Democrat Wins Race for Governor in Virginia

By JAMES DAO - New York Times: " Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat, won the race for governor on Tuesday night, scoring a major political victory for his mentor, Gov. Mark Warner, and sending a powerful message that President Bush's political standing has fallen in this reliably Republican state.

With 99 percent of the ballots counted, Mr. Kaine had almost 52 percent of the vote, to 46 percent for his Republican opponent, Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. An independent candidate, State Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., had 2 percent.

After a lengthy introduction by Mr. Warner, who called the outcome a triumph against negative campaigning, Mr. Kaine told a raucous crowd at a downtown hotel that the results proved that Mr. Warner's victory four years ago was not a fluke.

"We proved that people are more interested in fiscal responsibility than ideological bickering," Mr. Kaine said. "We proved that faith in God is a value for all and that we can all share regardless of our partisan labels. And we proved that Virginians want a governor who has a positive vision for moving this commonwealth forward."

The comeback victory by Mr. Kaine, who trailed for much of the campaign, provided a big boost to Mr. Warner, who had anointed Mr. Kaine his successor and is considering running for president in 2008.

The governor, who has approval ratings above 70 percent but was prohibited by term limits from running again, is trying to cast himself as a pragmatic, centrist Democrat who can win in the South, and Mr. Kaine's victory clearly burnished that image.

Equally significant, Mr. Kaine's victory was a major hit for Mr. Bush, who campaigned for Mr. Kilgore on Monday night, even though his own approval rating had dipped below 50 percent in Virginia.

Mr. Kilgore's aides said Mr. Bush's appearance was crucial in increasing Republican turnout, but Democrats and political analysts said it might have also energized as many or more Democrats and independent voters to turn out for Mr. Kaine.

Democrats are likely to trumpet Mr. Kaine's victory as evidence that Mr. Bush has become a detriment to local and state Republican candidates in advance of next year's midterm Congressional elections.

Mr. Kilgore may have hurt himself by running negative advertisements attacking Mr. Kaine's positions on the death penalty, taxes and illegal immigration. According to some political analysts and polls, those advertisements alienated many independent voters.

"Even though the votes did not go our way, I have no regrets," Mr. Kilgore told his supporters at the city's convention center.

Mr. Kaine, 47, is a lawyer and a former mayor of Richmond. His wife, Anne Holton, is a state juvenile-court judge and the daughter of former Gov. Linwood Holton, a Republican who campaigned for Mr. Kaine.

Despite fine weather, only about 44 percent of registered voters went to the polls, a lower percentage than four years ago. The turnout favored Mr. Kaine, who won landslide victories in Democratic bastions like Alexandria, Arlington and Richmond. He also did surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.

Mr. Kaine's camp called their voter turnout effort the largest for a Democrat in state history, saying they had mobilized 4,800 volunteers to make 600,000 phone calls and knock on 800,000 doors since Friday.

While turning out core voters was crucial for both sides, it seemed particularly important for Mr. Kilgore, who had lost support among independent voters in recent weeks, polls showed.

"It all comes down to turnout," Mr. Kilgore told reporters on Tuesday morning.

Mr. Bush's 11th-hour appearance was clearly intended to energize the loyal campaign workers who ran the Republicans' 72-hour operation, so called because it swung into motion on the final weekend of the race, to urge casual as well as dedicated Republicans to vote for Mr. Kilgore.

In a speech to thousands of Republicans at the Richmond airport on Monday night, Mr. Bush praised Mr. Kilgore as a son of rural Virginia, a man who "doesn't have a lot of fancy airs" and who is a guardian of conservative values.

"I hope you'll work hard tomorrow to call up your friends and neighbors," Mr. Bush said. "Tell them if they want good government - good, solid, sound conservative government - to put this good man in the governor's chair in Richmond."

Mark Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University, said it was a "high risk" move for Mr. Bush and Mr. Kilgore to have the president campaign in Virginia with his approval ratings low and Mr. Kilgore's ability to win in doubt. Mr. Bush's appearance, Professor Rozell said, could have caused a "countersurge" of Democrats and "angry at Bush" independent voters.

Mr. Kaine's aides said they were pleased with Mr. Bush's entry into the race. "Can someone tell me where to send the thank-you note?" said Mo Elleithee, his communications director. "The president fired up our base."

But Tucker Martin, a spokesman for the Kilgore campaign, pointed out that the Kaine camp had Senator John Kerry write a letter to Democrats at the end of the campaign. "They ended up with John Kerry, we ended up with the president," he said. "We got a better deal."

This year's race remained intensely close for months in part because neither candidate established a dominant public persona nor articulated a defining political theme to capture voters' imaginations.

Mr. Kilgore tried to make character and ideology central ideas, portraying himself as a straight shooter who "doesn't need a poll to make up his mind" and attacking Mr. Kaine as "instinctively liberal."

Mr. Kaine tried to build his campaign on the issues of managerial style and bipartisanship, asserting that Mr. Warner and he had - with Republican help - made state government more efficient and effective. But he also questioned Mr. Kilgore's honesty, and accused him of planning to outlaw abortion if Roe v. Wade was overturned by the United States Supreme Court."