WP,pg1: Maryland, Virginia Democratic challengers' fate may depend on big, rich D.C. suburbs

[DeepModem Mom]

Md., Va. Challengers' Fate May Depend on Inner Suburbs' Muscle
By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 5, 2006; Page A01

Big, rich, filled with voters and slightly off-center, the Washington suburbs will either drive the election results in Virginia and Maryland on Tuesday or show once again that they are out of step with the rest of their states.

Maybe both.

This election marks the full emergence of Northern Virginia and the Maryland suburbs that border Washington as power centers in their states. In the case of Northern Virginia, dramatic growth and changing political attitudes that set it more in tune with the rest of the country than the rest of Virginia are vital to Democrat James Webb's challenge of Republican Sen. George Allen.

"The divide between Northern Virginia and the rest of the state continues to grow wider -- it's as if they are two different states," said George Mason University political scientist Mark J. Rozell. "If Jim Webb is to win, I really think the story the next day is how Northern Virginia put him over the top."

Likewise, Montgomery and Prince George's counties -- the largest jurisdictions in the state, accounting for about 30 percent of the total vote -- are the cornerstones for Democratic campaigns. But that doesn't mean the rest of the state always follows.

The counties stood out four years ago as the only jurisdictions besides Baltimore to back Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. won because of his margins elsewhere in the state. If this year's Democratic standard-bearers -- Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley for governor and Baltimore County Congressman Benjamin L. Cardin in the U.S. Senate race -- don't supplement their expected margins in the D.C. suburbs with more help from their own region, the pattern could repeat....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/04/AR2006110400984.html