A Triumph For Warner, And a Guide For His Party

"I think this is an interesting test case for Democrats to see if you can run a faith-based campaign focused on values and do so as a progressive candidate in a Southern state," Rozell said.

It worked, Rozell said, because of Kaine's frequent reference to his service as a missionary in Honduras while in law school and his familiarity with the language of religion. "It did not come off as calculated," he said.

In his victory speech last night, Kaine told the crowd, "We proved that faith in God is a value we all can share regardless of party."

That connection with voters helped Kaine when Kilgore unleashed a set of visually stunning ads that became the talk of the campaign: family members of murder victims criticizing Kaine for his opposition to the death penalty and his legal work on behalf of death row inmates. Many Democrats worried that the attacks would sink the campaign; instead, they led to a backlash and established Kilgore as the more negative campaigner in voters' minds.

That partly is because Kilgore gave voters little else. Unlike successful Republican candidates such as George Allen in 1993 and James S. Gilmore III four years later, Kilgore had no signature issue to offer; his campaign was aimed at establishing his conservative credentials and trying to paint Kaine as too liberal, and it did little to attract independents and Democrats.

For all the talk of political trends and outside forces, elections come down to a comparison of candidates, and Kilgore rarely seemed a confident campaigner. He avoided joint appearances with Kaine and stumbled badly in one memorable confrontation with television journalist Tim Russert as he avoided clearly stating his anti-abortion stance.

Kilgore was swamped in Northern Virginia, where Kaine exceeded Warner's margins from four years ago, even in the outer suburbs.

The Kilgore campaign never believed that Kaine could do as well in Northern Virginia as Warner, the businessman from Alexandria. But the Democrat got more than 70 percent of the vote in Alexandria, Arlington and Falls Church, and he got more than 60 percent in Fairfax County, home to one in seven Virginia voters. Kilgore had counted on Republicans in the outer suburbs to offset the Democratic advantage inside the Capital Beltway, but Kaine won there, too.

"The old days of places like Prince William and Loudoun being automatically Republican are over," Sabato said. "Republicans are finding that you need to nominate candidates who can communicate with the suburbs."