By NEIL H. SIMON, Media General Simon
Virginians cheer at a rally with Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin in Richmond, Oct. 13.
By Amy Dominello
By Amy Dominello
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ARLINGTON, Va.— Ahead in state polls and outspending John McCain three to one on TV ads in Virginia, Barack Obama is poised become the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since Lyndon Johnson.
But money and polls alone don’t explain how a state that voted Republican in the last 10 presidential elections has put its 13 electoral votes within Democratic reach.
Democratic and Republican activists point to two major factors: changing demographics and momentum that began in 2001 with the election of Democrat Mark Warner as governor.
The rapid growth of high-tech jobs and government contracting has flooded the state with new voters -- 352,579 this year -- and analysts say these transplants are bringing their politics with them.
“Virginia got overrun with Maryland-style voters,” said political scientist Thomas Schaller of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, author of “Whistling Past Dixie,” a book on Southern politics. Maryland has voted Democratic the last four presidential elections.
Northern Virginia -- including Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and Arlington counties, and the cities of Alexandria, Manassas and others -- has 27 percent of the state’s registered voters. Nearly one in seven Virginia voters live in Fairfax County, one of the country’s biggest high-tech job centers.
“Technology workers in general tend to be more highly-educated and less into social issues,” said Scott Surovell, chairman of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee.
Political scientists point to the population boom in Northern Virginia as the reason Democratic support took off after Mark Warner’s election.
“(Virginia) is getting colonized by non-native Southerners,” said Schaller.
In 2001, Warner won Fairfax County by about 25,000 votes. While Virginia went for President Bush in 2004, Democrat John Kerry won Fairfax by about 33,000 votes. In the 2005 gubernatorial race, Tim Kaine won Fairfax by about 60,000 votes and Jim Webb improved that margin to 64,000 in the 2006 Senate race. .
Mark Warner, who was born in Indianapolis and lives in Alexandria, Va., “helped define for so many people what it means to be a Virginia Democrat,” said Mo Elleithee, a Democratic consultant who helped launch Warner’s current Senate campaign.
Former state Republican chairman J. Kenneth Klinge credits Warner with investing in unprecedented research to identify Democratic voters.
“They know where their voters are,” Klinge said. “We used to have that, we don’t anymore.”
Obama led McCain in every major Virginia poll conducted in October. The six surveys showed Obama led by an average of 8.6 points, according to Real Clear Politics.
The sluggish economy is proving to be difficult for Republicans generally as voters tend to blame the party in power.
In Prince William County, about 25 miles south of Washington, residents are watching neighbors head into foreclosure at a record pace. Nearly one in 20 mortgages is in foreclosure there, the highest rate in Virginia, according to the Virginia Housing Development Authority.
“Economically, they’re killing us,” said Gurdeep Singh of Woodbridge. “I won’t vote for McCain.”
Republicans question why McCain waited so long to compete here. Between April and September, McCain did not campaign in the state once. McCain’s campaign reports 21 offices and 10,000 volunteers in Virginia. McCain was to be in Woodbridge in Northern Virginia Saturday for his fourth Virginia campaign stop.
Obama campaigned in Southwest Virginia the day after clinching the Democratic presidential nomination in June and has visited Virginia seven times. Obama has 49 Virginia field offices – several in traditionally conservative communities – and more than 10,000 volunteers, according to the campaign.
Obama, who campaigned in Roanoke Friday, has repeatedly stumped in the state’s rural areas in a sign he is aiming to chip away at McCain’s base in the western part of Virginia.
No presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy has campaigned in Virginia west of I-95.
“A lot of times out here folks have felt forgotten. They don’t feel that way right now,” said Virginia Democratic Party chairman Richard Cranwell of Roanoke.
State Republicans also are asking why McCain went so negative in his campaign ads. Between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4, nearly 100 percent of McCain ads were negative, according to the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project. Obama outspent McCain by more than three to one in Virginia ad buys during that period, the Wisconsin study found.
Republican Klinge said of McCain’s negative ad strategy, “I don’t even know if it is locking in the base…They are losing people.”
The Hampton Roads area in Southeast Virginia is the second-largest voter jackpot.
“All of the dominant influences throughout the state converge – conservative, economic, religious, military. It’s the best microcosm of the whole state,” said Charles Dunn, dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University in Virginia Beach.
McCain, a Navy veteran, may connect well here, but early October polls show him tied with Obama in the region. Hampton Roads is home to Norfolk Naval Station, the world’s largest Navy base, and 115,000 people who are active-duty military or civilians doing defense-related work.
“The military vote -- they don’t like what’s happening any more than we do,” said David “Mudcat" Saunders, a Democratic consultant. “There are a lot of Reagan Democrats who are coming home. There are also a bunch of old-timey Democrats down there -- pro-gun, pro-God, fiscal conservatives.”
The region also has a heavy African-American population that is highly motivated to turnout in November, said state Del. Kenneth R. Melvin, D-Portsmouth, an Obama supporter.
“I’m a criminal lawyer, and I have had two of my clients come in and say, ‘Look, all I want to do is vote. Gimme a chance to vote before I go to trial, and then they can do what they will with me,’” Melvin said. “I’ve never had that before.”
Despite changes in demographics, a lot remains the same in Virginia, where a bronze statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee remains prominently displayed in the State Capitol.
And more than a few voters continue to harbor old South racial prejudice.
“I think when you get a lot of people in that booth and the curtain closes, they’re going to vote Republican,” said Thomas Gordon of Colonial Heights. “(Obama’s) change is going to be the worst thing this country has seen.”
In conservative Southwest Virginia, Bobby May, a then-McCain county chairman, wrote a column claiming that Obama, if elected, would hire rapper Ludacris to paint the White House black.
State GOP chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick went a step further. Trying to motivate volunteers in Prince William County, he compared Obama to Osama bin Laden.
McCain disavowed both comments.
As for the race issue, Democrats are quick to note that Virginia became the first state to elect a black governor – Democrat Douglas L. Wilder – in 1989.
“I think we’re beyond that in Virginia,” said Cranwell.
Contact Neil Simon at (202) 662-7669.
Media General’s Jim Nolan and Amy Dominello contributed to this report.
But money and polls alone don’t explain how a state that voted Republican in the last 10 presidential elections has put its 13 electoral votes within Democratic reach.
Democratic and Republican activists point to two major factors: changing demographics and momentum that began in 2001 with the election of Democrat Mark Warner as governor.
The rapid growth of high-tech jobs and government contracting has flooded the state with new voters -- 352,579 this year -- and analysts say these transplants are bringing their politics with them.
“Virginia got overrun with Maryland-style voters,” said political scientist Thomas Schaller of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, author of “Whistling Past Dixie,” a book on Southern politics. Maryland has voted Democratic the last four presidential elections.
Northern Virginia -- including Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and Arlington counties, and the cities of Alexandria, Manassas and others -- has 27 percent of the state’s registered voters. Nearly one in seven Virginia voters live in Fairfax County, one of the country’s biggest high-tech job centers.
“Technology workers in general tend to be more highly-educated and less into social issues,” said Scott Surovell, chairman of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee.
Political scientists point to the population boom in Northern Virginia as the reason Democratic support took off after Mark Warner’s election.
“(Virginia) is getting colonized by non-native Southerners,” said Schaller.
In 2001, Warner won Fairfax County by about 25,000 votes. While Virginia went for President Bush in 2004, Democrat John Kerry won Fairfax by about 33,000 votes. In the 2005 gubernatorial race, Tim Kaine won Fairfax by about 60,000 votes and Jim Webb improved that margin to 64,000 in the 2006 Senate race. .
Mark Warner, who was born in Indianapolis and lives in Alexandria, Va., “helped define for so many people what it means to be a Virginia Democrat,” said Mo Elleithee, a Democratic consultant who helped launch Warner’s current Senate campaign.
Former state Republican chairman J. Kenneth Klinge credits Warner with investing in unprecedented research to identify Democratic voters.
“They know where their voters are,” Klinge said. “We used to have that, we don’t anymore.”
Obama led McCain in every major Virginia poll conducted in October. The six surveys showed Obama led by an average of 8.6 points, according to Real Clear Politics.
The sluggish economy is proving to be difficult for Republicans generally as voters tend to blame the party in power.
In Prince William County, about 25 miles south of Washington, residents are watching neighbors head into foreclosure at a record pace. Nearly one in 20 mortgages is in foreclosure there, the highest rate in Virginia, according to the Virginia Housing Development Authority.
“Economically, they’re killing us,” said Gurdeep Singh of Woodbridge. “I won’t vote for McCain.”
Republicans question why McCain waited so long to compete here. Between April and September, McCain did not campaign in the state once. McCain’s campaign reports 21 offices and 10,000 volunteers in Virginia. McCain was to be in Woodbridge in Northern Virginia Saturday for his fourth Virginia campaign stop.
Obama campaigned in Southwest Virginia the day after clinching the Democratic presidential nomination in June and has visited Virginia seven times. Obama has 49 Virginia field offices – several in traditionally conservative communities – and more than 10,000 volunteers, according to the campaign.
Obama, who campaigned in Roanoke Friday, has repeatedly stumped in the state’s rural areas in a sign he is aiming to chip away at McCain’s base in the western part of Virginia.
No presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy has campaigned in Virginia west of I-95.
“A lot of times out here folks have felt forgotten. They don’t feel that way right now,” said Virginia Democratic Party chairman Richard Cranwell of Roanoke.
State Republicans also are asking why McCain went so negative in his campaign ads. Between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4, nearly 100 percent of McCain ads were negative, according to the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project. Obama outspent McCain by more than three to one in Virginia ad buys during that period, the Wisconsin study found.
Republican Klinge said of McCain’s negative ad strategy, “I don’t even know if it is locking in the base…They are losing people.”
The Hampton Roads area in Southeast Virginia is the second-largest voter jackpot.
“All of the dominant influences throughout the state converge – conservative, economic, religious, military. It’s the best microcosm of the whole state,” said Charles Dunn, dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University in Virginia Beach.
McCain, a Navy veteran, may connect well here, but early October polls show him tied with Obama in the region. Hampton Roads is home to Norfolk Naval Station, the world’s largest Navy base, and 115,000 people who are active-duty military or civilians doing defense-related work.
“The military vote -- they don’t like what’s happening any more than we do,” said David “Mudcat" Saunders, a Democratic consultant. “There are a lot of Reagan Democrats who are coming home. There are also a bunch of old-timey Democrats down there -- pro-gun, pro-God, fiscal conservatives.”
The region also has a heavy African-American population that is highly motivated to turnout in November, said state Del. Kenneth R. Melvin, D-Portsmouth, an Obama supporter.
“I’m a criminal lawyer, and I have had two of my clients come in and say, ‘Look, all I want to do is vote. Gimme a chance to vote before I go to trial, and then they can do what they will with me,’” Melvin said. “I’ve never had that before.”
Despite changes in demographics, a lot remains the same in Virginia, where a bronze statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee remains prominently displayed in the State Capitol.
And more than a few voters continue to harbor old South racial prejudice.
“I think when you get a lot of people in that booth and the curtain closes, they’re going to vote Republican,” said Thomas Gordon of Colonial Heights. “(Obama’s) change is going to be the worst thing this country has seen.”
In conservative Southwest Virginia, Bobby May, a then-McCain county chairman, wrote a column claiming that Obama, if elected, would hire rapper Ludacris to paint the White House black.
State GOP chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick went a step further. Trying to motivate volunteers in Prince William County, he compared Obama to Osama bin Laden.
McCain disavowed both comments.
As for the race issue, Democrats are quick to note that Virginia became the first state to elect a black governor – Democrat Douglas L. Wilder – in 1989.
“I think we’re beyond that in Virginia,” said Cranwell.
Contact Neil Simon at (202) 662-7669.
Media General’s Jim Nolan and Amy Dominello contributed to this report.