As recently as 2000, Virginia was a reliably “red” state. Virginia had a Republican governor, a Republican lieutenant governor, a Republican attorney general, and two Republican U.S. senators. Of the state’s 11-member delegation to the U.S. House, eight were Republicans. At the presidential level, George W. Bush had just cruised to an easy victory over Al Gore, the eighth consecutive victory for Republican presidential candidates in the Commonwealth.
By all indications, Virginia, like its southern brethren, was going to be increasingly uncompetitive for the foreseeable future. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Permanent Republican Majority.
Virginia, usually a reliably Republican state in presidential elections, may become a key battleground in the 2008 election as broadly negative views among independents of President Bush and the war in Iraq have altered the presidential race.
Mirroring the national mood, Virginians’ approval of Bush and support for U.S. policies in Iraq have eroded as the war has dragged on. Bush is the worst of the past nine presidents, say Virginia’s independent voters, who helped him win in 2004 but now say they are more likely to prefer that a Democrat rather than a Republican be the next president. […]
[M]ore than a year before the general election, this poll shows that four in 10 voters prefer that a Democrat be elected to the White House in 2008, compared with 33 percent who said they favor a Republican.
The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard conducted a fairly extensive poll of Virginians and found a surprisingly competitive state. In fact, if anything, Virginia is suddenly leaning blue — more than half of the state’s residents have an unfavorable view of the national Republican Party, while more than half of Virginians have a favorable impression of national Democrats.
Like Yglesias, I think Mark Warner deserves quite a bit of the credit for making Virginia “bluer.” Following Jim Gilmore’s almost comically hopeless term as governor, the state was willing to take a chance on a Democrat. Warner won, governed very well, and enjoyed stunning popularity statewide (he left office with an approval rating over 70%).
But reading over the results of the Post poll, Bush really is the gift that keeps on giving. Warner may have made Democrats palatable to otherwise GOP-leaning Virginians, but the president sealed the deal.
Randall Austin, who lives in conservative southwestern Virginia, said, “I think most of the United States and the majority of people I talk to are kind of negative towards the Republican Party. With the war, the economy, with everything, including fuel pricing, I have a feeling everyone wants a change.” Austin, of course, voted for Bush.
