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Given a strong re-election run by President Bush, Republicans should be able to win in the 1st, 7th and 10th districts, stand a good chance of knocking off Democratic incumbents in the 2nd, 6th, and 9th districts, stand an outside chance in the 5th and be competitive in a newly created Northern Virginia 11th District. Democrats would appear safe only in the new black 3rd District and the 4th and 8th districts. All of which means the GOP may be poised to again gain control of the delegation by 7-4 or 6-5.
But, and that’s with a capital “B,” the economy will be the wild card. Maybe the present recession isn’t statistically as bad as that of 1982, but you’ll have a hard time making people believing it, particularly when this time around it’s hit areas of the state formerly thought recession-proof such as Tidewater and Northern Virginia, and particularly since there is widespread ap-( prehension about defense-industry cutbacks in a state whose economy is heavily dependent on defense spending.
(Editor’s note: John Goolrick is an aide to U.S. Rep. George Allen, R-7th Dist., and a longtime political reporter.)
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