Democrats Claim ‘Profile of Winner’ After Va. Sweep

Democrats proclaimed today they have “the profile of a winner” after a Virginia election sweep in which Gerald L. Baliles won the governorship and a black and a woman also captured statewide office. But Republicans pointed to victories in New Jersey to claim that a political realignment continues to move their way.

At a news conference, Democratic Chairman Paul G. Kirk Jr. called the Virginia results “a powerful, historic and positive force.”

“Yesterday’s result gives the Democratic Party the momentum and the profile of a winner as we look to the future and to the election of 1986,” he said.

“Realignment continues,” said Kirk’s Republican counterpart, Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr. as he pointed to Gov. Thomas H. Kean’s landslide reelection in New Jersey and the GOP victory in the battle for control of the state Assembly.

Robb’s Popularity

White House spokesman Larry Speakes attributed the Virginia result largely to the popularity of outgoing Democratic Gov. Charles S. Robb, a fiscal conservative who campaigned extensively for the party ticket.

In New Jersey, he said, “the significant thing is that the Republicans now control the state Assembly.”

President Reagan celebrated his 1984 reelection anniversary with a speech to party officials and campaign workers in which he said the GOP has a “commanding lead” in polls trying to measure the support of voters between 18 and 24.

“We hold a lead, in other words, on the years ahead,” he said.

Reagan never mentioned the results of the Virginia and New Jersey elections.

‘Another Step’

In New Jersey, Republican Kean, 50, received 70% of the vote to swamp 33-year-old Democrat Peter Shapiro. (Story, Page 6.) The governor’s coattails also returned control of the state Assembly to the GOP for the first time in 12 years.

Fahrenkopf today called the capture of the New Jersey Assembly “another step along the road to 1991,” the next time congressional district lines will be redrawn by state legislatures.

In Virginia, Democrat Baliles received 55% of the vote to 45% for his Republican opponent, Wyatt B. Durrette, in the contest to succeed Robb, who could not run again.

In the Democrats’ Virginia sweep, state Sen. L. Douglas Wilder was elected lieutenant governor, the first black elected to statewide executive office in the South since Reconstruction.