VIRGINIA IS FOR DEMOCRATS?

Garance reports on the role of the immigration issue in tonight's Virginia State Senate elections:

While those in Washington tend to think of Northern Virginia as the increasingly Democratic suburbs of the capital, geographically, Northern Virginia is still home to many communities that are considerable more Southern, rural, and conservative in spirit than cosmopolitan hotspots like Arlington, Va. It is in these communities, such as Fairfax, Loudon, and Prince William Counties, that are in cultural transition between North and South that the battle over immigration has been fiercest.

The state level fight over how to handle the influx of illegal immigrants into Virginia has not always played out along traditional partisan lines, however. In some cases, Northern Virginia Democrats are using the immigration issue to accuse their Republican opponents of favoring amnesty for illegals or otherwise being soft on illegal immigration. In others, Republicans are more vocal than their Democratic counterparts on the need for urgent state-level action to address the issue.

Read the rest (and comment) here.

--The Editors