Virginia up for grabs... but not really.

Note: This post can also be found on Battle Ground States '08.

Viriginia is now a battleground state, except it's not.

We haven't voted for a democrat since 1964, and Bush won with a nearly 10% margin in each of his elections, but that isnt going to stop Barack Obama from trying.

Indeed, the growing population in the largely democratic north has given hope to the democratic presidential candidate that he may be able to grab our 13 electoral votes.

But how realistic are his chances? There is no doubt that the moderate north is swinging more democratic after the policies of Bush, but no democrat not named Mark Warner has won in the state with any substantial margin. Kaine barely accrued 51% of the vote and Jim Webb was still within the recount number. And these were in non-presidential years.

In other words, don't count it. At least thats what John McCain's campaign believes - his ads are clearly targeted at energizing the south. The strategy is simple - get the republican base to the polls. It worked for Bush and just about every Republican before him.

How about that news buzzing about that Obama may select Kaine as his running mate? Thats good news for Republicans. The governor is not very popular in his own state - after failing to alleviate the massive transportation problems and alienating the republican legislature, Kaine will deliver Virginia - to the Republicans.

Virginia GOP picks Senate nominee, Congressional races about to start

Hello everyone!

Before I begin, let me do a quick introduction. I'm a sophomore student at George Mason University in Fairfax majoring in Government. I serve on the Executive Board of the GMU College Republicans. In addition to my writings here, I also write for GMU CR's blog, and the VA CR Blog. 

I hope you enjoy my writings.

Now that the introduction is out of the way, let's get to work shall we?

Last weekend The Virginia GOP elected a new Chairman and picked the Republican nominee to face Democrat Mark Warner this fall. They narrowly elected Former Governor Jim Gilmore in a close race between him and Delegate Bob Marshall. They also elected Jeff Frederick over current Chairman John Hager (father of Henry Hager). It is understandable that Frederick beat Hager. After all, after three years of failed elections, the higher ups normally get blamed. In my own opinion, Gilmore's name recognition helped him out some, yet the election was a lot closer than some would have liked.

It has been a tough few years for Virginia. (For more info on Virginia as a new "battle ground" state, check out the blog Battle Ground States '08 to see my upcoming posts on Virginia.) Just to give you an idea of how bad its been for Virginia, let me go over the last three election in VA. In 2005, the GOP lost the Governor's mansion for for a second term again. In 2006, Jim Webb defeated first term Senator George Allen in a hard fought election. Democrats are getting smart in VA in nominating moderate and conservative Democrats in order to win. In 2007, the GOP lost control of the State Senate, while only narrowly holding on to the House of Delegates.

The vote total was 5,222 for Gilmore and 5,156 for Marshall. Gilmore, a popular Governor has a lot of work to do, starting with holding on to his base. Strong pro-lifers are slightly dissatisfied with him, as he does agree with abortion in the early stages of pregnancy. As Governor, he successfully passed legislation that banned partial birth abortion.

In current polls, Gilmore is loosing heavily to Warner. However, there is some good news. In every campaign that Gilmore won, he was an underdog by a wide margin and did a quick turn-around to win. Also, Warner's broken promises, tax hikes, and failed transportation bills promise to be good campaign material.  For more on Warner's broken promises, click here.

While I will talk about all of VA's upcoming races in this blog, I will probably focus the majority of my time on VA's Senate race and the Congressional Races of Northern Virginia, which consist of the 8th, 10th, and 11th districts. 

On Tuesday, the the 8th district of VA will hold its GOP primary. Two candidates are running: Amit Singh and Mark Ellmore. Whoever wins will face Democratic incumbent Jim Moran. I'll post the results here Tuesday night. This could also be interesting for Moran. He is being challenged in a primary- a sign that Democrats are starting to get tired of him. This could help the GOP this fall.