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EGACY
INSIDE
Examining restorative justice - 3 Henrico schools look at diversity - 5 Dwayne Johnson... still mmmmh - 10 Conversations on race in Norfolk - 12
Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
WEDNESDAYS • July 18, 2018
Richmond & Hampton Roads
LEGACYNEWSPAPER.COM • FREE
Battle of the Chesapeake: “Virginia is turning blue, and the Republicans are... turning crazy”? ALEXANDRA DESANCTIS
In late June, John Whitbeck, chairman of the Republican party of Virginia since 2015, resigned his post with little explanation. The decision came just weeks after outsider politician Corey Stewart seized the GOP nomination to challenge U.S. senator Tim Kaine in November, and less than a year after the party sustained widespread state-level losses. For the GOP in Virginia, Whitbeck’s departure was the latest in a string of troubling events that have called into question whether the state — long considered one of the most significant swing states in the country — can remain winnable for Republicans during and after the presidency of Donald Trump. According to political experts, Virginia can be considered either the northernmost southern state or the southernmost northern state. Recent Democratic successes and shifting demographics seem to favor the latter view. The main areas of recent population growth have been Democratic areas — Northern Virginia, just outside the District of Columbia; the capital, Richmond; and Henrico County in the Richmond suburbs. Meanwhile, the population has declined in the southwest and in Hampton Roads, the former a Republican stronghold and the latter a battleground. From 2000 to 2010, Virginia’s Hispanic population, which tends to support Democrats, increased by 92 percent, with twothirds of that growth concentrated in Northern Virginia. One experienced Republican activist argues that “Virginia is more like a purple state with a rollercoaster pattern than it is a red state turning blue.” But Mike Murphy, a longtime GOP political consultant,
Corey Stewart says: “The state is turning blue, and the Republicans are responding to that by turning crazy. That is a cycle that will electorally wipe out the party, at least at the state level.” Tucker Martin, a veteran political strategist with extensive experience in the state, tells National Review that there’s a disconnect between what Virginia is and what many Virginia Republicans believe it to be. “The Democrats are on home turf now, and Republicans need to branch out and create their own brand,” Martin says. “The problem is that the Trump era has made it almost impossible to do that.” Over the last few years, these factors have converged to push Virginia from purple to blue. Even as its quickly changing demographics have favored the Left, a stripe of populist Republican politician has arisen on the right, appealing to a core of supporters who have driven the state GOP even further rightward, distancing moderate voters and, in some cases,
encouraging Democratic engagement. Not very long ago, the GOP had reason to believe that the state’s electorate was challenging but moderately favorable to it. Republican Bob McDonnell defeated Democratic opponent Creigh Deeds in the 2009 gubernatorial election by more than 17 percentage points, the largest margin of victory in recent Virginia history. In 2014, longtime GOP leader Ed Gillespie ran against popular incumbent senator Mark Warner and fell short by less than one percentage point. For GOP optimists, these races suggest the state recently was and could remain competitive. But another election, earlier in 2014, was an under-acknowledged predictor of the state party’s travails. In Virginia’s seventh congressional district, GOP outsider Dave Brat upset House majority leader Eric Cantor in the high-turnout primary and went on to win the seat, buoyed by hard-right, anti-immigration voices. In the primary, Brat railed
against Cantor’s ties to the corporate sector, as well as his support for loose immigration policy, and captured the surprise victory. It was the first such upset since the creation of the House majority-leader position in 1899, and, although Brat took the seat, it flagged a change in the GOP base that meant trouble for the party’s chances of winning statewide. Enter Donald Trump, a political outsider much like Brat who surged onto the scene in 2015 to compete for the presidential nomination, appealing to many of the same parts of the GOP base that Brat had wooed. Though Trump’s strategy played well nationally, it wasn’t as successful in Virginia. The businessman even struggled to find a state politician willing to chair his state campaign until Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, stepped in. Trump barely won the Virginia primary on March 1, with Florida senator Marco Rubio coming in a close second. Tellingly, Trump received only a plurality of the vote. This lack of widespread support was a sign of things to come. Virginia was the only southern state to go to Hillary Clinton, who won it by more than Barack Obama had in 2012. Following Trump’s shocking national victory, Virginia, one of two states to hold its gubernatorial contest the year after the presidential race, entered a new election cycle. For Stewart, it was the occasion for what one source says he called his “Hail Mary pass” out of Prince William County, galvanizing Trump’s most fervent Virginia supporters in order to challenge Gillespie for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.
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