Western Virginia May Hold Key to the Governor’s Race

When it comes to political punditry, Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, and Metro Richmond seem to get all the attention. That's not entirely surprising. It's where the votes are, after all. But not all the votes.

Western Virginia might make the difference in this year's race for governor -- especially the 6th Congressional District, which includes much of the Shenandoah Valley (I-81 runs through the middle of the district like a spine), and the 9th, which encompasses the commonwealth's entire southwestern panhandle.

Democratic nominee Creigh Deeds, the state senator from Bath County, which shares a border with West Virginia, ran well in both districts in 2005, when he lost the attorney general race to Republican Bob McDonnell by a mere 360 votes out of 1.943 million cast.

Deeds didn't win either district four years ago, but he ran much better than Democrats typically do. Deeds garnered about 48 percent of the vote in the Fightin' 9th and 45 percent in the usually rock-ribbed Republican 6th.

In the 9th, Deeds' showing was nearly 5 percentage points ahead of running mate Tim Kaine; 4 percentage points ahead of Scots-Irish Sen. Jim Webb's total in 2006; and a full 8 percentage points better than President Barack Obama's share of the vote last year. Of course, all of those Democrats won and Deeds did not because they were much stronger in other parts of the state.

In the 6th, Deeds ran 1 point better than Kaine, nearly 5 points better than Webb, and more than 3 points better than Obama. Assuming Deeds had won the typical percentage of votes that Democrats can expect in those two districts -- say, 42 percent in the 9th and 41 percent in the 6th, he would have lost in 2005 not by 360 votes but by about 17,000.

It was Deeds' hometown advantage out west that moved him so close to victory four years ago. Will he be able to replicate that performance this year in his rematch with McDonnell? Several factors suggest that he will not.

Deeds, for instance, has moved left on a number of issues -- his professed willingness to raise taxes perhaps the most damaging. In addition, his primary weapon against McDonnell -- the Republican's 20-year-old graduate school thesis -- may not prove to be terribly effective in socially conservative rural precincts.

Perhaps most important, the sliding popularity of President Obama and congressional Democrats may resonate most deeply in the mountains and valleys of the two districts, where there's an almost instinctive suspicion of big government, whether it looms in Washington or Richmond.

Obama's showing in 2008 was below average for a Democrat in the 9th and about average in the 6th -- even though he won statewide by larger margins than Kaine or Webb. The president's popularity was never especially high out west and he could prove to be a significant drag on the entire Democratic ticket in these two districts (as well as in districts with a mix of rural and suburban voters, such as the 1st, 4th, 5th, 7th, and even the 10th).

Add in McDonnell's natural strength in the 2nd, which includes his longtime home in Virginia Beach, and it's little wonder that Deeds' hopes increasingly seem to depend on building an enormous margin in Northern Virginia. The Democrat appears to be making progress in the D.C. suburbs, where the McDonnell thesis has had a noticeable effect, but he still faces a substantial challenge -- especially if he's losing ground in places where people talk just like he does.

-- Bob Rayner