Even down to the county and city level are very close to Warner’s numbers from 2001.
Kilgore was crushed in Northern VA and didn’t do as well as he should have downstate. But, Kaines support was still slightly lower than Warners in 2001.
It was basically a status quo election here and a vote for an extension of the Warner status quo.
I’m not sure we can make much more out of this than that. Republicans did face a headwind, but no massive Democrat surge.
I think this loss is Kilgore’s, as his other ticketmates appear to be headed to tight wins. But even here, Bolling won in large part because downstate voters rejected the liberal Leslie Byrne.
The big disappointment was the fact that turnout was down and the GOP turnout effort appeared to do very little overall. It appeared to boost some rural areas, but not by much.
The turning point appears to have been the Democrats ability to turn a Kilgore attack ad back on Kilgore through their use of their allies in the press.