http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
A close examination of the 2006 Senate contest indicates Obama's challenge in Virginia. Webb pulled an enormous margin out of metropolitan Washington, and yet he eked out the barest of victories - a margin of 9,300 votes out of more than 2 million cast. What tipped the race in Webb's favor? Virginia Beach. While John Kerry lost the area by about 6 points, Webb won it by 3 points.This could be hard for Obama to mimic - for Webb's greatest strength in the region is one that favors McCain, not Obama: Virginia Beach has an extremely large concentration of military veterans. About 20% of the voting age public are veterans. Webb's military background probably made the difference in Virginia Beach, and thus the whole state. In 2004 John Kerry, himself a veteran, won 36% of the veteran vote in Virginia. Jim Webb won 42%. That difference was large enough to tip the election.
So, Webb's victory depended upon an angle Obama simply doesn't have. Does he have an alternative one? Maybe. One oppportunity manifested itself in the Democratic primary.
Notice that Obama did very well in metropolitan Washington, a sign that he might be able to improve on Kerry's margins there. He also did well in the south and east - in places like Richmond, Virginia Beach, and Danville. This was due in large measure to his overwhelming support from African Americans, as the following picture indicates.
Note the close relationship between the two pictures. This is not a mirage. According to the exit polls, 42% of all Obama voters in Virginia were African American.
This might present a general election opportunity for Obama. Clearly, African Americans in Virginia are strongly behind him. If there is a surge in turnout among African Americans, such that they increase their share of the vote by 5%, and Obama does really well in metro Washington - he might be able to pull off the upset. Holding everything else constant from 2004, adjusting the racial demography of the electorate would cut Bush's margin of victory by about half, from 8 points to 4 points. Toss in a Webb-like performance in metropolitan Washington, and Obama carries the state.
Of course, it is one thing to write this - it is another thing entirely to do it. African Americans in Virginia vote in proportion to their overall population, which means that increasing their share of the vote 5% would be a monumental undertaking.
I'm not saying this is impossible. Frankly, I do not know. I just pulled that "5% increase" out of my you-know-what. If there was a sensible baseline I could use - believe me, I'd use it. But the fact is that there has simply never been a presidential candidate like Barack Obama, which in turn means that it is impossible to estimate what kind of effect his candidacy will have on the racial composition of the electorate.
There is another relevant subject to discuss, one we covered in our reviews of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Note Obama's poor margins in the southwestern part of the state. This area voted much like neighboring West Virginia and Kentucky, and nearby southern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. This is not an incredibly populous part of the state, but there are three important caveats to keep in mind. First, every previous non-voter who votes Democrat this cycle nets Obama one vote, but every typical Democrat who backs McCain nets the Republican two votes. Second, in the best-case scenario for the Obama campaign, the final result in Virginia will be close, something on the order of the 2006 Senate race. Every vote counts in that instance. Third, Obama's poor margin in the southwest indicates that he might have a more general problem among some downstate white voters. We might not be seeing it in the primary results in places like Roanoke, Lynchburg, or Danville because Obama did so well with African Americans. On the other hand, Obama did pretty well in Harrisonburg, which has a relatively small African American population - so it is hard to identify the extent of any potential problem with downstate whites. Ultimately, that's the limitation of countywide analysis - if there is intra-county variation (and there probably is), we can't see it.
I would note that McCain is still picking up a good portion of Clinton voters. My hunch is that these voters are not evenly distributed nationwide, that instead they are clustered in specific areas. I don't know how else to explain why, in a year like this, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia are out of Obama's grasp. Such voters might also be disproportionately concentrated in Virginia - which in turn could yield trouble for him on Election Day.
So, in conclusion, I would say that of the four states we have reviewed thus far, Pennsylvania is the most likely to go for Obama, Virginia the least, and Colorado and Ohio fall in between. It's certainly not impossible for Obama to flip Virginia, but it won't be easy.
Be sure to check out the two maps in the article.
The counties and cities across the state that Obama carried by the largest margins also contain the largest number of AA's - some of them are 52% to 86 per cent AA and are concentrated in rural counties in the 4th and 5th CD, where voter registration is lagging.