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John
Kerry’s decision to compete in Virginia
makes sense. While no Democratic presidential
candidate has won the state since 1964, Virginia
is not as solidly Republican as it appears. Beneath
the surface, a complicated political reality emerges
– a reality arising from the explosive growth of
the state’s metropolitan areas.
Even
more than other parts of the South, Virginia has
evolved from a rural region into an overwhelmingly
metropolitan one. According to the U.S. Census
Bureau, 78 percent of Virginians resided in metro
areas in 2000. Moreover, three metro areas –
Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads and Richmond
– contained two-thirds of the state’s
population.
According
to MDC Inc., a North Carolina think tank, the
population of the entire Washington, D.C., area
increased by 42 percent between 1980 and 2000, while
Hampton Roads and Richmond both expanded by 30
percent. Much of this growth resulted from the
movement of foreign immigrants and domestic
in-migrants in pursuit of jobs.
The
surge in Virginia’s metropolitan
areas matters politically because metro and
non-metro places vote differently. While George W.
Bush captured 52 percent of Virginia’s presidential
vote in 2000, he performed much better in rural
areas than in metropolitan ones, in keeping with his
general trend in the South.
Bush
and Al Gore ran close in Virginia’s major metros in
2000. In the Virginia
suburbs of Washington, Bush received 49
percent of the vote compared to Gore’s 47 percent.
Similarly, Bush won 50 percent of the Hampton
Roads’ vote to Gore’s 48 percent. The only major
metro area where a candidate scored a sizable
victory was Richmond, which gave Bush 55
percent of the vote.
What
clinched Virginia
for Bush in 2000
was his performance in rural areas. Bush captured 56
percent of the rural vote. The few rural districts
that Gore won generally were in Appalachia
along the Kentucky
and West Virginia
borders.
The
geographic breakdown of Virginia’s 2000
presidential vote bodes well for future Democratic
candidates. Steadily improving showings in major
metros like Washington
suggest a base from
which future candidates could draw. According to the
scholars John Judis and Ruy Teixeira, the Democratic
Party has learned how to forge metropolitan
professionals, women and minorities into winning
coalitions in many places around the nation. That
same dynamic could fuel Democratic successes in Virginia’s fast-growing
and vote-rich metro areas.
Yet
the metros currently do not provide enough votes to
win. Though increasing in size and importance,
metros are divided politically. Rural votes,
therefore, are needed to decide a statewide race. If
Democrats can find ways to connect with some rural
voters – admittedly a task that has troubled the
party in the South in recent years – and combine
rural votes with those in metro areas, the party
could win Virginia in future elections. After all,
this was the model that incumbent Democratic Gov.
Mark Warner used successfully in 2001.
Consequently,
John Kerry’s decision to run television
advertisements in Hampton Roads, Richmond,
Northern Virginia
and Roanoke is a plausible one.
Slight changes in the electorate could tip the
state. For example, strong performances in Washington
and Norfolk, coupled with an
improved rural showing, potentially could move the
state into the Democratic column.
Of
course, devoting scarce resources to Virginia
may be a risky move
on the part of the Kerry campaign for two reasons.
First, a viable Democratic moment in Virginia
still may be a few
years away, assuming that the metro vote continues
to grow in importance while the rural vote continues
to decline in importance. Second, competing in Virginia
is complicated by
the fact that Democrats currently do not connect
well with non-metropolitan voters. A better
short-term decision for Kerry, then, might be to
devote limited dollars to other battlegrounds.
That
said, Kerry’s decision to contest Virginia
will require the
GOP to devote resources to a state where they
otherwise would not spend money. Kerry’s actions
also put the Republicans on notice that Virginia, a reliably
Republican state in recent decades, may be trending
away from the party.
Presidential
politics in Virginia
currently stands at
a crossroads. The state’s burgeoning metros
provide a potentially rich source of Democratic
votes, but rural votes still are needed to win, at
least in 2004. John Kerry’s decision to compete in
Virginia, however, points to
a future in which metropolitan growth turns the
state into fertile Democratic soil.
--
June 21, 2004
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