eorge Allen, an ex-Senator from the state of Virginia who is attempting to regain his job, scored a lopsided win on Tuesday in the Republican primary for the Senate. Allen is also a former governor of Virginia and now will face Tim Kaine a Democrat, a former governor and a former Democratic National Committee chairman. The race is expected to be one of the nation’s tightest and most contentious contests in November.

Kaine did not have any primary opponents to face on Tuesday. The two are attempting to fill the seat of Senator Jim Webb the retiring Democrat. The winner might be crucial in determining the Senate’s balance of power.

Allen took 66% of Tuesday’s vote. Jamie Radtke a tea-party backed activist won 23% in the vote, while Robert Marshall a state legislator and E.W. Jackson a minister split the rest of the votes.

Kaine enjoyed broad support when he was the governor of Virginia between 2006 and 2010. He helped Barack Obama carry Virginia in 2008 in his quest to be president. Recent polls show an Allen-Kaine matchup as being very close, but with Kaine holding a slight edge at the current time.

Allen, who is 60, was a senator for one tem in 2006. He lost re-election in a very close race to Webb. One key moment in the re-election bid for the senate that he lost was when he addressed a Democratic worker, who was of Indian descent, as “Macaca.” That word or variants of the word can mean monkey in several different languages. Video tape caught the exchange and it was widely played on TV and the Internet. Allen later apologized.