Terry's Elections Guide and Predictions: Virginia
Senate (Republican-held)
Jim Webb (D) 52 - George Allen (R) 48
This has been a big success for Democrats and the netroots no matter how it turns out: last year at this time George Allen did all his campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire. In fact, for a while in 2005 insider polls had Allen as the frontrunner to take the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Jim Webb won an astonishingly low-turnout primary (seriously, 2 percent) almost entirely based on his blogger buzz, which in turn was almost entirely created by his resume: a former Reagan Secretary of the Navy, he became disillusioned with the modern Republican Party and decided to become a Democrat and take his country back. Also he writes novels, which are apparently pretty good. In any event, 2006 revealed that Allen is both a racist and an asshole, and even if he squeaks out a win here he's pretty much damaged goods for 2008. I heard the interesting argument recently that Allen's fall may wind up a net loss for Democrats. Without Allen in the presidential race there aren't really any social conservatives in good standing running for president (McCain is obviously lying to someone; Romney is, god forbid, a Mormon; and Huckabee has no way to raise money), so instead of potentially nominating George Allen, social conservatives may give up and back a candidate who could actually win the general election. I never like the idea of hoping the other party nominates someone truly awful on the oft-illustrated theory that anything can happen, but there may be something here. McCain will be tough to beat. Incidentally, supposedly Allen's field program sucks.
VA-02 (Republican-held)
Phil Kellam (D) 50 - Thelma Drake (R) 49
Kellam is a good example of the kind of Democrat who I suspect always runs for Congress but never before received any attention from the national committees and thus never had a real shot at winning. Thelma Drake has pretty soft support as a one-term incumbent and Kellam is fairly well known as Virginia Beach's commissioner of the revenue. Actually, Kellam's family has apparently been Virginia Beach elite for decades, so he's counting on a lot of his father's old friends to carry him into office. Polls have been split here, but I read a profile of Kellam and liked him, so I'm giving him the edge.
VA-10 (Republican-held)
Frank Wolf (R) 54 - Judy Feder (D) 44
Man, some schools talk about public policy... Judy Feder is the dean of Georgetown's public policy school, and now she's running for Congress in this suburban DC district. The northern Virginia area is both rapidly gaining in population and trending heavily Democratic, so I suspect this seat will not be in Republican hands for long. Still, I believe this race became competitive too late to win this time, but with luck Frank Wolf won't be in Congress past 2008.
Comments
Interesting observations on Allen, and probably correct...however, I am betting you have missed the mark on Wolf.
He wins today with at least 56%, and if Feder cannot get closer than that in the biggest democratic tsunami in years with tons of $$ behind her, then Wolf is good to go until 2012, when the 10th is redistricted. At that time it is likely he will lose some or all of the GOP areas on the outer edges of the district, and combined with changing demographics in Fairfax and Loudoun the 10th will be come exceedingly competitive...but not until then.
Posted by: Bwana | November 7, 2006 3:16 PM