It's "Albemarle." No "r." Pronounced "AHL-buh-mahrl" by you, "AHB-uh-mahrl" by those of us who live here. :)

And, sheesh, I should know better.  I used to live there too!

Virginia will be decided by the slimmest margin in the nation.  The only people who will be staying up late, however, are those of us who live here.  The race will have been called for Obama long before anyone calls the Virginia results.

Based on where things stand now, does anyone want to make an educated guess of what the election results will be in their county?

Albemarle: My guess is that Albemarle will be something like 60-40.  There are a lot of UVa students living in the county and there is an undeniable Democratic trend here.

Charlottesville:  I think Obama will be the statewide candidate to break 80 percent there.  The combination of a relatively a generally liberal population overall and a large amount of college students should give Obama what he needs to break into the 80s.

Charlottesville is still a distinctly southern city despite the influx of northerners. People who live in the area (especially the county) are hard to pin down ideologically. It is possible that a relatively moderate Republican might do better than Bush did in Albemarle. 2004 was very close (Kerry won by less than 1,000 votes or 2 points in 2004). I think Obama will be somewhere in the mid 70's in the city.
Obama is more likely to hit the 80% threshold in somewhere like Arlington or Portsmouth.  

Have you been here lately?  I mean yes there are some southern qualities here (however you define that), but Charlottesville is typically only second to Petersburg in terms of Democratic voting.  Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think Portsmouth, Arlington, or any other city or county besides Petersburg has voted more Democratic than Charlottesville in recent elections.  It had the highest "no" vote on the "marriage amendment" of all the jurisdictions in Virginia (including Arlington)and almost gave the Governor 80 percent of the vote.  At this point, I don't see how Obama doesn't at least hit Webb's number (77%).  In addition to the overall anti-Republican environment, Charlottesville is about 22 percent black, 40 percent of its adult residents have a bachelor's degree, and it is a college town that allows its students to vote locally.  I think those factors may give Obama what he needs to hit at least the upper seventies and very possibly the 80s.

As far as Albemarle goes, I don't think it's that hard to figure out what's going on.  We have gone from a county that gave Allen over 60 percent of the vote when he ran for governor in the 90s to giving him just 41% in 2006.  Tim Kaine won here by over 60 percent and the "marriage amendment" failed with just 40 percent of the vote.  The urban ring in Albemarle, which contains something like 50 percent of the county's population, has gone from leaning Democratic to distinctly Democratic.  Georgetown, Jack Jouett, Dunlora, Cale, Free Bridge, Branchlands, Agnor-Hurt, Country Green, University Hall, and East Ivy are all precincts that border the city.  All of these areas gave Webb close to or more than 60 percent of the vote.  The "marriage amendment" failed by similar margins and the 2005 margins were even wider.  George Allen won a grand total of four precincts out of 30 in Albemarle.  Kilgore won two I believe.

I know '08 will be a federal election and turnout will be higher, but I just don't see McCain improving Republican numbers in either Charlottesville or Albemarle by much if any.  If I were forced to down-scale my estimates I would say 77-20 in Charlottesville and 57-42 in Albemarle.

Your data is dead wrong on C-ville. Charlottesville went for Kerry by about 70%. It is very easy to pin down ideologically. I live in Albemarle County, work in Charlottesville and have been here since I was 13 years old. I think I know the area pretty well.

- Number of McCain bumper stickers that I have ever seen in Charlottesville or Albemarle: ZERO.

- Number of Obama bumper stickers that I see every day: Dozens and dozens.

- Number of McCain yard signs that I have seen anywhere in Charlottesville or Albemarle: 1.

- Number of Obama yard signs that I have seen in the same area: Hundreds. Too many to count.

This is Obama country through and through. We will run up not only a huge percentage for Barack Obama in C-ville/Albemarle, but we will run up a huge popular vote count that helps erase the meaning of McCain's strength in other counties. Charlottesville has a party apparatus that is a well-oiled election turn-out machine. It is a thing of great strength and beauty, the likes of which one will rarely find in a city of this small size.

UVA-08's predictions for the final score are probably dead-on, although I could see Obama getting as high as 60% in Albemarle.

Also, Tom Perriello, who is from Albemarle and is generating a fair amount of excitement down here, will have a mutually beneficial effect with Obama in both the City and the County.

Obama - 64.8%, McCain - 33.7%, Anyone else on the ballot - 1.5%

I might actually see Presidential campaign commercials!  I've never seen any, on TV at least, in my whole life!  Granted I'm a youngin, but still.

...I believe it's playing in Virginia.

and I know they are targeting Virginia, because I saw them both on NewsChannel8 (an ABC affiliate, normally skewed way to the right wing).

News8 is pertinent in the Greater Washington DC Area; and Obama should be the easy winner in both Maryland and DC - so that means the ad is targeted at those of us in Virginia who are near to Washington DC.

One of them was on during the Politico segment on News8's morning lineup.

so I think the campaign is definitely targeting Virginia.  McCain is also running an ad so I guess even he is concerned.

Campaign commercials now on in Fairfax.