Democrats take governorships in Virginia, New Jersey

By Ian Christopher McCaleb
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Democratic Party reveled Wednesday in its ability to snatch back two governor's posts from the GOP, saying the victories of Mark Warner in Virginia and Jim McGreevey in New Jersey indicate the public is willing to put their trust back in the party, after years of Republican triumphs at the national, state and local level.

McGreevey defeated Republican Bret Schundler for New Jersey's top elected post by a margin of 56 to 42 percent. The New Jersey governorship had been in GOP hands for eight years.

Warner, meanwhile, defeated former GOP state Attorney General Mark Earley in Virginia by a count of 52 percent to 47 percent.

Warner takes public office for the first time, while McGreevey, a longtime figure in Garden State politics, trades up to bigger quarters.

Their national party reacted with glee late Tuesday night.

"From strong fiscal management to jobs, from education to transportation, Mark Warner and Jim McGreevey won because they have the right approach to bringing back the voters' trust in good government," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe in a statement.

Despite sure Republican disappointment, the victories of Warner and McGreevey in this low-profile, off-year election are not seen as a harbinger of things to come next year for the young Bush administration -- when the highly anticipated 2002 midterm elections will determine the occupants of 36 governorships, and set the stage for the next full session of Congress.

Indeed, the Bush administration and the major political parties treated these two gubernatorial elections as near anomalies in this new era of economic uncertainty, terrorist threats and resultant far-flung military operations. Bush opted not to campaign for either GOP candidate -- Jersey City Mayor Schundler and Earley -- choosing instead to record messages for their telephone bank operations, and stay in Washington to direct the anti-terror war.

First Democrat in Richmond's top slot in eight years

Warner was able to realize victory just about two hours after the polls closed across the Old Dominion, at 7 p.m. Tuesday night, ending 12 hours of voting.

He is the first Democrat to be elected to the Virginia State House's governor's chair since 1989, and his victory ends an impressive run of successes by the Republicans, who control the state House of Delegates and Senate, hold the majority of Virginia's seats in the U.S. House, and both state seats in the U.S. Senate.

Tough times await the governor-elect in Richmond. While the GOP lost the governor's post, it made significant gains in the House of delegates, assuring its tight control of the legislature. Democrats claimed the lieutenant governor's slot, while the GOP was victorious in the race for state attorney general.

"This campaign has been the longest job interview of my life," Warner said in his acceptance speech. "But now the people of Virginia have spoken. They have said they want a new approach for our commonwealth, and tonight I'm here to tell you I'm ready for the challenge."

Earley may have paid the price for several months of tough budgetary wrangling in Richmond, where single-term Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore, who moonlights as the chairman of the Republican National Committee, locked horns with the state Senate and House of Delegates over tax and budgeting policies.

Budget analysts are predicting a budget shortfall in Virginia next year that could top $1 billion. And much of the battling in Richmond has focused on some of the state's once most reliable cash generators, including the yearly personal property tax levied on vehicle ownership.

Gilmore's administration had mounted efforts to roll back and eventually phase out the tax, but the fate of the auto tax is now up in the air, after some percentages of payments had been refunded to taxpayers in the first four years of Gilmore's five-year sunset plan.

Next year was to be the fifth and final year of the car tax plan, but Warner has said he wants to see what the state ledgers look like before he decides how to proceed.

Warner had jumped into the fray on some tax issues, having expressed support for a referendum that would raise sales taxes to pay for some of Northern Virginia's most ambitious transportation infrastructure upgrades, but telling voters he would not support statewide hikes, despite a series of Earley television advertisements accusing him of favoring tax increases.

Earley ran on a "law and order," late-campaign platform that was designed to give him maximum exposure following the Sept. 11 jetliner attack on the Pentagon, which is in Arlington, in the north of the state. He highlighted his nearly three years as Virginia attorney general, and said he would bring safety and security to the state's public school system.

But he fell behind Warner in fundraising. Warner, a venture capitalist specializing in telecommunications startups, raised $18.2 million, including $4.7 million of his own money. Earley, meanwhile, collected $10.5 million through the course of his campaign.

The race was the most expensive in Virginia's history.

"We have never retreated from the message of individual liberties, low taxes, limited government and world-class education," Earley said in Richmond on Tuesday night, offering his concession to Warner.

McGreevey in New Jersey

A few hundred miles north, Democrat Jim McGreevey was the winner in New Jersey's race for the governor's mansion, besting the conservative Schundler in the largely Democratic-leaning state.

McGreevey had abandoned the campaign trail in the last day to attend to his wife, who was hospitalized for complications with her seven-month pregnancy.

He was replaced on the stump in the waning hours leading up to the opening of the polls by New Jersey's two Democratic Senators, John Corzine and Robert Torricelli, and the DNC's McAuliffe.

Speaking to supporters soon after learning of the day's results, McGreevey said has was "excited to give the government back to the people."

"Tonight I have a message for all of you," he said. "This was your fight, your victory, and the next four years belong to you."

McGreevey had run for the office once before, losing in 1997 by one percentage point to moderate Republican Christy Whitman, who gave up the post earlier this year to become head of the Bush administration Environmental Protection Agency.

Schundler, who ran a spirited race despite having received a lukewarm blessing for the state GOP, kept at the trail Tuesday in McGreevey's absence, telling audience members that he too, like Virginia's Earley, was a 'law and order' candidate for the office. On one stop, he pledged to stockpile smallpox vaccine for use in the eventuality of an outbreak, to avoid the same confusion and heartache caused by the mysterious dissemination of anthrax through the national mail system.

At least some the synthetically preserved anthrax spores that have brought fear, illness and death to a large portion of the nation following the Sept. 11 attacks, appear to have been mailed from central New Jersey.

Schundler had trailed McGreevey by large margins in most state polls, and as in Virginia, taxes and projected budget shortfalls took up much of the state's political attention in recent weeks. Schundler had expressed optimism that he would make a good showing, despite his conservative stances on such issues as abortion and gun control -- stances not widely held throughout New Jersey.

In his concession speech, Schundler warned McGreevey that the people of New Jersey would keep an eye on his pledges not to raise taxes.

"We are going to look to him to do that, and we are going to hold him to those promises," Schundler said.