Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is the GOP’s de facto nominee for governor. If elected, he’ll likely have a Republican Assembly and Senate to work with; as governor of one of the largest swing states (among states decided by fewer than five points in 2012, only Florida and Ohio are larger), he’d immediately become a leading Republican voice.
He’s also opposed to the current, localized fad of proposals to split electoral votes by congressional districts.
“I don’t like breaking up states,” Cuccinelli told me after a panel discussion at the National Review Institute’s post-election summit. “I think winner-take-all is part of how a state matters as a sovereign entity. You know, our side would have gotten more votes this go-round, but I want people to have to fight to win the whole state. It makes the state, as a state, matter more. If it’s one more thing that whittles down the role of states independently of the people who live in them, and we need to build them up, not to Balkanize America, but because it’s the states that created the federal government. Not the other way around.”
