Virginia race seen as crucial election bellwether

The semi-rural, increasingly diverse state of Virginia elects a new governor Tuesday in the most watched US race of the year, as political parties jockey for supremacy ahead of 2014 and 2016 elections. Politicians, pollsters and analysts are eager to see if the state's dramatic demographic transformation will scrape out a win for Democrats or whether its southern traditional values boosted by Tea Party conservatism will carry the day. The election across the Potomac River from Washington is a barometer of the popularity of the two major US political parties -- as well as that of the turbulent, conservative Tea Party movement that has upended national politics in recent years. On the right, 45-year-old Ken Cuccinelli, the state's anti-abortion, pro-gun Republican attorney general and Tea Party darling who was the first in the nation to mount a legal challenge against President Barack Obama's health care reforms in 2010. On the left, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, 56, a party insider who has never held elected office but whose business savvy and political pragmatism -- and his status as close friend to the Clintons -- have helped him emerge as the pre-election favorite. Obama is scheduled to stump for McAuliffe in the commonwealth on Sunday. Virginia extends from the Washington suburbs, a high-tech hub that has drawn an influx of ethnically diverse workers over the past decade, to its more homogeneous, conservative southern counties, where coal-mining and farming have been staples for generations. Losing the race would be a bitter blow for Republicans, who until recently have counted on Virginia as a stronghold. But the increasing Hispanic population and faster-paced growth in cities have largely benefited Democrats. After 10 straight elections favoring Republican presidential candidates, the conservative base began to erode. The state of 8.2 million people tipped for Obama in 2008 and 2012. Both its US senators are now Democrats, although current Governor Bob McDonnell is Republican. Near the Shenandoah mountains, dozens of activists gathered recently for a mid-week Cuccinelli campaign event in Roanoke, 240 miles (390 kilometers) west of Washington. Among them was truck driver Mike Jornlin, who bemoaned the Republicans who compromised with Obama to end last month's two-week government shutdown. "Democrats are evil. There is just no doubt about it, they intend to destroy this country," he told AFP. Cuccinelli is fiercely proud of his conservative pedigree. He opened his remarks by recalling he was home-schooled, a badge of honor for Christian conservatives wary of public education. He quickly turned to berating McAuliffe as "a classic tax-and-spend liberal." "My opponent can't walk in a room without promising new spending," Cuccinelli quipped, before ridiculing Obama's health care law. "You haven't seen the end to the reduction of freedom and liberty that would happen under Obamacare." As political instigators in Washington, the Tea Party is seen by many as having triggered the first government shutdown since 1996 and setting off a civil war among Republicans. In Virginia, 53 percent of voters now have an unfavorable opinion of the movement, according to a Washington Post/ABC poll. Since the summer, surveys have shown Cuccinelli trailing, with Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis capitalizing on the disaffection and cannibalizing some of the voices from the right. The infighting has damaged the Republican brand, complained Mark Henderson, owner of Hollywood's Restaurant & Bakery in Roanoke. "I don't see the Tea Party as being the total answer," he said. "But I think the size of government, the spending has to be reduced some way, somehow, and I'm not sure how that's going to happen." University of Virginia political professor Larry Sabato said the state race has national implications. "If Republicans continue to nominate hard-right candidates, they will probably continue to lose a state once thought to be part of their Electoral College base," Sabato wrote. That could give a "Southern base of operations" to a longtime McAuliffe ally: Hillary Clinton, widely seen as a leading presidential hopeful in 2016. Her husband Bill Clinton joined McAuliffe last week on a swing through Virginia, where the admired former president mocked conservatives for causing such Republican division. "Why are all these Tea Party people so unhappy?" he asked McAuliffe supporters in Herndon. "And why are they insisting that we... fight with each other all the time?"