,” that is, to the first half of the twentieth
century, when the Democrats dominated presidential elections.
The aftermath of the bloody Civil War and the voting
restrictions at the turn of the twentieth century made
Virginia so Democratic that it voted for even the most
obscure Democratic presidential nominees. Judge Alton
B. Parker secured Virginia’s backing in 1904,
even as he was swamped nationally with a then-record
popular vote plurality by President Theodore Roosevelt.
Teddy’s Democratic cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
had economic policies too liberal for Virginia’s
elites, but the right party label helped him win Virginia
overwhelmingly four times from 1932 to 1944.
Virginia’s political climate was changing, though,
and the change burst through in 1952 when Gen. Dwight
Eisenhower handily captured the state’s electoral
votes. He repeated the feat in 1956, and he helped his
Vice President, Richard Nixon, make it a three-peat
in 1960. Despite LBJ’s relatively narrow victory
in his 1964 national landslide over the GOP’s
Barry Goldwater, the Republican circle has been unbroken
since then.
Like Virginia, every state is a dynamic political system,
constantly evolving by means of generational and migratory
turnover. Shifts occur slowly, and states maintain their
general position on the party scale from election to
election. These categories are not absolutely fixed,
and from time to time a state wobbles, switching, or
nearly switching, sides. In 2000, Democratic strongholds
such as Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon, and Wisconsin almost
voted Republican for president. The Old Dominion almost
wobbled Democratic in 1976 for Jimmy Carter, but snapped
back solidly Republican for Ronald Reagan in 1980, staying
in place until Bill Clinton drew it closer to the Democratic
column in 1992 and especially 1996. (Bush Sr. and Dole
still won, though.) Another Republican snapback occurred
in 2000 for George W., and the Kerry campaign hopes
for a Democratic wobble in 2004.
Kerry’s attempt to win Virginia may or may not
yield him any electoral votes on Nov. 2nd, but it will
bring the Commonwealth national political attention
and stir greater interest in the election. In this sense,
Virginia wins regardless of the outcome. For the first
time in 28 years, Virginians will get to see the candidates
close up, and the candidates will be enticed to learn
a bit more about us. This is certainly not too much
for the 12th largest state to ask. After all, Virginia
has almost twice the population of Iowa and New Hampshire
combined. Thanks to the competition within our borders
this year, Virginia is at last getting her due.
Larry Sabato is the director of the Center for Politics
at the University of Virginia and serves as the university’s
Robert Kent Gooch professor of political science. He
has written more than 20 books on the American political
process.
Return to Virginia Business - October 2004
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