Trade in the Virginia Senate Race: Warner v. Gilmore

Bottom line

Two former governors, Republican Mark Warner and Democrat Jim Gilmore are competing to replace retiring Republican Senator John Warner.  Warner is far ahead of Gilmore, and has said nice things about trade in the past.  I haven't found much that he's said about trade from this election.  However, given the "confidence intervals" around my assessments of each candidate, I can't reject the null hypothesis that Mark=John.

Baseline

John Warner has held this seat since 1978.  Here's the Cato report on his trade record since 1997 (In this figure each axis shows the percent of votes  against either trade barriers or trade subsidies. The higher an "X" is along the vertical axis the greater the opposition to subsidies, the further an "X" is to the right the greater the opposition to trade barriers).  He has a very good record opposing trade barriers, but not so much opposing trade subsidies:

How will the trade stance of this seat change?

This is not a close race; Democrat Warner is way ahead, and his lead is increasing:

Warner spent 20 years in business and served as Governor from 2002 to 2006. He has presidential ambitions and early on he thought about running for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.  Very interested in technology issues.  He's a centrist, which annoys some more liberal Democratic bloggers: Mark Warner: Typical DLC Loser.This blog post is a critique of Warner's DLC essay, The Sensible Center.

He gave a keynote speech at the Democratic convention this August - here is the text: Mark Warner Democratic Convention Speech: Text.  There's nothing explicitly on trade there, but he does project an optimistic vision of America's ability to compete in the world.  Here's some more of that optimism from 2006: Warner on outsourcing.

From Warner's web site:

Governor Warner wants to put America on the economic offensive. In this 21st century economy, we need a long-term competitiveness plan to compete with the rising economies of India and China. In order to stay competitive in our globalized economy, we need to have the best educated, most innovative, and most entrepreneurial work force in the world. Governor Warner believes that we need to invest in our education system, to best arm our children to be competitive in world’s economy and to thus create high-paying jobs here at home. We need to be the world capital of innovation and new ideas so we can keep the jobs it creates right here at home.

In 1996, during a losing U.S. Senate race, took the following positions (OnTheIssues):

Supports NAFTA, GATT, and WTO

Supports the following principles on trade issues:

• Do you support the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)? YES
• Do you support broadening NAFTA to include other countries? YES
• Do you support the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)? YES
• Do you support the World Trade Organization (WTO)? YES

Source: 1996 Congressional National Political Awareness Test Jul 2, 1996

Consider human rights record for MFN status

Supports the following principles on trade issues:

• Do you support lifting the trade embargo imposed against Cuba? NO
• Do you support imposing tariffs on products imported from nations that maintain restrictive trade barriers on American products? YES
• Should a nation’s human rights record affect its “most favored nation” trading status with the United States? YES

Source: 1996 Congressional National Political Awareness Test Jul 2, 1996

He responded to these questions a long time ago.  The answers suggest he's supportive of bilateral and multilateral negotiations to reduce trade barriers, but sees political and human rights pre-conditions.  Imposing tariffs on products from nations with restrictive trade barriers could mean only that he supports imposition of retaliatory tariffs permitted under WTO dispute settlement processes, or much, much more.  It's hard to tell.

This Democratic Leadership Committee article touts his approach to trade adjustment assistance as governor of Virginia: Targeted Assistance for Mass Layoffs.

In summary

Trade doesn't seem to have been a big issue in this race and I've been unable to find more recent statements about trade, but based on what I have found, I'd be hard put to say that Mark Warner will be worse on trade than John Warner.