More than 140 years after the Civil War raged across its tobacco fields, Virginia finds itself in a new north-south conflict pitting its northern suburbs against the rest of the state.
Democrat Jim Webb narrowly defeated incumbent Republican Sen. George Allen in Tuesday's election, thanks to strong support from the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia, tipping control of the US Senate to the Democrats. The region's voters also have sent two successive Democrats to the governor's mansion.
It's a sign that what was once an overwhelmingly conservative state is increasingly dominated by Northern Virginia's racially diverse, densely populated suburbs across the Potomac River from Washington, experts say.
Those in the northern part of the state say their cosmopolitan outlook stands in stark contrast to the rest of Virginia, which was the home of the Confederacy's capital during the Civil War in the 1860s.
"Folks there tend to be independent and by independent I mean not that affiliated with the rest of the world," business consultant Tim Miller, 24, said at a Starbucks coffee shop in the restored historic district of the Washington suburb of Alexandria. Webb drew 71 percent of the vote in Alexandria, as well as 73 percent in adjacent Arlington County.
Allen's strongest support came farther south in the suburbs of Richmond and in the Shenandoah Valley - places like rural Rockingham County, where he won support from nearly three out of four voters.
Residents of Bridgewater in Rockingham County and surrounding areas said they did care for the big-city attitude they encountered on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. "I didn't like the people. They were rude. Here, they treat you like family, they'll listen to you," said Dave Hall, 37, an aircraft mechanic.
Manners aside, Northern Virginia's political influence will only increase as the booming high-tech economy continues to attract highly educated, Democratic-voting residents from across the country, said University of Virginia politics professor Larry Sabato.
"The northern part of the state is a Middle Atlantic state, the southern part of the state still belongs to the South," Sabato said. "Virginia ... is only going to become more Middle Atlantic."
Even in the heart of Allen country, residents don't always agree on hot-button social issues. Schoolteacher April Detamore, 36, said she voted for Allen because she opposed gay marriage. "I'm a traditional conservative," she said as her husband gassed up their Chevy Trailblazer. "It was a difficult issue to try to explain to my children."
At a saloon down the street, Hall and fellow airplane mechanic Jon Marshall, 35, said they thought that government should stay out of the lives of gay people, though they both voted for Allen as well. "I don't think that should have been a campaign issue," Marshall said. "Who's to say that a ban on interracial marriage isn't next?"
Like many Southern states, Virginia outlawed interracial marriage until the 1960s and parts of the state shut down their public schools during that period rather than integrate them between blacks and whites. Race relations have improved since then and in 1989 Virginia became the first US state to elect a black governor, Democrat Douglas Wilder.
Rockingham County and other areas of the Shenandoah Valley remain overwhelmingly white but Northern Virginia's booming economy has drawn a flood of immigrants from Latin America and Asia.
That's not necessarily a good thing for Alexandria caterer Jodi Carr, 31, who said the prevalence of illegal immigrants might force her to move from Northern Virginia to a more distant suburb.
Though Republicans made a crackdown on illegal immigration a centrepiece of their agenda this year, Carr said she voted for Webb because she was fed up with the war in Iraq. "I just am very sick of the Bush administration and Allen's support of it," said Carr, a registered Republican who used to work for Arizona Sen. John McCain. The Iraq war also was the most important issue for Miller, a Democrat who moved to the Northern Virginia area two years ago. "I would have voted against any Republican right now," Miller said. "It's like they're all hiding out under Bush."
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