Warner sweeps Virginia vote

By CLAUDIA VINCENTI

Democrat Mark Warner decisively won Tuesday’s election to become Virginia’s newest United States Senator.

Democratic Senate candidate Mark Warner gestures as Republican Senate candidate Jim Gilmore, right, listens during their debate at the Taubman Museum of Fine Art in Roanoke Oct. 3. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Warner’s 63 to 37 percent win, over Republican Jim Gilmore, gives Virginia two Democrats in the U.S. Senate and helps bolster the party’s position in Congress.  Warner easily carried both Rockbridge County and Lexington with similar margins.

Nationwide, Democrats were poised to widen their control of the Senate. But it was unclear whether they would win a 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority, as they had hoped.

The two former Virginia governors ran for the seat being vacated by the retirement of longtime Republican Senator and Washington and Lee University alumnus John Warner. Warner is not related to the Democratic candidate.  

Mark Warner had gone into Election Day with a lead of 30 percentage points in some polls. According to those recent polls, Gilmore had the support of 78 percent of Virginia Republicans, with Warner backed by nearly one of five GOP voters. Ninety-seven percent of Democrats said they supported their party’s candidate. Unaffiliated voters favored Warner nearly three-to-one.

Warner ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1996 but was elected governor in 2001. He served until 2006 and surprised many in Virginia and nationally when he announced in October of that year that he was not seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.

His statewide popularity as governor carried over into his bid for the Senate seat. Warner was favored to win the Senate race from the start.

Gilmore served as governor from 1998 to 2002 and briefly campaigned last year for the Republican presidential nomination. Prior to his term as governor, Gilmore was attorney general of Virginia from 1994-1997 and was the commonwealth’s attorney of Henrico County from 1988-1993.

Rep. Tom Davis of Northern Virginia, more moderate and with more money than Gilmore, was a Republican challenger for the nomination but dropped out of the race when the state party decided to pick its nominee with a convention rather than a primary. Gilmore defeated Del. Bob Marshall of Prince William County at the convention.

Warner prided himself on having introduced a bipartisan, results-oriented approach to Richmond during his term as governor, and promised to bring that kind of leadership to Washington.  If elected to the Senate, he told voters, he would work to build a coalition of moderate senators who are willing to fight for results instead of partisan advantage. He also promised to look out for the taxpayers to make sure their interests are protected in a financial rescue plan.

During his term as governor, Gilmore cut taxes for working families by $1.5 billion, as he promised when elected. He vowed to keep his word as senator as well and promised to get the country back on track and get the economy moving forward again.

For many observers, Gilmore’s defeat showed the decline of the traditional conservative right’s control of the state.