2008 United States Senate election in Virginia

Common card · No. 204472

The 2008 United States Senate election in Virginia was held on November 4, 2008, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the Commonwealth of Virginia. Incumbent Republican U.S. senator John Warner declined to seek re-election to a sixth term. Democratic former governor Mark Warner (no relation) defeated Republican former governor Jim Gilmore by a 31-point margin. Warner was the first Democrat to win this seat since 1966. This was also the first time since 1964 that the state voted simultaneously for a Democratic presidential candidate and a Democratic Senate candidate, having voted for Barack Obama in the concurrent presidential election, albeit by a far lesser margin. This was Virginia's first open-seat election since 1988. Since Warner took office in 2009, Democrats have held both of Virginia's Senate seats, which they had last done in 1970, when Harry F. Byrd Jr. left the Democratic Party to become an independent. Warner's large margin of victory was reflected throughout...

Read on Wikipedia · Image LadyofHats with additional editing by 痛 and Patrickneil, Public domain