Virginia Senate Race Too Close to Call

At the time, Webb was locked in a bitter primary with Fairfax lobbyist Harris Miller, a favorite among the Democratic Party establishment. But Webb's campaign was already focused on Allen.

"We'd like to think this seat in the Senate means more than a place holder for George Allen," Webb spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd said then.

Webb beat Miller in June, but heading into the summer, he trailed Allen by 16 percentage points in one poll. Worse for Webb, his campaign was virtually broke, and he had little patience for the hard work of fundraising. With no experience in politics, Webb appeared stiff on the stump. Democrats said privately that they doubted their candidate could win.

"If you had asked anybody about this election on Aug. 10, they would have told you it was effectively over," said Robert D. Holsworth, director of the Center for Public Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University.

But everything changed Aug. 11, when Allen mocked the Indian American Webb volunteer, who was shooting video of Allen at a campaign stop in Breaks, Va., a rural town near the Kentucky border.

The videotape sped across the country on the video-sharing site YouTube, creating negative headlines for more than a week. Indian American groups called Allen a bully, and he became fodder for late-night comedians.

The macaca incident raised fresh questions about Allen's racial sensitivity, an issue that has dogged him since the beginning of his political career. News organizations began probing anew his fondness for the Confederate flag while serving as governor.

The fallout from the macaca incident knocked Allen and his campaign off stride for weeks. He hit back, helping organize a news conference with several female U.S. Naval Academy graduates who said a 1979 magazine article by Webb had contributed to an atmosphere of men harassing women at Annapolis.

But even with headlines about Webb's article, which said a dormitory at the academy was "a horny woman's dream," Allen's lead had been whittled to four points by early September, which meant the race was a virtual dead heat.

Just as he appeared to be recovering, Allen made another headline-producing gaffe at a debate Sept. 19 in Fairfax County. Asked by a television reporter about reports that his mother was Jewish, Allen replied angrily, chiding the reporter for "making aspersions" about his religious background.

The next week, Allen was hit with accusations from former college football teammates and other past acquaintances who said they recalled him using the "n-word" during and after college. Allen denied it, but other accusations continued to surface for more than a week. A poll at the end of September showed the race tied, with each at 43 percent.

The Allen controversies and the tightening poll numbers gave Democrats hope, and money began pouring into Webb's campaign. The day after a debate on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sept. 17, Webb raised $100,000 in online contributions. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee began pouring money into Webb's campaign, which eventually topped $6 million.

By October, both candidates and their national-party backers were in attack mode, airing tough ads on television and radio.

Late in the month, the Allen campaign leaked accusations about sexually explicit passages in Webb's novels to the Drudge Report, an Internet gossip site, and the Fox News Channel.

Allen's attacks on Webb's attitudes toward women took a toll. Polls in mid-October showed Allen with a slight lead and Webb's support among women below that of previous Democrats in Virginia.

But the Oct. 27 attack on Webb's novels seemed to backfire, as several polls taken just afterward indicated momentum for Webb.

By yesterday, the Virginia Senate race had become one of the most closely watched in the nation, as Allen struggled in the campaign's final days to overcome a politically devastating summer.

But longtime political observers in Virginia said Allen's long history in the state and especially his term as a popular governor made the contest a difficult one to predict.

"George Allen stood a 50-50 chance of being the Republican nominee for president," Holsworth said. "Less than three months later, he [stood] a 50-50 chance of retaining his own seat. It's been simply astonishing to watch."