2 Wins Lift Hopes of Democrats

Democrats swept gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday, sending new tremors through Republicans worried that President Bush’s sagging popularity may drag down the party in next year’s midterm elections.

In Virginia, Democratic Lt. Gov. Timothy Kaine rolled to an unexpectedly large victory over his Republican opponent, former Atty. Gen. Jerry Kilgore.

Kaine, benefiting from the popularity of outgoing Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner, led Kilgore 52% to 46%, with 98% of the vote counted. Moderate Republican state Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr., running as an independent, attracted 2%.

In New Jersey, Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine easily defeated Republican corporate executive Douglas R. Forrester 53% to 43%, with the balance of the vote going to minor candidates.

The decisive twin victories sent Democratic spirits soaring. “There is no question the country has turned dramatically negative about President Bush and the Republican Party, and that is an albatross around the neck of every Republican candidate at every level of government,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who advised Corzine.

Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said it would be a mistake to read a national message into the results.

In 2001, he noted, Republicans lost both the Virginia and New Jersey governorships although Bush’s popularity had soared after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Conversely, Republicans won both governorships in 1997, although President Bill Clinton’s job approval was high at the time.

“From the beginning, we have viewed these as not national but state races,” Mehlman said. “History is consistent with that, and the results tonight are consistent with that.”

The two states have in fact been imperfect predictors of political trends in the following year’s midterm elections.

In 1993, Republican victories in both states foreshadowed the historic gains that swept the GOP to control of both the House and Senate in 1994. But after the Republicans won both governorships again in 1997, they unexpectedly lost seats in the 1998 congressional elections amid the backlash to Clinton’s impeachment. And after the twin Democratic wins in 2001, the GOP gained House and Senate seats in 2002.

The most consistent pattern has come in Virginia, the only state that still limits its governor to a single four-year term: The party that lost the White House the previous year has won the state’s governorship in each election since 1977.

Mellman, the Democratic pollster, agreed that it was impossible to say that these elections would predict next year’s results. But he said the Democratic victories were a preview of the difficulties Republicans could expect if Bush could not improve his approval rating, which is now consistently running below 40%, the lowest of his presidency.

Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, seconded that assessment. “I think the basic lesson is that Bush is at a point where he is going to pull down all Republicans a few points in 2006,” he said. “He has got to restore a good 10 points on his popularity if Republicans are even going to hold their own in ’06.”

Especially ominous for Republicans were the results among swing voters in suburban and exurban communities across northern Virginia.

Kaine significantly increased on Warner’s 2001 margins in affluent but socially moderate suburbs outside Washington, such as Arlington and Fairfax counties. Those results could reflect the weight of Bush’s dwindling approval rating among independent voters -- which sagged to 29% in one national survey released Tuesday -- and a backlash against the conservative positions Kilgore emphasized on such social issues as gun control, the death penalty and gay adoption.

Even more intriguingly, Kaine also ran well in the fast-growing exurban communities that have become an increasingly important stronghold for the GOP not only in Virginia but around the nation. In 2001, Warner lost both Loudoun and Prince William counties, the two largest northern Virginia exurban counties, by nearly 7,000 votes. In 2004, Bush beat his Democratic opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry, in those two counties by nearly 22,000 votes.

But late results showed Kaine leading Kilgore in both counties. Kaine courted those voters more directly than most Democrats by proposing to allow local officials to bar new development they believe will aggravate traffic congestion.

Steve Jarding, an advisor to Warner, said Kaine’s strong showing suggested that Democrats could overcome Republican cultural appeals in those exurban counties with more focused attention to bread-and-butter concerns.

“These people aren’t looking for polarizing issues; they are looking for someone who is going to shoot straight and tell them how I’m going to better life for you and your kids,” Jarding said.

Both gubernatorial contests were bruising, though in very different ways.

In New Jersey, the race between Corzine, a former investment banker, and Forrester, the founder of a pharmaceutical benefits management company, produced spectacular spending ($72 million between them, according to their most recent filings) and persistent personal attacks.

Debates over issues such as property taxes and stem cell research were eclipsed by arguments about corruption in state government, unconfirmed allegations of extramarital affairs, and an explosive late ad from Forrester.

After Corzine’s former wife, Joanne, told the New York Times that “Jon ... let his family down, and he’ll probably let New Jersey down too,” Forrester’s campaign quickly produced a television ad featuring the quote. When the two men met for their final debate last weekend, Corzine fired back about the ad, saying it “speaks more to his character than it does about mine.”

John Weingart, associate director of the Eagleton Institute at Rutgers University, said Corzine’s victory was much more emphatic than most observers expected after such a grueling campaign.

“The campaign was a pretty dismal event that was discouraging to everyone,” Weingart said. “There was a lot of name-calling and personal attacks, and not a lot of substance in their conversation and debates.”

With so many unusual and idiosyncratic factors, the New Jersey race attracted less attention than Virginia’s from national strategists in the two parties. Most on both sides saw Virginia as the key gauge of the voters’ mood this year.

In one sense, the Virginia race was an anomaly. The dominant feature in the national political climate this year has been intense dissatisfaction with the country’s direction amid war in Iraq and economic uncertainty at home -- a mood that has brought Bush’s approval ratings down.

In Virginia, though, polls have shown broad satisfaction with the state’s direction under Warner over the last four years. In the most recent Washington Post survey, Warner’s approval rating hit 80%.

From the outset, Kaine, formerly mayor of Richmond, built his campaign around that satisfaction. He linked himself to Warner at every opportunity, telling audiences: “If you want to keep this state moving forward, I’m your candidate.”

Warner campaigned regularly with Kaine, urging voters to ratify his direction by electing his lieutenant governor. When Bush appeared with Kilgore in Richmond on Monday night, Warner said that “if the other side wants to make the comparison” between Washington and Virginia, “I’ll take that comparison.”

Kilgore appeared almost as often with Republican U.S. Sen. George Allen, the former governor and another likely 2008 presidential candidate. Kilgore’s relationship with Bush, who won Virginia twice but whose state approval rating sagged to 44% in the Post survey, was more guarded. Before the election-eve rally, Kilgore had skipped a speech by the president in the state last month.

Kilgore built his campaign on portraying Kaine as a liberal who was out of touch with the state’s values. In that effort, Kilgore charged that Kaine would raise taxes, but mostly he hammered the Democrat over social issues.

Kaine responded partly by accusing Kilgore of distorting his record, but largely by talking about his religious faith (he is a Roman Catholic) much more openly than many Democrats do.

Above all, Kaine yoked himself to Warner, who some believe may prove one of the night’s biggest winners, especially if he decides to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

“Not only did Warner elect Kaine, he won the first primary of the 2008 presidential race,” said Sabato. “He’s proven that he can win -- and transfer winning -- in an area Democrats need to win the presidency back.”

Times staff writer Emma Vaughn contributed to this report.