Virginia congressional incumbents fall in big GOP wins

By Bob Lewis

RICHMOND

Republican challengers unseated three Democratic House members, including a 14-term incumbent and a protege of President Barack Obama, in a conservative whiplash election.

A fourth Democrat led by fewer than 500 votes in suburban Washington, D.C., district by a margin so narrow that it qualifies for a recount.

Tuesday's GOP triumphs repudiated a Democratic rout just two years ago paced by Obama's historic victory.

In Virginia, as across the nation, conservatives, libertarians and tea party backers rejected big-government initiatives wrought by Democrats who won overwhelmingly two years ago on a campaign of change.

With 91 percent of the votes counted, Republican Morgan Griffith, the Virginia House majority leader, had 52 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Democratic Rep. Rick Boucher, who was first elected in 1982. An independent, Jeremiah Heaton, had 2 percent.

In the Hampton Roads 2nd District, wealthy Republican car dealer Scott Rigell won had 53 percent of the vote to freshman Rep. Glenn Nye, a moderate Democrat.

And in a race regarded as a clear referendum on Obama and the Democratic Congress, state Sen. Robert Hurt had about 51 percent of the vote to Perriello's 47 percent with 94 percent of precincts reporting. Independent Jeffrey Clark got about 2 percent.

Perriello's candidacy always had strong parallels to the White House because Perriello backed key Obama initiatives such as health care reform, the cap and trade bill and the economic stimulus bill.

On Friday, Obama took ownership of the race when he campaigned for Perriello in Charlottesville, the only such trip Obama made this year for an individual House Democrat.

Except for a challenge in 1984, Boucher had won re-election easily in the coal-country district of mountainous southwestern Virginia. He usually carried the district with 60 percent of the vote or more.

But his vote this year for cap and trade legislation aimed at cutting carbon emissions left him vulnerable. Griffith and allied independent groups that don't disclose their donors attacked the vote as a betrayal of the coal industry and called it a job-killing national energy tax.

With just two of 164 precincts unreported in the 11th District, freshman Democrat Gerry Connolly led by only 487 votes out of nearly 225,000 cast over Keith Fimian, a Republican he beat comfortably two years ago. Final totals from the Fairfax County precincts were not expected until Wednesday.

Some incumbents won easily, including Eric Cantor, the likely House Majority Leader now that the GOP has won control. That would make Cantor the second most powerful House member.

Cantor called the results a wake-up call for the Obama White House. The GOP takeover, he said, means the agenda that made Obama victorious in 2008 will be stalemated in a conservative Congress.

"Any mandate that may be interpreted tonight is one where the people of this country reject the agenda that's been promoted by the Democrats and the White House. I think the for us as Republicans, we're going to get a second chance," Cantor said at a postelection gathering near his suburban Richmond home.

But Cantor said the election shows that Republicans must change.

"We Republicans are a different party than the GOP of 2006," he said. "Our years in the minority have chastened and disciplined our party, and tonight's elections show that the American people say it's time for our party to stop talking and start listening."

Others who won easy re-election over nominal opposition were Republican Reps. Bob Goodlatte in the 6th District, J. Randy Forbes in the 4th, Rob Wittman in the 1st, Frank Wolf in the 10th.

Democrat Jim Moran turned aside a little-known Republican in the 8th District and Democrat Bobby Scott, the state's first black member of Congress, easily beat a black conservative Republican challenger.

Dena Potter contributed to this report from Richmond.