Virginia’s Democratic Senator Jim Webb, who defeated George Allen in 2006, just announced that he’s not running for reelection. From Ben Pershing at the Washington Post:

Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) has announced that he will not run for reelection in 2012. Webb’s decision, long anticipated by many in Virginia politics, will make his seat more difficult to hold for his party. Ex-Sen. George Allen (R), who lost the seat in 2006 to Webb, is running to win it back, and a handful of other GOP candidates are also running. Some Democrats hope ex-Gov. Tim Kaine will decide to run for the seat, but he has given no indication yet that he is interested.

The Post article includes Webb’s statement.

I’m sure George “Macaca” Allen thinks this means smooth sailing for him. But, as the Washington Post reported last week, new census numbers show that it’s not the same Virginia that elected Allen to the Senate back in 2000:

Soaring numbers of Hispanics and Asians pushed Virginia’s population over 8 million in the past decade, transforming the state into a far more diverse place, according to census figures released Thursday. The state’s white population barely grew. As a result, fewer than two-thirds of all Virginians are now white. Northern Virginia cemented its position as the state’s growth engine, responsible for half of the state’s increase of 922,000 people in the past decade. Almost 40 percent of the growth in the state occurred in three Northern Virginia counties: Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun. The 2010 Census numbers underscore how the home of the former capital of the Confederacy is evolving into a mosaic of races and ethnicities from around the world. It has grown by a third in the past two decades, and its very character is changing. Today, seven of 10 Virginians live in three big urban areas, and Virginia’s once-mighty rural areas are shrinking. Dozens of small towns, mostly in the rural southwest and Southside, lost residents.

So, yeah, this still matters:

