2000 Downballot - Key Senate Races
California:
The success of the movie Terminator managed to capture the attention of Americans everywhere, bringing up themes of the drawbacks of technology, and fears of the impacts of unimpeded scientific progress. Since the release of the movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger had become a household name almost overnight.
However, Schwarzenegger had an unknown side to him: He was a stalwart liberty conservative. When he became a naturalized citizen back in 1968, he saw the Goldwater campaign as a source of inspiration politically, especially since he felt the Progressives were too close to the communists he saw in Europe, and the Democrats did not have sufficient anti-communist credentials. He voted for Republican since, and his support for the party eventually caught the attention of many after making an appearance in the 1988 Republican National Convention. As Senator Ed Meese declared on his retirement, the California GOP saw an opportunity to revitalize the party after the defeat in the 1998 midterms. Back then, the party failed to win both a Senate seat and the governorship in a state that was generally considered a Republican bastion. They felt that Schwarzenegger would be the right man at the right time, popular enough to rally both orthodox liberty conservatives, moderates and disappointed communonationalists under one banner against the green wave that washed over the state just two years before. With the support of the party establishment, the retiring Meese, and even president Bundy, (although Schwarzenegger endorsed Dornan back in 1996, Bundy appreciated Schwarzenegger for his charisma and style, and personally encouraging him to run), Schwarzenegger easily won the nomination against several minor candidates.
On the Progressive side, rep. Ed Zschau (P-CA12), from the centrist wing of the party, won the party nomination with little resistance. Zschau, a former Republican, and one of the first Progressive house representatives from California was a colorful figure and was known for playing the ukulele on the campaign trail. For that, he was nicknamed "The singing congressman". Within progressive circles, party campaigners hoped that Zschau would be able to draw the support of Rockefeller Republicans (mostly from the Bay Area and LA), who were dissatisfied with the president's policies. Zschau was well ingrained in progressive leadership and had both personal friends Dick Lamm, and political ally Ross Perot, campaigning with him.
In contrast to the relatively straightforward primary campaign from both of the other major parties, the Democratic Party had a serious primary election between two fellow Representatives: Loretta Sanchez (D-CA46) and Bob Filner (D-CA49).
Sanchez, a freshwoman and a member of the growing Spanish-American Democratic Caucus, represented a heavily Spanish-American district in the suburban Orange County, a traditional Republican stronghold. Her activism work led her to become a leading voice for the Spanish-American population in the southwest and for minority voters under the Democratic umbrella in general. Although the democratic franchise in California severely decreased its value since the beginning of the Sixth Party System, the state Democratic Party leadership hoped that Sanchez could use the Democratic machine of SoCal, Hispanic farmers in the central valley and Latin American immigrants to achieve a plurality of voters. Pundits would identify her ethnicity as both her greatest strength and greatest weakness, as it made outreach to white working-class constituents significantly harder.
Against her stood Filner, whose district was comprised of southern San Diego and most of the state’s border with Mexico. Filner was much more experienced than Sanchez and even worked in Dan White’s gubernatorial campaigns, although over the years he shifted leftward socially. He was also considered more mainstream than Sanchez and was preferred by the party leadership, by then held by a narrow majority of Dan White populists over working-class Spanish-Americans.
Although Sanchez managed to narrowly defeat Filner in an upset victory and achieved the nomination, her chances to regain the support of the SoCal white populist voters were weak, which made the race an effective two-way race between the Republican Schwarzenegger and the Progressive Zschau. Many former Dan White voters would end up splitting their votes among the Republicans and Progressives. Sanchez was left lagging behind in the polls, with about 15%-22% of the vote, while both of the other major candidates were in the high-thirties.
While it was a close race, a combination of a coattail effect from Bundy and Schwarzenegger’s star status led to a Republican victory for the night. Mr. Schwarzenegger would go to Washington.
Florida:
The state of Florida went through a slow realignment in the last 40 years. From the election of Claude Kirk to the governorship back in 1964, Florida became a swing state, with Kirk building a coalition of educated suburban and black voters. Kirk, who still held a powerful but unofficial role in the Florida GOP, hoped to take advantage of the ratification of the Caribbean Free Trade Association agreement, which kickstarted the state's trade-based economy and was the main factor in the success of Norman Schwarzkopf's senatorial campaign, helping to turn the state from purple to red.
This election cycle, however, would likely be different, as one of the main forces in state politics was the ever-increasing number of pensioners who chose the Sunshine State to spend their retirement. This population was heavily damaged by the president’s cuts to Social Security in favor of the AmCare and CaseyCare, and most pollsters projected that even Republican-leaning older voters would shift towards the Democratic Party to punish the Republicans. This was the most evident in the election of Governor Paul Ilyinsky. (Many of those who voted for Ilyinsky during his gubernatorial campaign in 1998 felt personally closer to a man of their age than they did to Bundy.) On the other hand, the Republican swing was clear in both metropolitan centers and suburbs, as people who made their money from trade and tourism profited heavily from the new CarFTA trade deal and from the “Gulf Trade Boom” that ensued. Another constituency that Republicans managed to swing in their favor were social conservatives from the panhandle. This vital constituency, who usually voted for the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, heavily supported Bundy’s war on drugs, which they saw as an opportunity to get both of the region’s growing drug problem and to rid themselves of the image that they were themselves, drug-dealing rednecks. They felt both would happen only if they cooperated with the president’s efforts. As most illegal drugs in Florida, in particular, came from South America via naval trade, the newly-stabilized Caribbean Sea situation saw a massive reduction in the rates of illegal smuggling cases. (The efforts of the West Indies Federation in assisting drug-busting efforts helped greatly in this regard.)
The current seat up for election was then held by Democrat Bob Martinez, who announced he would retire at the end of his term shortly before the primary season started (largely because of abysmal approval ratings among his own party after many thought that he was cottoning too much towards the president.) Andy Martin, a state senator known for his theatrical flair and bombastic remarks about his opponents, would eventually win the nomination. Martin, a former Republican Kissimmee city council member, switched parties shortly before the election as he saw another opportunity to win a major party senate nomination with relative ease. It soon became clear that Martin was in the race to boost his celebrity status, and not for the sake of the party, but by then it was too late and the Democrats would reluctantly put their full force behind him. Most Democratic campaigners, however, were more likely to run negative ads against Bush’s lack of experience or present themselves as the “anti-Bundy choice” rather than focus on the traits of their specific candidate.
The Florida Progressives, meanwhile, were a small party, usually polling in single digits. Their presence in the state was so small that frequently there were no Progressive nominees in important statewide races. However, in 2000, Tampa mayor Charlie Crist decided to throw his hat into the ring. Crist was definitely far to the social right for the party, even supporting moderate drug control measures, and was certainly on the right-wing economically, though he ran unopposed in the primary despite being considered too right-wing for much of the party. Many even predicted he would eliminate a potential Republican pickup. However, knowing his intraparty weaknesses, Crist spent far too much time before the election trying to conjure left-wing bona fides that simply didn’t exist.
As a result, any cut into more socially liberal Republican-leaners became impossible and some polls found Crist also took equally from the poorest elements of the Democratic Party. Regardless, Democrats felt safe about the seat, especially given the personal popularity of Governor Ilynsky and the state party’s strength. They would be blindsided by the Republican swing. Ilynsky threatened to “clean out” party operations if they lost another statewide race like this again.
Norman Schwarzkopf, despite being a Republican, would pose a contrast to the isolationism of Bundy. While not a hawk by any means, he was a strong supporter of economic integration and aid, especially since he was the namesake of the Schwarzkopf Plan and the rebuilding of Europe. Moreover, he kept the pressure on Bundy and the State Department to keep a lid on the trouble brewing in South America while also helping pass key legislation to ensure that the VA continued its mission effectively even as the US took a pacifist streak. The former general made for an unconventional politician but was an effective representative of his state. Despite that, the local Republican Party decided to draft a more conventional candidate to run for the now-vacant seat of Bob Martinez, the second Florida Seat. This man was Jeb Bush.
Jeb Bush was a scion of the Bush family, son of Defense Secretary George Bush, and brother of George Bush Jr., the hero of the Portugal Crisis and House Majority Leader at the time. While Bush himself held no elected political office, he was a well-known businessman political activist. He also served in the cabinets of several previous Republican administrations in the state, including a short stint as the Secretary of Commerce.
Many expected Bush to be a passive campaigner, running more off his family name and the lack of name recognition of both of his candidates than much of anything else. However, he surprised many Republican voters by his energetic campaign style. Detractors would call him “goofy”, he appealed well to the common man. This was especially in contrast with Charlie Crist’s lukewarm attempts to expand his base of voters, not to mention his stiff personality, although not to the same extent as Andy Martin. Most polls had Jeb Bush leading the race by a couple of percentage points early on, though his numbers widened as time went on as he took a more active and personalized campaign. The result surprised few.
Despite winning by a respectable margin, Bush only won a plurality of the vote thanks to an unexpected surge in Progressive support. And even though his party lost the race for the senate by an uncomfortably high margin (mostly thanks to running a relative nobody), governor Paul Ilyinsky gained more control over the state’s Democratic Party, cementing his place as a regional power-player and his existing reputation as an enemy of Ted Bundy. After losing the senate race, Andy Martin was later revealed to have written and circulated many pamphlets circulating conspiracy theories. One was called “On the Israeli conspiracy to invade the United States”, which claimed a plot to resurrect the USSR (a common fear among Americans despite the impossibility of stitching together more than 20 separate states without Western intervention), alleged that free trade policies were part of a plot to weaken domestic industries and flood markets with foreign goods, and a Zionist-atheistic plot to destroy Christian values. Thoroughly disgraced, he resigned from political office, though he would pop up again in local media from time to time, making wild accusations against politicians far and wide, from Ted Bundy to Ted Cruz. Meanwhile, Jeb Bush had now joined his brother as a high-profile politician.
Maryland:
Since the ‘60s, the Agnew political machine ruled Maryland with an iron fist. With the state's demographic center of the Baltimore-DC corridor being mostly comprised of blacks and suburban voters, it seemed that the Agnews would not be gone any time soon. Since the early ‘90s, anti-establishment sentiment began to gain unspoken support within state Republican circles. Republican outsiders felt that the Agnew family were treating the state, and particularly the Maryland GOP as a whole, as its own personal fiefdom. To which supporters of the Agnew machine had one main argument: you don't just replace a winning horse. Many Marylanders, were believed to think the same. When Susan Scott Agnew, a former frontrunner for the 1996 presidential election, announced unexpectedly that she was retiring early because of cancer-related complications, the seat was left wide open for the governor to appoint. And when famed writer Tom Clancy announced that he was interested in gaining political office, he quickly moved to the top of Governor Eleanor Agnew’s list.
Compared to other potential candidates for senator, Clancy was outside of the political sphere and could increase the visibility of the State Party in the national media which had begun to ignore the sleepy state. Running unopposed at the Republican convention a couple of months after his appointment, Clancy came towards the general election without much competition from either the Democratic or Republican parties. One of the main issues of the race was whether or not he supported the policies of the president. Unlike many other states, the elite of Maryland was mildly anti-Bundy, though not to the extent that it hurt their standing among the political electorate. However, for newer candidates, it was thought it would prove harder for them to get elected if they did not make clear their stance on the administration’s policies, especially those of isolationism, his economic policies, and importantly, the drug war.
Personally conflicted in his opinion of the president, Clancy would remain coy on the issue, navigating the issue and keeping both sides of the party satisfied. His opponents were relative nobodies, as most potential candidates of both parties did not bother to risk their political careers taking on an uncontroversial and well-liked candidate backed by the deep-pocketed Maryland Republican Party. Those that did win the Democratic and Progressive nominations, Robert W. Curran and Jimmy Tarlau, respectively, were relative nobodies on the political scene, neither with much name recognition. It did not come to much of a surprise when the results of the election came.
Winning the state by large margins, Clancy’s victory showed Maryland was still solidly Republican territory, especially during an election where geographic norms (seemed) to be breaking down.
Michigan:
While “Perotite” Progressives had a bad day overall, they did manage to save the skins of quite a few Democratic candidates by acting as a spoiler for the Republicans. This was the most prominent in states like Michigan, where Joe Schwartz ate into Posthumous’ support far more than he did Bieber’s. Bieber gained core Leftist support from Roundtree while maintaining Bundycrat support by playing himself as a “liberal watchdog” on Bundy: Compromising over Amtrak, but still being fiercely against Social Security changes. While this exaggerated the moderate side of this dyed-in-the-wool, Pro-Union, Pro-Intervention Communonationalist, combined with a good economy and good luck, it got him the victory he badly wanted.
Conventional wisdom among Beltway insiders was that the Spanish American vote was solidly Democrat. Because of this, when Puerto Rico ascended to the Union, it was believed that it would be an easy two Senate seats for the Democrats. This was the main dealmaker of “The Deal” and why the Democrats supported Bundy’s reform of Social Security.
Of course, the results of the 2000 elections shocked many by bucking this otherwise consistent trend in national politics. As the ruling New Progressive Party officially started the process of becoming the Democratic party’s state affiliate, their opposition, the liberal Popular Democratic Party felt at home with their new national counterparts, the Progressive Party. The Grassroots structure of the Progressives, expressed by how the party was being comprised of smaller, independent, state-level parties such as the NY Liberal party, MN Farmer-Labor and the ND Non-Partisan League, etc., was fairly attractive to the autonomy-minded PDP. The National Progressive leadership, believing that having one of their own candidates winning the race would be a long shot, agreed that the PDP decide by themselves whether to become an affiliate. The PDP, comprised mostly by left-wing minaprogressives, (although with a communitarian streak, and less socially liberal than their mainland counterparts), nominated the mayor of San Juan, Sila Calderon. As mayor, she undertook one of the largest public works programs in the island’s history, sponsoring various urban redevelopment projects to revitalize Old San Juan and other deteriorated sections of the city. She also initiated a program to assist the empowerment of poor communities and improve economic development. She was fairly popular among the deeply-communitarian Puerto-Rican electorate, even among the “loyalist” PNP members.
Meanwhile, Republicans remained without an existing political ally in the new state, though two things going for them were the admission to the union and the continuation of the state’s tax breaks. The Republican Party had another unique challenge in this state: persuading the state’s black population to vote for them. While Black Americans were considered a solidly Republican demographic, those in Puerto Rico didn’t have the same loyalty to the Republican party, having different histories through the 1960s and having different experiences through the Wallace Administration. (This reason, among others, was one reason why recent African immigrants, with communonationalist leanings, tended to lean vote Democrat.) At 10% of the vote, they were an important constituency to gain, and they hoped to win this constituency through the same margins as through the rest of the country.
On the bright side, an influx of ex-PNP representatives and suburban voters, who couldn’t resonate with the Democratic party’s views regarding economics, helped to build the state’s nascent Republican party. The local candidate was one Antonio Luis Ferré, a popular publisher of local newspapers and an important power-player in local politics. Well-known among locals because of his namesake, the pro-statehood former governor Luis A. Ferré, he was considered a good choice for a candidate to make the Republican Party palatable for voters.
One unexpected result of the quick admission process was the meteoric rise of the PIP. As the island’s main separationist party, the Puerto Rican Independence Party received a surprising boost of support from ex-PDP members who sought a continuation of the commonwealth status but now supported independence as the commonwealth option was now out of the table. From a party with the support of 5% of the population, the party more than doubled their electoral share according to pollsters, now polling at 12%. Unlike other separatist parties in the United States, such as the Alaska Independence Party and (extremists parts of) the Natural Law Party, Puerto Rico's Independence Party was a left-wing Social Democratic party in the mid-20th century European sense of the word and would oppose Puerto Rican involvement in foreign wars in the case of independence. The party nominated former gubernatorial candidate and a long-time independence supporter Rubén Berríos. Berríos, who made a name for himself by protesting against the US navy usage of Culebra Island for military exercises back in 1971. Although the usage of the islands only ended in 1998, after the shift towards an isolationist US foreign policy and the island being rendered as useless for the military, he became widely known across the island state.
The incumbent senator standing for reelection was Jaime Fuster, who had a long history in local politics. As both an associate justice of the state’s Supreme Court and the resident commissioner of the island, he was originally a liberal member of the PDP, though he felt increasingly uncomfortable with the minaprogressivistic strain of liberalism that the mainland’s Progressives espoused, believing that the libertarian nature of the American school of minaprogressivism was inconsistent with “Puerto Rican community values”. He felt more aligned with the old-school Kennedy liberals of the Democratic Party, and later switched parties to the Democrats rather than the PNP shortly before the admittance of the state to the union. The state’s governor, Pedro Rossello, bargained with the national Democratic Party over the appointment of senators. They recommended that he nominate Fuster, who was popular in the state and among the diaspora, and another one of the other members of the PNP. Instead, Rossello decided to appoint himself to the position. The state’s senate and house, dominated by loyalist PNP members quickly approved the appointees. When the senate post was offered to him at first, Fuster rejected it, as he felt like he should focus on his judicial role; however, after persuasion by Rossello, prominent Kennedy liberals, and even from some of his former compatriots at the PDP, he agreed to represent the new state in the US senate. The election would be one of the most competitive of the night, as it was a four-way race. The Republican and Democratic candidates, Ferré and Fuster, respectively, were in the top two and were neck-and-neck in the polls in the lead-up to the race. While the Progressives hoped to be in the running for the race, the independentist vote acted as a spoiler for the Progressives, leaving them both at approximately 25% and 12% respectively.
The main reason for Fuster's failure was his relative social liberalism in spite of the state’s population upholding the stereotype of Hispanic-Americans as socially conservative and deeply religious people. Ferre managed to appeal to the socially conservative state’s population by riding the coattails of Bundy’s war on drugs, reminding them of the dangerous situation.
The result of the race surprised many, with a result once thought impossible happening. A Republican winning in a Spanish American seat, if at a narrow margin, was thought impossible. Seeing the failure of the independentist faction to move past 4th place, the PIP would coalition with the Progressive affiliate in the future, combining their bases to have a chance in statewide politics. Puerto Rico now had the conditions to become a swing state, split three-way between Progs, Republicans and Democrats.
West Virginia:
In arguably the greatest upset of the night, John Rease pulled off the “Millennium Stunner” over the ex-VP candidate and West Virginia icon Robert Byrd. Byrd had tried to woo Strom Thurmond numerous times to be his successor, but Strom preferred the younger, more southern, and more modern Al Gore. As a result of both this and national party fortunes, Byrd’s ability to pull pork to the state had decreased. West Virginia as a whole, meanwhile, had benefited from the war. It had not been an extensive target during the Second Blitz, even for the region, in part because Soviet Spies saw it as “too poor to waste bombs on”. Combined with its natural energy supply and union unrest up north, it became a popular target for new investment, particularly in automobile manufacturing. While investments were modest in national terms, they had a positive impact on the state. Real estate developer John Rease, in particular, made a killing off of this. In addition, American demand for domestic coal skyrocketed because of the uncertainty of the Great Southern War. The privatization of the TVA also made West Virginia coal more competitive in its southern neighbors. West Virginia seemed to slowly be clawing itself out of its long-held economic doldrums.
However, with its secluded backwoods and prime access to the major universities and youth centers of the East Coast, West Virginia was also hit by an influx of junkies and dealers. Bundy’s pivot towards more policies popular with traditional communonationalist voters won him approval. While Byrd had signed on to the various bipartisan policies, he did not relish them.
Byrd seemed bored on the campaign trail. Rumors abound that he was in the running to become the President of West Virginia University, which had just received a massive increase in funding in the last state budget but did not know yet how to spend it. Many believed he didn’t seem to “need” it.
Raese and Pritt, in contrast, both ran like candidates possessed by the devil, barnstorming the state in full force. Rease emphasized his social conservatism and “record delivering for West Virginians in the beautiful mountains around Morgantown not smoke-filled gentlemen’s clubs in Washington” for a Republican while Pritt hacked off the few backwoods social liberals and environmentalists who were frustrated with the lack of stewardship in the state and felt that it was too dependent on dirty coal.
The results, while surprising, did not shock those closely watching the race.
Though he lost by a slim margin, it became clear by the end of the night that Robert Byrd’s time serving as a senator for West Virginia had now ended. His defeat proved a blow for local Democrats.
One of the bright lights of the night for the Democrats was in Missouri, a state which had been trending Democratic, but still needed a push to go all the way. A quality candidate was found in the grandson of “the Isaiah of Communonationalism”, Harry Truman. Already seen as a viable candidate because of his family history, he became well known as a journalist for the New York Times. Now with a reputation as a renowned columnist, he returned to Missouri to manage and headline the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, using it as a platform to promote Midwestern communonationalism.
On the other side of the election stood the long-serving John Danforth, first elected in 1970 when the state was still trending Republican. During the Third World War and the 90s’ afterward, he briefly became the secretary of state during WWIII, sometime after Dick Cheney’s cardiac arrest. He later became the leader of the liberal Republicans in the senate when he resumed his senate seat. He was an influential and widely-known senator, but his margins of victory in his home state shrunk over time as the makeup of the state changed around him. In his last re-election campaign, he narrowly defeated state senator Jay Nixon by a margin of 4%.
For Danforth, his main issue was recruiting enthusiasm amongst Republicans while not alienating moderates nor Progressives. Daniel, moreover, hit Danforth on the one issue where he was most aligned with the President: foreign policy. While many Republicans, notably including moral crusaders like Pat Buchanan, found widespread support for their moral crusades against “Freyist influences on foreign policy”, (especially among blacks and white suburban women), such efforts did not endear Bundy to the state of Missouri, as many citizens were war veterans who saw isolationism as an insult to the sacrifices of those who died in the Third World War. This, along with negative campaigning connecting Danforth with Bundy, helped tip the Show-Me State over to the Democrats.
Senator Daniel channeled his ancestor in many ways while serving the state, working behind the scenes for the benefit of his state, including his famous support for a tax break for filmmakers, rivaling California’s incentives for producers and helping to grow the state’s burgeoning entertainment industry.
Utah:
A common saying about Utah politics was that Utahns are devout Republicans as much as they are devout Mormons. The Utah Republican party was part of the stalwart Liberty Conservative wing of the party, and as it had a strong social conservative streak, Ted Bundy wasn’t loved in the party as much as presidents McCloskey, Reagan, and Rumsfeld were.
Bundy was seen as a sharp deviation from the direction they wanted to see the party advancing, and from the Republicans under Rumsfeld and Reagan. The president was simply much bolder and impulsive than Utah could ever get used to. His personality also rubbed many Utahns the wrong way, as he seemed too “unpresidential”. Bundy’s bombastic demeanor and his youthful energy proved divisive to many, with some supporting his attempts to bring “life into the presidency”, while others saw it as making a mockery of the office. For many, the First Lady, Jennifer Aniston Bundy, was one of the most obvious examples of the latter. She was mocked for her former career as an actress, despite the fact that she played a limited role in the administration, many attack ads put her figure, (usually pictures taken out of context showing her in seemingly risque situations), front and center, as a symbol of the Bundy administration.
The Progressives endorsed activist Rocky Anderson, a controversial choice, in part due to his vehement criticism of the president’s “War on Drugs” and his support for same-sex marriage, which combined with his other more leftist positions soured him to many rural Progressives. This would have been a great boon for the Natural Law Party, though they had agreed prior to the campaign that they would have a detente with the Republicans on a national level, which unofficially held true on the state level as well. No candidates were fielded that year. Theoretically, this would have meant that rural Progressives would flock to the Republican Party, though the increasingly anti-rural and pro-city campaigning of the Republicans on the presidential scale led many to either stay home on election day or try tactically voting for the Democratic candidate, seen as the lesser of three evils.
In the 1996 race, Utah Republicans were one of the most ardent supporters of Bob Dornan’s bid to the presidency and gritted their teeth while voting for Bundy. It was on the backs of voters like these that led the Natural Law Party to take second place in the state and caused the GOP to decrease to only a plurality of the vote. Whether the Natural Law Party’s endorsement of Ted Bundy in the national election would trickle down to this senate race remained to be seen. Orrin Hatch had not played a particularly large role in national politics under Bundy, who preferred working with David Leroy of Idaho and Paul Laxalt of Nevada when discussing “Mountain West” issues. Hatch, who had been the party’s nominee in 1992, was increasingly seen as ineffective.
Meanwhile, Scott Matheson Jr., former gubernatorial candidate, was fresh off of successful 2 terms as SLC mayor having built a new effective public transportation network, built up the school system to become one of the best in the nation, and attracted union jobs in the food processing industry (building upon Utah’s long-standing beekeeping tradition). Matheson also worked to help resettle the few admitted refugees from South America into SLC with tri-partisan applause and used this position to pillory Republicans for their “uncaring” foreign policy.
Orrin Hatch had little to speak for while Scott Matheson Jr. seemed fresh, had a record of accomplishment, and also presented himself as a young man who was proud of his Mormon values. Matheson mocked Hatch’s attempts to “go Hollywood” by famously trying to get through to Bundy through his wife’s friendship with the first lady, to little avail. Hatch was unable to recover and the Democrats scored an important upset.
Pat Buchanan found himself in another tough race only 4-years after dealing with accusations of supposed mistresses, British conspiracies, and anti-Catholic barbs from candidates like Lyndon LaRouche. However, this time he wouldn’t have the luxury of a Progressive third-party candidate. Fortunately, his opponent had one controversial position on his campaign platform which Buchanan hoped to use to drive a wedge between potential swing voters and the Democrats. Tim Kaine, a pro-life Representative in the House and current Democratic nominee, campaigned on adopting a fierce anti-death penalty stance (demanding a constitutional amendment banning it) and had a moderate anti-drug war position. Buchanan pilloried this as a sign that Tim Kaine “didn’t care about Virginian Lives” which he “didn’t want to protect from crime at home and wanted to throw away in useless adventures abroad”. Tim Kaine would come to regret campaigning on his position on abolishing the death penalty after the state was rocked by a case that captured the imagination. A Nazi turned drug-kingpin named Rocky Suhayda, escaping cops in hot pursuit, killed a black mother and child while fleeing arrest. When asked at the end of a lengthy, contentious and personal debate about whether Suhada should be killed for his actions, Kaine pivoted to blaming Bundy’s drug policies for forcing Suhayda to a life of crime. (He also name-dropped the “Appalachian Raid in Cincinnati”, the infamous 1997 drug sting which while wiping out many major cartels in the South, led to the deaths of nearly 40 people.) This, unfortunately, infuriated Bundycrats, (Bundy-leaning Democrats), and African Americans. Although Democrats would win the state on the presidential level, a key segment of voters decided to split their ticket, flipping the state in favor of the Republicans. In his victory speech, Pat Buchanan sounded out that his victory was a victory for the Silent Majority, who were sick of business as usual and of wars for the sake of Europe. Virginians evidently agreed.