People in PA said that Santorum was too intellectual for them. In VA, didn’t Allen try to move left at the end, but I don’t know the details of that race. Certainly, John Warner has been on the left for years after a couple of initially conservative years from 1979-81.
The liberal media brought out the “macaca” fiasco right before the nomination, labelling him as a racist.
And even then, Allen only lost by one point.