Nov 28, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

Despite big wins for Democrats in Virginia on Election Day, some political experts are not ready to say the election results mean the state is now reliably blue and are unsure whether Virginia lawmakers will be more pro-gay in the future.

President-elect Barack Obama’s win in Virginia was the most prominent Democratic victory in the state. Obama, who took the state with 52 percent of the vote, was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia since former President Lyndon Johnson took the state in 1964.

Other notable wins by Dem-ocratic candidates include U.S. Sen. elect Mark Warner’s landslide victory and Congressman-elect Gerry Connolly’s win in the 11th District in Northern Virginia. Both are taking seats from Republicans who are retiring from Congress.

But the wins did not end there. Deeper in the state, another Democratic candidate, Congressman-elect Glenn Nye, scored an upset win over Republican incumbent Rep. Thelma Drake (R-Va.) in the 2nd District. Drake had been polling ahead in that district, but Nye won with 52 percent of the vote.

Another Democratic win came from Tom Perriello’s victory over Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) in the 5th District. Virginia’s election board certified on Monday that Perriello won the seat by a margin of 745 votes. Goode is calling for a recount; he has served for 12 years.

Neither Nye nor Perriello responded to the Blade’s requests for comment.

Despite the big wins for Democrats, experts were not ready this week to say Virginia has turned blue.
Del. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), the only openly gay member of the Virginia General Assembly, said the state should not be considered reliably Democratic because “it’s not inconceivable that a Republican could be elected to an open seat” in the future.

Ebbin predicted that Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, whom he called “a right-wing, Pat Robertson-backed Republican,” would be the GOP’s nominee in the state’s gubernatorial election next year. McDonnell has no opposition to the nomination within the Republican Party and Ebbin said the man has a good chance of taking the governor’s mansion.

In 2006, McDonnell issued an opinion stating that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine’s (D) executive order prohibiting discrimination against gays in the state and public workforce was unconstitutional.

Democrats that are preparing to face off against McDonnell in next year’s gubernatorial race include state Del. Brian Moran (D-Alexandria), Terry McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chair, and state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath County).

Scott Huch, president of the Delta Group advertising agency and a former vice president of the Virginia Log Cabin Republicans, said it’s not fair to call Virginia a blue state because he didn’t think “one occurrence makes a pattern.”

“I think if Mark Warner had not been running for Senate at the top of the ticket in Virginia and running such a strong campaign that he had sort of reverse coattails that helped Obama, I don’t think Obama would have done nearly as well in Virginia as he did,” Huch said.

Huch, who is gay, said Virginia is “fundamentally a conservative state” and noted that when he traveled outside Northern Virginia during the election, “it was really rare to see an Obama sign” on residents’ lawns.

Clyde Wilcox, a straight George-town University government professor and author of “The Politics of Gay Rights,” said while Virginia is “trending blue,” it’s not “a safely blue state” because “there are
large areas where there are big conservative GOP majorities.”

“To win the state, many politicians have played it pretty close to the vest on social issues, especially guns,” he said.

Ebbin, while not willing to call Virginia reliably blue, said lawmakers in the state were making progress in becoming friendlier to gay residents.

“We’re seeing continued Virginia elections where Democrats are not shying away from the pro-gay positions and still winning,” he said. “They may not all be front and center, but they’re still winning, which can only encourage our future candidates.”

Ebbin noted that Obama won Virginia after coming to the state and mentioning gays in a stump speech. He also noted as evidence of progress that Connolly won the seat in the 11th District even though he “talks publicly and without apology about being pro-gay” while former congresswoman Leslie Byrne in 1994 lost the seat after he being seen as too liberal and “unapologetically pro-gay.”

Ebbin said as the political climate becomes more favorable toward gays, that trend is influencing Republicans in the state.

Ebbin said he knows of “one or two Republicans that will vote more pro-gay” in the General Assembly “in an effort to save their seat by appearing to be moderate.”

Ebbin said he was not comfortable ...