By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff

Democrats received a big takeover opportunity this year in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District, a partisan battleground that popular seven-term Republican Rep. Thomas M. Davis III left open to retire. And the Democrats’ chances in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., certainly were not hurt — and were probably enhanced — by easy primary victory Tuesday of Democrat Gerald Connolly, who as chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has a strong electoral track record in the 11th District’s dominant region.

This development has prompted CQ Politics to change its rating on the Virginia 11 race to Leans Democratic from No Clear Favorite.

The new rating signifies a contest that still is highly competitive and could end up swinging back to the Republicans. But it denotes at least a slight edge for Connolly — who defeated former Rep. Leslie Byrne and two lesser-known contenders in a low-turnout Democratic primary — over Keith Fimian, a businessman and first-time candidate who won the Republican nomination without opposition.

CQ Politics is making this change primarily for two reasons. One is a political environment, both nationally and locally within the 11th District, which is trending more Democratic than Republican. The other is that political veteran Connolly has a significant early advantage over Fimian in name recognition among district voters.

Democrats over the past couple of election cycles have intensified their claims that they would have a golden opportunity to capture the 11th District upon the eventual departure of Davis, whose centrist image enabled him to easily withstand the overall gains for the Democrats among his constituents. Davis left the door open for a serious Democratic challenge when, after pondering a possible U.S. Senate bid this year, he decided in January to retire from public office.

As in many suburban areas, particularly those outside the Deep South, Republicans have seen a longstanding advantage over the Democrats dwindle in recent years. District voters in 2004 favored President Bush over Democrat John Kerry by a margin of less than 1 percentage point. Bush is much less popular now and surely wouldn’t win the 11th District if a vote were held today.

The political environment in Virginia’s 11th for this year’s elections is probably is closer to that of 2006, when Democrats made big gains nationwide and while holding Davis to an uncharacteristically modest 55 percent vote share. Also that year, Democratic Senate nominee Jim Webb took 55 percent of the 11th District vote en route to narrowly defeating Republican incumbent George Allen. And in 2007, not even Davis’ popularity could prevent the defeat of his wife, Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, who lost her bid for re-election to the state Senate in a constituency that overlaps the 11th Congressional District.

Connolly also begins the campaign better-known than Fimian. Fairfax County — where he won a second four-year term as chairman of the board of supervisors last November with 60 percent of the vote — accounts for about two-thirds of registered voters in a district that also includes part of Prince William County and all of the independent city of Fairfax. Connolly is seeking to follow the same political trajectory as outgoing incumbent Davis, who held the same executive position in Fairfax County prior to his election to Congress in 1994.

The changed rating is more snapshot than prediction, though, and CQ Politics could change it again between now and November. Fimian could prove himself a strong candidate and outrun Connolly. At a time when much of the public harbors negative views about Congress and politicians in general, Republican strategists will be contrasting Fimian’s business background and status as a political “outsider” with Connolly’s long tenure in government, which includes a decade-long stint as an aide to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 1980s.

Fimian has been less visible than Connolly on the campaign trail thus far because he didn’t face a primary opponent. But that did allow Fimian to build one of the largest treasuries of any non-incumbent Republican candidate for Congress. As of May 21, Fimian reported $957,000 in receipts — including $325,000 in loans from his personal accounts — and $767,000 in cash-on-hand. He hasn’t yet tapped political action committees (PACs) for much funding, though he could now that the competitive general election campaign can begin in earnest.

Connolly reported total fundraising of $654,000 and cash-on-hand of $280,000 through May 21, figures he will be looking to build upon after spending most of his early receipts to win his contested primary election. As of that date, Connolly had put none of his own money into his campaign, but did receive a total of $64,690 from political committees.