The Shenandoah Valley spawns a rare competitive race — and charges that an incumbent used his office to help himself. But did he?

The Shenandoah Valley spawns a rare competitive race — and charges that an incumbent used his office to help himself. But did he?

What used to be farmland around Harrisonburg is now growing subdivisions, strip malls and something even more unusual in the Shenandoah Valley: Democratic voters. In less than two decades’ time, Harrisonburg has flipped from being a reliably Republican city to an even more reliably Democratic one — the classic blue dot in a bright red sea. As recently as 2009, Harrisonburg cast 57.7% of its votes for the Republican candidate for governor. By las…