U.S. Rep. Tom Davis was once considered a nearly indestructible political force on a rapid upward trajectory — a prominent and powerful House Republican well-positioned to succeed the soon-to-retire Sen. John Warner.
But Davis’ announcement Thursday that he had scuttled his long-planned Senate bid could reflect new political difficulties for the moderate GOP mainstay. If the congressman opts to run for re-election in Northern Virginia’s 11th District next year — and there is widespread speculation that he won’t — political analysts agree he could be vulnerable to a Democratic challenge.
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“The ground is shifting underneath his feet,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington. “Not only is the Republican Party moving more to the right, the district is moving more to the left. A serious Democratic candidate could make a serious contest in 2008.”
Davis opted out of the Senate race in large part because of the strength of the Democratic candidate, former Gov. Mark Warner, and an unwillingness to go through a grueling battle for the nomination.
But even his longtime political rival Leslie Byrne — a former Democratic congresswoman Davis defeated in 1994 — acknowledges that he remains competitive.
“He’s always going to be a viable candidate, because he’s always been a big fundraiser,” said Byrne, who has announced plans to seek the 11th District seat next year.
Davis’ setbacks, University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato said, have less to do with him than the overall fortunes of his party and “the current cycle in politics.”
The shift could be seen during the 2006 midterm election, in which Davis won by the smallest margin of any Northern Virginiacongressional race — with more than 100,000 voters casting their ballots for Democrat Andy Hurst.
“I think it was at that point that people said, ‘You know, this guy is not invincible anymore,’ ” said Mark Rozell, a political science professor at George Mason University.
The winds shifted against Davis again that November. As partisan control of the House changed hands, Davis lost the chairmanship of the House Government Reform Committee, a role that had in large part defined him as a legislator.
John Hishta, a senior Davis adviser, dismissed the notion that Davis’ decision not to run for Senate signals the waning of his political career.
“I think that’s total crap,” he said. “At the end of the day, he is a very tactical and honest politician. … I think he believes what he said today, that with the party and the landscape that it’s in, that it would be a very difficult race, and he just didn’t feel that it was time to do it.”
