Across the Potomac River from the US Capitol, control of the Senate hangs in the balance in Virginia as a close ally of President Barack Obama hopes the state’s rapid changes will push Democrats over the top.
With its strip malls and lawns covered by falling orange leaves, Washington’s suburbs are transforming Virginia, which voted Democratic just once between 1952 and 2008 but is now among the swingiest of swing states.
Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican George Allen have been speaking everywhere from Vietnamese shopping malls to Jewish community centers to woo an increasingly diverse electorate in the state that was the seat of the Confederacy.
Kaine, a former governor, said that the demographic changes meant that Virginia was no longer a “red” Republican state but he doubted it had moved into the “blue” Democratic column.
“Demographics are one of the two or three reasons that Virginia has moved from red to purple. We’re going to be in the purple zone for a while,” Kaine said after a campaign stop in suburban Fairfax.
Allen, also a former governor and once thought to be a potential Republican presidential candidate, lost the Senate seat to a Democrat in 2006 by fewer than 10,000 votes after he was caught on video taunting a young Indian American campaigner for his rival with a racial slur.
In a sign that the election may not have been a fluke, Obama won Virginia by more than six percentage points in 2008. But the state swung back to the Republicans two years later during their landslide midterm election victory.
Polls show a virtual tie in Virginia in both the Senate and presidential races, making it one of the states most visited by Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney as they seek its critical 13 electoral votes.
Washington’s fast-growing suburbs comprise some of the wealthiest and most educated parts of the United States, often having more in common with the liberal Northeast than Virginia’s traditional South or Appalachian belt.
Virginia’s Hispanic population has nearly doubled between 2000 and 2010 and Asian Americans now make up nearly six percent of the population — a decisive bloc in a close race.
Many pundits predict Democrats will maintain control of the Senate, but a loss in Virginia would give the party a slimmer margin to govern, particularly with Republicans expected to stay in charge of the House of Representatives.
Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul and hawkish supporter of Israel, on October 12 donated a historic $1.5 million to a committee to boost Allen.
Allen, the son of a famous American football coach of the same name, has tried during the election to tie Kaine closely to Obama. Kaine took on the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee while he was still governor.
“You could have told the president that people are hurting in Virginia and you need to give all your attention to the people of Virginia. Now you’re asking for another job, when in the other job that you had for the people of Virginia, you did not give them 100 percent,” Allen said during a debate.
Allen has also attacked Obama over the budget of the Pentagon, which is in Virginia. The state has more defense-related jobs than any other and Romney has vowed to increase military spending, despite promises to cut government expenditure.
Kaine, a civil rights lawyer who served as a Catholic missionary in Honduras, has presented himself as a pragmatist. He said that he has openly disagreed with Obama on issues while Allen is in lockstep with Romney.
“My opponent, when he was governor, said his job was to ‘knock Democrats’ soft teeth down their whiny throats’ and he took a similar position in the Senate, fighting against compromise efforts,” Kaine said, offering one of Allen’s most remembered quotes.
Referring to Allen billboards that called Kaine, “Obama’s senator, not Virginia’s,” Kaine asked: “Is it really anti-Virginia to support the president of the United States?”
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said that Allen was likely hoping that Romney will win the state by a significant margin as some voters will split between the two parties in the presidential and Senate races.
“Kaine can still win as long as Romney doesn’t win by more than a few percentage points. There is a Romney/Kaine vote — I don’t think there’s any question of that. There really isn’t any Obama/Allen vote,” Sabato said.
Allen, who once decorated his office with Confederate memorabilia including what witnesses described as a noose, has voiced regret during his latest campaign for past statements.
Allen said that he was wrong to mock the young Indian American as it diverted attention from his main campaign issues. Allen also apologized for his defensive reaction in 2006 on discovering that his mother had Jewish roots.
Jim Webb, the Democrat who defeated Allen in 2006, chose not to seek another term, saying he did not want a life in politics.
In changing Virginia, a fierce battle for Senate
