Outcome May Rest On Black Turnout

Webb, Allen Both Face Skepticism

Erving Sabb, a black Alexandria barber, sat in his chair at the Hair Clinic and considered what he knew and didn't know about the two men running for the U.S. Senate in Virginia.

"Well, not voting for the Republican, Allen. Never could support him," he said, referring to Sen. George Allen.

"But this Webb fella . . . he used to work for Reagan, didn't he? He was a Republican, too?" Sabb, 61, asked, shaking his head thinking about Allen's Democratic challenger, James Webb. "I vote for Democrats, but I'll only vote for a guy I know is a real Democrat. I want to know if he's really one of us."

Whether Webb, a former Republican and Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, will be able to energize loyal Democratic voters such as Sabb will be critical in determining who wins one of the tightest Senate races in the country.

African Americans, who make up about 20 percent of Virginia's electorate, vote reliably for Democrats and are key to their success in the Republican-dominated state. But Webb has struggled to gain their support because of questions about whether he used a racial epithet to describe blacks when he was younger and because of his stance on affirmative action, which he once called "state-sponsored racism."

Allen has had his own problems with black voters, dating to his days as a state delegate. Blacks have long been turned off by Allen's affinity for the Confederate flag and his 1984 vote against a state holiday commemorating the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., among other things. Last month, a handful of Allen's former teammates accused him of repeatedly using a racial epithet for blacks when he played football at the University of Virginia, a charge Allen denied.

Allen has tried to mend fences with the state's black community, highlighting his support of black colleges and appearing at several important political events.

Nonetheless, a Washington Post poll conducted last month showed that blacks were overwhelmingly supporting Webb: 81 percent of African Americans said they would vote for the Democrat, compared with 11 percent who said they'd vote for Allen.

But the determining factor, political experts said, will be how many of those voters go to the polls on Election Day, given concerns about both candidates.

"If I was running this race for Webb, the path I would seek for victory is running really well in Northern Virginia and getting a big black turnout in the Tidewater area and the Richmond area," said David Bositis, an expert on black voting patterns at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington. "How many black voters are going to show up . . . that's going to be key."

Successful Virginia Democrats have been helped by high turnout among blacks. In 1989, when L. Douglas Wilder became the first black candidate to be elected governor in the nation's history, African Americans made up 17 percent of voters, according to an analysis by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia.

In 2001, when Mark R. Warner took the governor's mansion, blacks constituted 15 percent of voters. Both Wilder and Warner won more than 90 percent of their vote.