Cuccinelli’s loss this week surely isn’t the end of his political career.

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The best news from Ken Cuccinelli’s hugely disappointing loss in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest yesterday is that Cuccinelli is now free to run for U.S. Senate against Mark Warner.

Not that Cuccinelli will want to hear this now. He has a large family, and his day job as state attorney general will end in the new year, and he will need to make money somehow. That’s tough to do while running statewide for office. And it’s even tougher when one is already exhausted and battered from a long and brutal statewide race. But Cuccinelli is actually well positioned, politically, to make a go of it, even against an incumbent as seemingly bulletproof as Warner has been.

First, Cuccinelli emerges with the image of a guy who is tough to keep down. His closing rush from seven points down in the polls to a loss by just over two points, while fighting against all the bad luck in the world and against abandonment by party leaders reminds people that he always has been a strong finisher who inspires enthusiastic support. If he can make a very close race of it when being outspent by $15 million (most of it used for harsh and dishonest attack ads against him) and hampered by scandals and missteps by his party’s governor and congressional representatives, everybody intelligent will understand that he can never be counted out – and will, accordingly, be more loathe to abandon him next time around.

Second, while Cuccinelli might face a much more popular opponent in Warner than he faced in Terry “the Fixer” McAuliffe, he surely won’t face anywhere near the same financial disparity. With so many other vulnerable U.S. Senate seats in the balance and all sorts of other races across the nation as well, there is no conceivable way that Democrats will be able to spend another $34 million against Cuccinelli in 2014. Although Cuccinelli, too, will raise far less next year than this, he has proven an ability to “live off the land” and will thus be less harmed by a reduction in funding.

Third, Cuccinelli has taken the absolute worst than can be leveled against him. If Warner tries to win by scaring people about Cuccinelli’s alleged social-issue harshness, Warner will look redundant and a little desperate. Voters eventually get tired of hearing the same old attacks.  On the other hand, Cuccinelli will have a more undiluted opportunity to communicate his own essential decency – and his real compassion, as evidenced by his longstanding work against sexual assault, against wrongful sentencing, and for more effective and humane policy with regard to mental illnesses.

Fourth, with the Senate in the balance, there is no way the Republican “establishment” will fail to support Cuccinelli this time around if he is anywhere near striking distance. The establishment may be petty and biased against movement conservatives, but (despite allegations from some conservatives) it really does want to win, and it understands the importance of a Senate majority.

Fifth, Cuccinelli proved, in just two weeks, how politically deadly ObamaCare can be to Democrats – even to a Democrat like McAuliffe who didn’t actually vote for it. There’s every reason to believe ObamaCare will be an albatross around donkey necks next fall as well, and especially around the necks of senators such as Warner, without whose vote the dreadful law would not have passed. Because of his terrific lawsuit against ObamaCare, there is nobody on Earth who is better suited than Cuccinelli to make that case against Warner.

Sixth, swing voters are less likely to worry about an individual senator imposing “harsh” social policies than they are about a governor with an entire executive branch at his disposal. In Senate races, for suburbanites, economic issues are the key – and Cuccinelli actually polls well on economic issues. Contrariwise, single-issue conservatives on guns and abortion are, if anything, more likely to turn out even more heavily for conservatives in federal races than state ones, because they see the federal government as the main threat on those issues and thus want real leaders to fight against federal encroachment. In short, the issue concerns in Senate races help Cuccinelli in both directions.

Finally, national conservatives feel so badly about Cuccinelli’s close loss that they will go the extra mile for him next year if he is the nominee. Now he isn’t just a champion for the cause, but almost a martyr for it. He’ll reap the benefits of the reimpassioned loyalty.

Cuccinelli’s loss this week surely isn’t the end of his political career. It has more the feel of Ronald Reagan’s loss to Gerald Ford in 1976, laying the groundwork for triumph to come.