US News
Democrats win races for governor in Virginia, New Jersey
By Frank Fuhrig
Nov 9, 2005, 19:00 GMT

Arlington, Virginia - Hard-fought, expensive races for governor in two East Coast states produced victories late Tuesday for candidates from the centre-left Democratic Party.

In Virginia, Lieutenant Governor Tim Kaine defeated state Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, the nominee of the centre-right Republican Party, in a race to succeed a popular Democratic governor.

U.S. Senator Jon Corzine, a Democrat and Wall Street tycoon, won the vacant governorship of New Jersey with 53 per cent, over Republican nominee Doug Forrester's 43 per cent.

Their combined spending on the race topped 70 million dollars - much of it from their own personal fortunes - due to New Jersey's expensive media markets, which overlap into both New York City and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey were widely criticized as unusually nasty and personal from both sides.

The previous governors of both states were Democrats. The Republican effort to capture the offices was hindered by the national political environment, though strong Democratic candidates at the state level was likely the most important factor.

U.S. President George W. Bush's national approval ratings have fallen below 40 per cent - the lowest of his five-year administration - amid the troubled war in Iraq, the much-maligned response to Hurricane Katrina and the recent indictment of a top White House aide.

Fellow Republicans have increasingly kept their distance. In Virginia, for example, the losing Kilgore avoided campaigning with Bush until the day before the election. But the off-year races hinged largely on local issues.

'I think in these off-year elections, we tend to overestimate the power of the president,' campaign consultant Dick Morris, who has worked for both Democrats and Republicans, told the Fox News Channel.

Meanwhile, a statewide special election was underway in California to decide four ballot questions pushed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to implement policies that he argued were needed to reform the financially troubled state government. Amid the former movie star's sagging popularity, the special election is widely seen as a referendum on Schwarzenegger, a Republican who faces re- elections next year.

In the Virginia race, Kaine laboured to attach his campaign in the minds of voters with Governor Mark Warner, a moderate Democrat who has become unusually popular in a conservative state that reliably supports Republicans for president.

Kaine won nearly 52 per cent of the vote compared to Kilgore's 46 per cent. The candidates spent an estimated 42 million dollars combined in the race.

Political analyst Larry Sabato, a professor at the University of Virginia, told Fox News that the Virginia race was foremost a victory for Warner, the outgoing governor, who campaigned hard for Kaine. The state constitution prohibits governors from serving consecutive four- year terms.

Warner is widely acknowledged to have aspirations to run for U.S. president in 2008. He would face an uphill battle for the Democratic Party's nomination against likely frontrunners former first lady Hillary Clinton, now a U.S. Senator from New York, and former U.S. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2004.

At Hayfield Secondary School in Fairfax County, a sprawling suburb in Northern Virginia just outside Washington, several voters expressed frustration with the negative campaigns but made minimal connections between the state race and national politics.

Just outside the U.S. capital region's infamous ring highway, the so-called Beltway, the Hayfield neighbourhood is heavily settled by federal government employees, who lean Democratic. But Hayfield also lies within a few kilometres of several military installations, including the Army's sprawling Fort Belvoir and the Marine Corps' Quantico base, bringing a distinctly more conservative population that votes disproportionately Republican.

Samantha Benson, a civilian working for a defence contractor, called herself a political independent and favoured Kaine as the heir apparent to a successful Democratic governor.

She 'had differences' with Bush since his 2000 election, opposed the 2003 war in Iraq, and believes that 'a lot of Americans now are persuaded to the same view'. But national issues were at most a secondary motivation in her vote on Tuesday, Benson said.

L.E. Williams, a computer technician, also voted with Kaine and blasted Kilgore's negative advertising. But he was unequivocal that his vote was based on the state election with no influence from national issues.

Bryan Pelton, a federal contract worker, called himself a Republican voter '95 per cent of the time' and remained somewhat supportive of Bush. He was won over by Warner's four-year Democratic administration, but not enough to vote for Warner's chosen successor.

Instead, Pelton complained bitterly that both major-party candidates in Virginia had run 'distasteful and dishonourable' campaigns. In response, Pelton claimed to have voted for himself as a write-in candidate for governor.