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Veteran Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) — a leading coal-state negotiator in last year’s House cap-and-trade debate — has lost his reelection bid against Republican Morgan Griffith in perhaps the first real surprise of the evening.

A dramatic reversal of fortune in Virginia's 9th Congressional District, where Republican challenger Morgan Griffith appears to have awoken after 3 months of polling at 40% and today, 7 days until votes are counted, vaults into a tie with incumbent Democrat Rick Boucher, who had been sailing to a 16th term. In a SurveyUSA polling conducted exclusively for WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, it's Griffith 47%, Boucher 46%, within the survey's theoretical margin of sampling error. Griffith's lead may or may not be statistically significant; the contest should be reported as even. Among traditional midterm voters -- those who vote in most...

When a candidate spends $29,000 from his campaign treasury to buy a sport utility vehicle -- as did Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., last fall -- it tends to draw attention. It's a perfectly legal but profoundly strange purchase, one his donors likely didn't have in mind. It's also what you'd expect from a congressional campaign that isn't worried about losing and has money to burn. Boucher is now in a close race -- close enough that he may worry as he rolls about his southwest Virginia district in his new Ford Edge, which the Roanoke Times reports was bought "with...

Ba-boom! Summarizing the big poll dump the NRCC just provided the Washington Post: •FL-8: Daniel Webster (R) 46, Alan Grayson* (D) 30 •PA 3: Mike Kelly (R) 56, Kathy Dahlkemper* (D) 39 •OH-15: Steve Stivers (R) 51, Mary Jo Kilroy* (D) 39 •WA-3: Jaime Herrera (R) 51, Denny Heck (D) 38 •NY-20: Chris Gibson (R) 48, Scott Murphy* (D) 45 •MA-10: Jeff Perry (R) 44, Bill Keating (D) 42 •IL-17: Bobby Schilling (R) 44, Phil Hare* (D) 41 •PA-10: Tom Marino (R) 44, Chris Carney* (D) 37 •VA-9: Morgan Griffith (R) 44, Rick Boucher* (D) 44 •OR-5: Scott Bruun (R)...

The race for Virginia’s sprawling 9th congressional district is so heated that both candidates are trolling for votes not just in Virginia–but also across the border, in Tennessee. Caught in the race of his career, 14-term Democrat Rick Boucher plans to duck into Kingsport, Tenn., to press the flesh of the 2,000 or so potential Virginia voters who work at the Eastman Chemical Co. plant there. His challenger, Virginia state House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, is heading to the same plant on Friday. Both are responding to an invitation from the company. [Snip] Republicans are planning an all-out push to...

Even as Speaker Nancy Pelosi twisted arms for the final votes to pass her climate bill in June 2009, Democrats feared they might be "BTU'd." Many of them recalled how Al Gore had forced the House to vote in 1993 for an energy tax, a vote Democrats later blamed for helping their 1994 defeat. The politics isn't the same this time around. This time, it's much, much worse. Ask Rick Boucher, the coal-country Democrat who for nearly 30 years has represented southwest Virginia's ninth district. The 64-year-old is among the most powerful House Democrats, an incumbent who hasn't been seriously...

RICHMOND -- After weeks of indecision, state Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, is lining up support for a likely campaign against Democratic U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher of Abingdon.

WISE, VA. -- The anger at Washington that is seeping across the country registered a while back in the high ridges of Appalachia, a once-indomitable Democratic stronghold where voters turned away from President Obama in 2008 just as overwhelmingly as they embraced him most everywhere else. Voters in Virginia's 9th Congressional District are mad that the government has spent hundreds of billions to fix an economy that seems only to deteriorate around them. They're fearful of a federal takeover of health care. They're petrified that proposed emissions limits would destroy the coal industry that provides most of the region's jobs....

A town hall meeting is underway in Abingdon, Virginia, and a huge crowd turned out to talk health care. The meeting hosted by U.S. Representative Rick Boucher (D Virginia 9th District) is going on at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center. 11 Connects digital journalist Dana Wachter is at the meeting and reported through Twitter: “Wellmont CEO Mike Snow asked rhetorically, ‘What are we arguing about anyway?‘ Crowd yelled, ‘Government control!‘ Lots of verbal response here.“ Look for updates here on TriCities.Com, and you can follow Dana Wachter on Twitter: @danawachter

State Del. Terry Kilgore (R) acknowledged Wednesday that top Republican leaders in Washington, D.C., are encouraging him to challenge Rep. Rick Boucher (D) in the Southwestern Virginia 9th district next year. If he were to run, Kilgore would immediately be considered a top recruit in the conservative district, where Republicans have been frustrated by their inability to field a top-tier candidate to challenge the popular 14-term Congressman. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has talked to Kilgore “a couple of times” about a Congressional bid and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas) has called to talk to Kilgore...

CASTLEWOOD, Va. — Delaware Sen. Joe Biden joined Va. Gov. Tim Kaine and Rep. Rick Boucher as guests of union coal miners at the 13th annual fish fry at the Russell County Fairgrounds on Saturday.

Virginia Politicians and Highway Porkby Jacob G. Hornberger, August 17, 2005 For a good example of the moral perversity of the budget-busting, pork-barrel highway bill, consider what recently happened in Bristol, Virginia. While on his annual statewide “listening tour” across the state, Republican Sen. George Allen proudly told Bristol voters that their local officials were going to receive even more money from Congress than they had requested for the renovation of the local train station. Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat, had requested only $400,000 for the project. Not to be outdone, Sen. John Warner, a Republican, had requested $1 million...

Don't be discouraged by this week's report that traffic congestion is worse than ever across America. Relief is on the way from Congress, thanks to one of the designated 3,800 "high-priority projects" in the new highway bill. It's a new transit system guaranteed to free you from bumper-to-bumper traffic, as long as you have a horse. This addition to the nation's transportation infrastructure is the brainchild of Representative Rick Boucher, a Democrat from the southwestern Virginia mountains that Daniel Boone traversed on the way to Kentucky. Mr. Boucher secured $750,000 of highway money for the "construction of horse trails and...

CAMPAIGN 2004 Sandlin, Stenholm fret over polarizing conservative voters Some Democrats in tight re-election races are opposing a renewal of the assault-weapons ban, despite its overwhelming support from Democratic Party leaders. The ban, which was enacted in 1994, prohibits the sale of certain assault weapons. With the ban’s expiration looming in September, several lawmakers are rallying to extend it for another 10 years. However, the often contentious and polarizing issue has pinned some Democrats into an awkward political position of deciding whether to support their leaders or echo what their constituents want. Democrats who oppose extending the ban are Rep....

Hatch's Induce Act comes under fire US Congressman Rick Boucher took up arms against the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act bill, being brought before Congress right now, in a website interview at Inside Digital Media this week. In answer to questions put by IDM's Phil Leigh, Boucher made it clear that he would fight tooth and claw to prevent the new bill from making it into law in its current form. Boucher himself is supporting and presenting a bill that calls for changes to be made to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which he feels is misguided in by making...

VIRGINIA TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATIONFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE7/23/03TAXPAYERS SAY ASHCROFT KO'd ON PATRIOT ACT The Virginia Taxpayers Association said today "the stunning 309-118 House vote Tuesday passing an appropriations amendment stripping the USA Patriot Act of one of its most tyrannical provisions was a sharp rebuke to Attorney General John Ashcroft."The House voted to strike a section of the act allowing government agents to secretly search homes of suspects and only inform them later that a warrant had been issued to do so.Ashcroft had defended the sweeping anti-terrorist act Monday, saying that criticisms of it were based on exaggerations and falsehoods."The fact that...

<p>Southwest Virginia Republicans may be turning to NASCAR to try to wrest the 9th District congressional seat from 21-year Democratic incumbent Rick Boucher.</p> <p>Kevin Triplett of Abingdon said he is exploring a candidacy and said, if he runs, he will bring NASCAR principles to the congressional race.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet. The surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music downloads. During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have...

Murdoch defends DirecTV deal at U.S. House hearing Thu May 8, 2003 02:52 PM ET By Peter Kaplan WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) - News Corp. Ltd. Chairman Rupert Murdoch on Thursday parried criticism from Democratic lawmakers of his company's bid to buy U.S. satellite provider DirecTV and basked in praise from Republicans enamored with his conservative cable news channel. Murdoch dismissed suggestions by some Democrats and consumer advocates that News Corp. NCP.AX NWS.N could use its vast array of TV programming as a weapon against DirecTV's satellite and cable competitors. "Neither News Corp. nor DirecTV has any incentive to engage...

Murdoch defends DirecTV deal at U.S. House hearing Thu May 8, 2003 02:52 PM ET By Peter Kaplan WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) - News Corp. Ltd. Chairman Rupert Murdoch on Thursday parried criticism from Democratic lawmakers of his company's bid to buy U.S. satellite provider DirecTV and basked in praise from Republicans enamored with his conservative cable news channel. Murdoch dismissed suggestions by some Democrats and consumer advocates that News Corp. NCP.AX NWS.N could use its vast array of TV programming as a weapon against DirecTV's satellite and cable competitors. "Neither News Corp. nor DirecTV has any incentive to engage...