A big win for Republican Bob McDonnell in Tuesday’s Virginia gubernatorial election could revive his party and vault the former attorney general into national prominence, experts are predicting.
Pundits and pollsters alike are predicting that McDonnell will win the election, but many say a big margin of victory over Democrat Creigh Deeds will not help just Republicans lower on the ballot
“This will become known as the ‘McDonnell model’ in 2010,” political scientist and “Virginia Tomorrow” Web writer Bob Holsworth said. “McDonnell has been very successful in rebranding the Republican Party. But what I think is more fascinating about it is that he’s done so without really abandoning conservatism.” George Mason University political scientist Stephen Farnsworth agreed.
“Ultimately, it seems to me that the Republican Party has been wandering in the wilderness for the last year,” Farnsworth said. “As a result, a big victory for the Republican candidate in Virginia — a key swing state in the next election cycle — really puts McDonnell in a key position in the party.”
Republican strategist Kevin Madden, a former aide to House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the test was “not how big McDonnell wins, but who he wins with.”
“It’ll be interesting to see what the margins are with independent voters, because that’ll mean that we can build a coalition of center-right voters,” Madden said.
The last two Republican gubernatorial nominees — Jerry Kilgore in 2005 and Mark Early in 2001 — based their pitches on their Christian conservatism. McDonnell has eschewed that pitch — even though news of his master’s thesis temporarily allowed Deeds to pull closer — and instead focused on low-tax, low-government answers.
Georgetown University political scientist James Hershman was quick to point out, however, that the historic trend in Virginia favored McDonnell, anyway.
“Every year since 1977, the party incontrol of the White House loses,” Hershman said. “To buck a trend like that, you’ve obviously got to do something very special.”
Holsworth said a big McDonnell win would have big implications for Virginia’s current governor, Tim Kaine, who is chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
After Obama won Virginia, he helped steer Kaine into the post, but Kaine may face trouble after Virginia’s elections, Holsworth said.
“My guess is that there are people in Washington on the Democratic side who were never enthusiastic about Tim Kaine as the DNC chair,” he said. “My feeling is that the Virginia results are going to raise some red flags in D.C. among people who are already concerned about fundraising.”
