Great News: 49,000 New Virginia Voters in August

With time running out on its push to register thousands of new voters in Virginia, the Obama campaign is picking up the pace. State election officials told the campaign Friday that 49,000 new voters signed up in August, a sharp increase from the 36,500 who signed up in July and the 28,000 who registered in June.

The campaign had predicted that its August numbers could lag given the difficulty of reaching residents during vacation season. But the August gain puts the Obama campaign very much on track toward its goal of signing up 150,000 new voters by the early October voter registration deadline, on top of the 142,000 new voters who registered during primary season.

There is no way of knowing how many of the newly registered will vote for Obama, especially since Virginia does not record voters by party affiliation. But the campaign is encouraged by the demographic profile of the new voters -- about 40 percent of those who registered in August are aged 25 or under.

To put these numbers - 292,000 new voters during the primary season and since then - in context, recall that George W. Bush won Virginia by 262,000 votes in 2004. And back then, Kerry/Edwards had pulled out of the state, whereas the Obama/Biden people are going all out this time around.  Obviously, we have our work cut our for us, but I'd say there's a pretty good chance that Virginia will vote Democratic for president this year for the first time since 1964.  Let's do it!

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