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By GEORGE BOWLES
With the 1964 elections now history, s new and compelling question moves to Virginia’s political center stage. That question is: What will be the impact of the Republican presidential and senatorial landslides on next year’s statewide races in the Old Dominion?
Before an even tentative answer to that question can be reached, and any answer at this stage has to be tentative, it is necessary to say a few words about the nature of this year's GOP victories in the state.
President Reagan carried Virginia over Democrat Walter Mondale by a crushing 68 percent to Mondale’s 87 percent In the Senate race Sen. John Warner scored an even more lopsided win, 70 percent to 80 percent, over his Democratic opponent, former Del. Edythe Harrison of Norfolk.
But while the president and Warner were scoring their landslides, the races for the state’s six seriously contested congressional seats were awash in their outcomes. Democrats Ride Boucher in the 9th District and James Olin in the 6th retained their seats. In the 1st, 8th and 10th Districts Reps. Herbert Bateman, Stan Parris and Frank Wolf turned back their Democratic challengers with ease. In the 7th, the state’s only open slot, former Del. French Slaughter of Culpeper handily defeated Democrat Lewis Costello of Winchester in the race to succeed the retiring Congressman J. Kenneth Robinson.
With two Democrats and two Republicans occupying uncontested seats, the final totals on the Virginia congressional delegation were unchanged by the election. There will still be six Republicans and four Democrats.
Given the magnitude of the Republican wins in the presidential and senatorial contests, this might appear surprising. It could have been reasonably expected that the coattail effect would have swept all of the GOP candidates to fairly easy victories.
In feet, the coattails were there, but they were neither long enough nor strong enough to
fmplete the Republican sweep. everyhalsBait, ja <‘OP
won their victories by wider margins than did the two winning Democrats.
There are several reasons
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