Barack Obama stunned Virginia Republicans when he won the state in 2008, the first Democrat in 44 years to carry the commonwealth in a presidential election.
Winning historically conservative Loudoun County was a crucial piece of Obama’s Virginia victory, and Republicans in Loudoun want to make sure he doesn’t repeat that success in 2012.
Loudon County supervisors swing Republican
State and local political officials believe that Loudoun — with a fast-growing population that is generally wealthy, well educated and increasingly diverse — could be one of the pivot points in this year’s election. With about 300,000 residents, Loudoun has fewer voters than its suburban neighbors. But solidifying Republican control of the county would provide the GOP with a valuable counterweight to more consistently Democratic jurisdictions elsewhere in Northern Virginia.
Preventing a repeat of 2008 is a big goal, but the Republican Party’s efforts to achieve it started small, beginning months ago with an intensely local campaign strategy.
In November, Republican candidates swept the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, marking the first time in nearly 20 years that all nine seats on the board were held by the GOP.
The winning campaigns were bolstered in part by an unusual infusion of financial support from the Republican Party of Virginia, which made Loudoun’s local races part of a statewide effort aimed at securing Republican victories in General Assembly races.
It was a remarkable gain for the GOP, albeit one in which several of the supervisors’ races were won by narrow margins. Indeed, as presidential and U.S. Senate votes near, Loudoun Republicans know that Democrats remain a competitive force.
The GOP’s determination to entrench Republican control of county politics was evident at a recent meeting of the Loudoun County Republican Committee, where a crowd of hundreds filled the board room of the county government center in Leesburg to hear candidates and party leaders speak.
Susan Allen, wife of Republican Senate hopeful and former governor George Allen, was among the first at the lectern. She stood flanked by her husband’s campaign posters, each emblazoned with a solid-red icon in the shape of the commonwealth.
“You did stellar work this past November,” Susan Allen told the standing-room crowd, which answered with vigorous applause. “We want to build on that. . . . This is a movement that is taking place that needs to continue for the next nine months.”
She made a prediction: Virginia will be the deciding factor in the national election.
“We want to make sure that the great American comeback starts right here in Loudoun County, in the commonwealth of Virginia,” she said. The audience cheered and whistled.
If a Republican comeback starts in Loudoun, it will be based out of a three-room office, tucked away on a quiet side street in downtown Leesburg.
The headquarters of the Virginia 10th Congressional District Republican Committee may be small, but it proved mighty in the 2011 elections: Of the 34 candidates endorsed and supported by the office, 32 won, according to party officials.
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