Winners and Losers column by Chris Graham
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Sorry, Senator …
You’re going to have a hard time in November here in Virginia. No doubt about it.
And you know why.
What … do I have to spell it out?
OK, here goes.
I live in the reddest part of Virginia, maybe of the entire country. And you couldn’t win here.
OK, so technically you did carry the cities of Staunton and Waynesboro, albeit by slim margins (46 percent-to-43 percent in Staunton, 45-43 in Waynesboro). But in both cities, the numbers of voters in the Democratic primaries were in the 55 to 60 percent range, so you would be hard-pressed to go around bragging about either of those wins.
Elsewhere here in the Central Shenandoah Valley, you lost, and big-time. Mike Huckabee was able to win moderate to liberal Harrisonburg, which had a two-to-one ratio of Democratic to Republican voters yesterday. Not a good sign there. And then the two counties here – which usually go 65 to 70 percent Republican in state and federal elections, saw those margins chopped down to the 55 to 60 percent area, one, and two saw Huckabee cleaning your clock by similar margins.
I haven’t done a more thorough analysis up and down the Valley and into Southwest and Southside, but I don’t know that I need to. The Central Shenandoah Valley is the breadbasket of the Virginia GOP, to the point where it’s almost a given that you do well here in November if you’re a Republican candidate.
I don’t know that it’s such a given for you this November, Senator.
Chris Graham is the executive editor of The Augusta Free Press.
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