"It’s hard to say that either the House race or the Senate race was a surprise. Last minute polls had Virgil Goode far ahead of Al Weed and Jim Webb slightly ahead of George Allen. But the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and any civil union was passed by a far greater margin, 57 to 43 percent, than the latest Mason-Dixon Poll had suggested. That poll had 49 percent for the amendment, 45 percent against and 6 percent undecided, according to The Daily Progress.

The amendment results were the only ones that caused “mild surprise” for Keith Drake, chairman of the Albemarle County Republicans. Though he had expected it to pass, he had expected the gap to be slimmer than it was. At the Republican’s election night party at Club Rio, Drake spoke early in jubilation to a momentarily excited crowd (otherwise pensively watching monitors and sipping dollar beers) that marriage is now protected from “liberal judges” who would “legislate from the bench.”

Why wasn’t the voting closer, as the polls suggested it would be?

“When you’re looking at ballot initiative and ballot measures, polls are often a little bit less accurate than your actual candidate versus candidate horse race,” says Matt Smyth, director of communications at UVA’s Center for Politics. He says that national issues led to crossing-the-aisle votes in the Senate race, but “when you focused things back on Virginia, the sort of natural trends they would have as more moderate, somewhat conservative voters came through.” Smyth notes that Virginia was close for a Southern state, where those amendments often pass with “possibly more than a 20 point split.”

In the end, Virginia could not muster the votes to become the first state not to pass an amendment “defining” marriage as between “one man and one woman” when offered the choice. Instead, Arizona took those accolades in a tight race—a fact that Smyth says might be a trend, either regionally or state-by-state, in 2008.

Charlottesville, at least, stands apart: Of all Virginia localities, it had the highest percentage voting against the amendment with 77 percent (the next highest was Arlington County, with 74 percent voting “no”). “I know Mayor [David] Brown is happy about that,” says City spokesman Ric Barrack. City Council passed a unanimous resolution against the amendment on the eve of the election at their November 6 meeting. In Albemarle County, 59 percent of poll-goers voted against the amendment.

No one quite knows if and when the unintended consequences that have worried opponents might rise to the fore, but one thing that’s certain is that we haven’t heard the last of ballot measure No. 1 in Virginia." (Will Goldsmith, C-Ville Weekly, November 14, 2006)