CROSS JUNCTION, Va. — Four years ago, Virginia Democrats nominated a slow-talking, country-accented pediatrician named Ralph Northam who had been an anonymous lieutenant governor for Terry McAuliffe.

Unlike McAuliffe, he sounded and talked like a rural Virginian, so he seemed harmless. Northam ran a campaign that did not have any sharp edges, and therefore, the campaign was about the hottest thing going at the time — Donald Trump.

Ed Gillespie was the Republican nominee. He was the same kind of Republican who normally would have been competitive here, except that he was a political professional. He’d served in former President George Bush's administration, had been the chairman............