Copyright 2000 The Washington Post
The Washington
Post
November 9, 2000, Thursday, Final Edition
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A40
LENGTH: 1634 words
HEADLINE:
The Mid-Atlantic
BODY:
Delaware (3)
He's been a senator for five terms, but at 79 years old, Republican
William V. Roth Jr. ran out of steam. He was unseated by retiring Gov. Thomas R.
Carper (D), a moderate who cultivated a reputation as a tax-cutter in his two
terms in office. The race was a face-off between two of the state's most popular
politicians--Carper was a four-term member of the U.S. House before becoming
governor, while Senate Finance Committee Chairman Roth was the intellectual
father of the Roth IRA and a harsh critic of the Internal Revenue Service. But
Carper, 53, was ahead for most of the campaign.
Age was not explicitly
an issue, though it was certainly on everybody's mind. Twice in recent weeks
Roth fell over, which he said was a result of vertigo. Cameras caught one of the
incidents. But Carper also had the advantage of having achieved impressive
budget surpluses during his time as governor and skillfully finding middle
ground between Republicans and Democrats on a number of polarizing issues,
including the environment.
In the governor's race, Democratic Lt. Gov.
Ruth Ann Minner, 65, beat John M. Burris, the Republican president of the state
Chamber of Commerce.
Minner's heroic personal story won her the esteem
of voters. She quit high school at age 16 to help support her farming family,
and later as a twice-widowed mother, she worked several jobs to support her
three children. Besides her state government job, Minner also owns a company in
a business that, like government itself, is appreciated when it's needed but
abhorred when it comes uninvited: a towing service.
District of Columbia
(3)
Of course, Gore coasted to victory in the District, garnering nearly
10 times the number of votes that Bush attracted. Nader won a solid 5 percent.
And Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) won her sixth term without breaking a sweat,
easily defeating a field of lesser-known candidates.
Maryland (10)
Maryland always has been on Gore's win list, and so it was Tuesday, by a
mile. Gore took 57 percent of the vote, compared with 40 percent for Bush and 3
percent for Nader.
It was an Election Day for validating the status quo
in the state, as had been expected. Democratic Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes won
reelection to a fifth term, easily defeating GOP opponent Paul H. Rappaport, a
lawyer and former state trooper.
All the incumbents in the House--four
Republicans and four Democrats--were victorious as well. Among the winners was
veteran GOP Rep. Constance A. Morella of Montgomery County, who beat Democratic
lobbyist Terry Lierman in a battle that ended up being closer than anticipated
(52 percent to 46 percent)--evidence, Lierman supporters said yesterday, that
the incumbent, who is entering her eighth term, is vulnerable to Democratic
pressure. Lierman, who had done some lobbying for drugmaker Schering-Plough, was
hobbled recently by questions about a $ 25,000 loan he made to Rep. James P.
Moran Jr., a Virginia Democrat who co-sponsored a patent
extension bill that would have helped Schering-Plough preserve its
monopoly on the blockbuster allergy drug Claritin.
New
Jersey (15)
Money might not buy love, but it sure can help win Senate
elections, as was proven by Jon S. Corzine, a retired Wall Street investment
banker who spent more than $ 50 million of his own money to squeak by moderate
GOP Rep. Bob Franks.
Republican strategists never gave up on Franks to
win the seat left open by retiring Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D), and Franks did
cut Corzine's lead in recent weeks. But the Republican candidate just could not
keep pace with the campaign spending by one of the nation's wealthiest men.
In a tight race for Franks's open seat, Republican education consultant
Michael A. Ferguson finally was able to push aside Maryanne S. Connelly (D), a
retired AT&T executive and former mayor of Fanwood.
But there is no
such resolution yet to the even tighter race in the 12th District between
freshman Democrat Rush D. Holt and Richard A. Zimmer, the Republican who
represented the district before running unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1998.
As of midday Wednesday, the two were locked in dead heat, each with 49 percent
of the vote.
North Carolina (14)
In the race to succeed retiring
Democratic Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., Attorney General Michael Easley (D) defeated
Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot (R), who had tried to describe Easley as a Gore
associate. The vice president had all but given up winning the state.
The GOP surged to victory in two House races in the state. Freshman
Republican Rep. Robin Hayes handily won his rematch with Democratic lawyer Mike
Taylor, who lost the seat to Hayes by just 3,400 votes two years ago.
And despite revelations that he was delinquent on property tax payments,
veteran Republican Rep. Charles H. Taylor beat neophyte challenger Sam Neill, a
Democratic lawyer, by 55 percent to 42 percent, a wider margin than had been
anticipated.
Pennsylvania (23)
Confounding Republican
expectations, Gore eked out a victory in Pennsylvania, partly on the strength of
a powerful turnout by organized labor and African Americans in Philadelphia.
But the news was not all bad for the GOP in the Keystone State.
Conservative Sen. Rick Santorum, who was seeking a second term, turned back a
challenge from Rep. Ron Klink, himself a relatively conservative Democrat who is
against abortion and skeptical of gun control.
The race to fill Klink's
seat was won by GOP state Sen. Melissa Hart, chairman of the finance committee,
who bested state Rep. Terry Van Horne (D).
For a while Tuesday night, it
looked as though Democratic lawyer Patrick Casey finally had gotten his revenge
on Rep. Don Sherwood, a Republican, who had beaten Casey two years ago by just
515 votes to represent Scranton. Casey's late father, Robert P. Casey, was a
popular governor, and his brother, Bob Casey Jr., ran this year for state
auditor. But in the end, Sherwood--known for his dogged pursuit of federal money
for the district--garnered 53 percent of the vote, for a 12,000-vote victory
margin.
In suburban Philadelphia's 13th District, which has a long
history of shifting back and forth between the parties, Democratic Rep. Joseph
M. Hoeffel III held firm to his seat, keeping at bay Republican state Rep.
Stewart Greenleaf.
And in the race for Gettysburg's open seat, vacated
by retiring Rep. William F. Goodling (R), Republican Todd Platts won easily over
Democratic educator Jeff Sanders.
Virginia (13)
There was no
surprise in Bush's easy win in the commonwealth, so the news was Republican
former governor George Allen's victory over Democratic Sen. Charles S. Robb.
Toward the end of the race, the two-term Robb had closed Allen's long-standing
lead in the polls, but in the end, those efforts were not adequate to turn the
tide.
The struggle between Robb, himself a former governor, and
Allen--the son of a legendary former coach of the Washington Redskins, George H.
Allen--was the most closely watched in the Washington region. It became heated
in the final weeks as Robb charged that his opponent was a conservative
extremist who is insensitive to racial prejudice, while Allen alleged the
senator was a do-nothing creature of Washington.
With Republicans
sweeping all three of the state's House seats left open by retiring veteran
congressmen, the GOP gained a net of one seat in Virginia's 11-seat delegation.
It had been split among five Democrats, five Republicans and an independent who
caucuses with the GOP. With the election of Republicans Eric Cantor in District
7, Edward Schrock in District 2 and Jo Ann Davis in District 1, it's now six
Republicans, four Democrats and the incumbent independent, District 5's Virgil
H. Goode Jr.
Cantor, a lawyer from Richmond, easily beat school
superintendent Warren Stewart (D) for the seat left open by departing veteran
Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr., the chairman of the powerful House Commerce
Committee.
Schrock, a former state senator and retired Navy captain,
defeated Democratic lawyer Jody M. Wagner for the seat vacated by retiring Rep.
Owen B. Pickett (D). GOP strategists had counted on this seat to be an easy
pickup for them.
Former GOP state delegate Davis, a real estate broker,
trounced Lawrence A. Davies, the Democratic mayor of Fredericksburg and pastor
of a Baptist church, taking the seat vacated by retiring Rep. Herbert H. Bateman
(R).
West Virginia (5)
Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd, 82,
seeking his eighth term, easily swept aside Republican contractor David T.
Gallaher, as expected.
Byrd's victory wasn't enough to help Gore in this
state, as Gore's stands on guns and the environment helped push Bush to win by a
margin of 6 percentage points.
Longtime Rep. Robert E. Wise Jr. (D) was
elected governor against the incumbent who was seeking reelection, Cecil
Underwood (R).
Underwood wasn't serving his first term, either. It was
his second, but oddly, he won the first one in 1956, 40 years before the second
one.
In a close race to fill Wise's House seat, state Del. Shelley Moore
Capito outran Democratic state Sen. Jim Humphreys, a trial lawyer who has
specialized in suing asbestos companies. The win by Capito, an anti-tobacco
advocate and daughter of former governor Arch Moore, adds a new Republican seat
to West Virginia's House delegation.
Contributors to the state-by-state
reports and to the profiles of new governors, senators and members of the House
included staff writers David Brown, Kenneth J. Cooper, Michael A. Fletcher, Amy
Goldstein, Anne Hull, Marc Kaufman, John Lancaster, Charles Lane, George Lardner
Jr., Vernon Loeb, John Mintz, Dan Morgan, Steven Mufson, Susan Okie, Hanna
Rosin, Roberto Suro and Rick Weiss. Researchers Lynn Davis and Madonna Lebling
also contributed.
LOAD-DATE: November 09, 2000
