Democrat Kaine Wins in Virginia

Photos
2005 Va., Md. Elections
Virginia voters cast ballots Tuesday for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and House district races. Voters also elected new mayors and local officials in a handful of local Maryland and Virginia races.

By the time Kaine leaves office in 2009, the Democrats will have controlled the governor's mansion for all but eight of the past 28 years. "We've always had this perception that we are a reliable Republican state on presidential elections," said Republican consultant Chris LaCivita, a former chairman of the Virginia GOP. "We are not a reliable Republican state in governor's elections."

Kilgore, who consistently led in polls early this year, struggled across the state on Election Day. He was leading in some rural areas, including his birthplace of southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley. But Kaine bested him in the growing suburbs around Richmond, where Kilgore now lives.

From the beginning, Kaine's strategy was to target voters who like Warner. He repeatedly took credit for the accomplishments of the "Warner-Kaine administration," and he appeared frequently with the governor.

Kaine also broke with traditional Democratic tactics and talked regularly about his Catholic faith. His standard stump speech mentioned his work as a missionary, and several of his radio and television ads highlighted his Catholicism.

"The Bible teaches we can accomplish great things when we work together," Kaine said in an early radio ad.

Kaine promised tougher evaluations for teachers, universal preschool for 4-year-olds and better coordination of land use and transportation planning. He also proposed exempting the first 20 percent of a home's value from the property tax.

In the waning days of the campaign, Kaine cast his lot with the slow-growth movement in Virginia's outer suburbs. In a television ad, he promised to give local governments the ability to say "No" to development if the nearby roads are not sufficient.

Kilgore's strategy was always to depict Kaine as a liberal who is out of step with mainstream Virginia values. To win, his advisers decided early, Kilgore had to make voters believe that Kaine was not a Warner clone.

His ads drove home that point. He accused Kaine of wanting to raise taxes and attacked Kaine's record as mayor of Richmond.

The climax to Kilgore's attacks came in early October, when he released two highly charged death penalty ads featuring the relatives of murder victims. In one, a distraught father said Kaine would not support the death penalty even for Adolf Hitler.

"The death penalty was intended to solidify part of the Republican base," said Robert D. Holsworth, director of the Center for Public Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Kaine responded by airing an ad in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads.