Arlington and Alexandria have far more in common, culturally and demographically, with Bethesda and Silver Spring than they do with the rest of VA.  The DC suburbs are a dominant voting block in Maryland, which, combined with Baltimore's large black population and high number of unionized blue-collar workers (not to mention the large Greek community that produced Senator Paul Sarbanes) makes it a solidly Democratic state.  It's no surprise to anyone who's ever lived in greater D.C. (Silver Spring, in my case) that population growth in that region should shift Virginia toward the Democrats.

I read something in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (I believe in the article about how some cardinal definitively explained how voting for abortionists is a sin) that said 47% of this state is either born again or evangelical.  

What's strange about your analysis is that Tennessee and Arkansas are closer at the presidential level than other states.

High black populations have strange effects on the white populations. After all, Mississippi has a much higher population of African-Americans than Georgia, so if you can get all the African-Americans plus 33% of the Evangelicals you could win a Democratic state-wide race in Mississippi. Many of the Atlanta suburbs are growing more Republican over time as the city/suburb divide grows wider.

Why is Louisiana going to stay in play? I don't see that one. I think North Carolina is more likely to stay in play. Clinton hurt Dem standing there by taking on big tobacco.

Amy Sullivan is to an extent right; treating the "evangelical" vote as monolithic is probably too glib. There are Southern Baptists who think the SBC is a bunch of kooks. Sure, a patrician Boston Catholic is unlikely to win in places like Arkansas and North Carolina, but a Democrat from the lower midwest (PA, OH, MO) might fair well enough to win there.

Long term, the Dems will fair best along the Southern Atlantic Coast, I think.

Just because someone is an evangelical doesn't mean they vote Republican.  interestingly, white evangelicals without a college education tend to vote slight majority Democratic.  The problem is college educated evangelicals vote Republican by large majorities and turnout at a higher rate.

I'm a Virginia believer. I'm next door in MD, but come Nov 2, I hope to spend the entire day in VA and helping with GOTV. If there's a surprise lurking in this cycle, I think VA is it.

The campaign has pulled its ads, but I get emails from my MD4Kerry list inviting us all to come down and turn VA blue. I think a lot of people in the VA area are committed to pulling off a surprise.

I think we can make Virginia this cycle's Washington state: a place Bush knows he'll win unless there's a blowout, but where he has to spend money and time in October when he thought it was safe. (Bush had hoped to make NJ this year's Washington state: if the new poll with Kerry ahead by 8 there is right, and is reflected in next week's internal polling, then Bush has failed to do so.) Chris may be right about TN and AR, and I think we're screwed in WV and MO long term for the same reasons, one of which Chris didn't mention: cultural conservatism plus white evangelical voters (who aren't monolithic, as Amy Sullivan points out, but who do vote R much more often than not) PLUS low levels of migration into the state by Northern professionals, Latinos and other new Americans. Dems should do better with time, conversely, among old-Confederacy states with low or decreasing % of born-again white people, high levels of in-migration by Dem-trending groups from the North, and growing Latino and other immigrant populations. Those states include FL and VA, but also NC.

All VA governors are one-term governors due to term limits, right? Is there a Dem who can take Mark Warner's place? My impression of him was of a brave, smart man playing defense against a far-right state legislature, a bit like Clinton's second term.

I don't know if Virginia will go Blue this time, but it definitely has potential.  where I live (Arlington) is solidly Democratic, as is Alexandria.  the fsst-growing areas in Northern Virginia, like Fairfax county, are becoming wswing areas as more minorities and people from other regions move in, so much that a lot of down-staters say Northern Virginia isn't the "real  Virginia."  Warner did well by putting a ot into economically depressed areas in Southern Virginia ("Southside").  Also, if African-American turnout is high in urban areas in the Tidewater like Richmond and Norfolk, there is a formula for a winning Democratic ticket.  Warner would be a good potential running mate or Senate candidate after his term is up in 2007 and he's term-limited.

Long term I see the opposite.  Sorry to disagree.

The South has had an interesting role in American politics, especially with respect to political parties.  The rise of the white Republican is partly a response to the dramatic increase of African-Americans and other minorities.  If you look at some of the most ruthlessly conservative and racist states (MS, AL, SC) they have very large black populations.  Canadian border states are often 95% white plus, but not nearly as conservative and often very liberal.  It takes the white man being threatened to become a conservative.

What we have in the South is an interesting phenomenon.  The whites are mounting a last ditch effort to stave off minority control, but unless these people start having more babies, it won't work.  Isn't it interesting that the minoritization of the South has coincided with a major push to the right, and Republican domination.  The Southern Strategy.  Can you imagine a Mississippi that's 50% black?  With a black Governor?  That day is coming soon, all due to demographic changes.

It's no surprise that the "blackest" states are the most Republican according to the Partisan Index.  This is counter-intuitive if you think that the black vote is the closest thing to monolithic in American voting habits.  On the other hand, we see that states with lower percentages of blacks are states where Democrats stand more of a chance, although less than they used to: AR, TN, NC, WV.

Long-term, we have a major problem on our hands.  The South's racial divisions are becoming more and more visible, just by looking at voting patterns.  How many whites have jumped the Democratic ship to avoid being associated with African-Americans?  It's sad, but that's what's happening.  

Long-term prediction:  major turnover!  MS, AL, LA, SC will have black Governors within 30 years time.  The whiter parts of the South will continue to become more Republican, until they too reach their turnovers.  Watch for Georgia to turnover soon, too.  Racist southern white culture is nearing its demise.  What we'll have in the South is to be seen, but white domination of blacks in the South will be over soon.  No more Jesse Helms, Trent Lott, Strom Thurmond, etc.  What the Southern Melting Pot looks like will shape politics in the region.

Bottom line: religion does play a role in the south, but race plays a much stronger role.

While the eastern and rural portions of the state is clearly pro-Bush, as is the big money (i.e., wealthy communities),  I just do not believe this state is as big a lock for Bush as the pollsters seem to think. We have registered over 5,000 new voters (Democrats) in one Triangle county alone and there will be close to 300,000 or more new voters statewide by the time October 8th, the last day to register new voters, rolls around. These new voters are overwhelmingly Democratic. In addition, we are staging a number of education persuasion initiatives aimed at swing voters and the military community (a big chunk of our state) is nowhere near as happy with Bush and his policies as the Republicans would like you to think. Add a high voter turn-out to that -- and you have no idea how many volunteers are working statewide to make this happen -- and I think we'll at least throw a scare into the GOP, if not squeak it out. I think the GOP is starting to smell this: we've been seeing swiftboat ads for the first time here (they are vile beyond belief).

The key is going to be getting out the vote in the Triangle area (Raleigh/ Durham/ Chapel Hill). Durham, which is home to five of the largest black-owned businesses in the U.S., will be leading the charge. We now have enough in sheer numbers to balance out the eastern and rural portions of the state and potentially swing it Kerry's way if the middle-of-the-road areas and a portion of the military community break toward kerry.  I think people will be surprised at how close it ends up being.

Going out long-term, there are grumblings that Libby Dole's constituency program is nowhere near as good as Jesse Helm's was (THAT was his big secret political weapon, he could get anything done for anyone at any time) nor is her staff as responsive as John Edwards' staff is -- and around here, that's a big no-no. I'd love to see her defeated. She seems extremely out of touch with this state (No surprise, since she hasn't lived here since college).

By the way, our governer's name is Easley, not Edgar.

Virginia is an odd state in a way.  Northern Virginia isn't the South at all.  Eastern VA might as well be the deep South; high black population but incredibly conservative whites.  Then there's Southwest VA, which in many ways is more like West Virginia than Virginia.  Unionist sympathies during the Civil War, high levels of unionization, and social conservativism mixed with economic liberalism.  Democrats need to appeal to places like that as well as traditionally more conservative places like South Central VA, which is more receptive to Democrats at the moment due to high job losses.  Democrats are never going to win the white vote in the Tidewater anymore than they will in MS, but they can and should compete in the other parts of the state that aren't NoVA.  Relying on displaced Northerners to put you over the top here is a terrible strategy; Mary Sue Terry and Don Beyer tried it and got trounced.  Warner competed everywhere and won.  Also, one problem with VA is the relatively soft support blacks give Democrats, only about 75 to 80 percent in normal years.  I don't know why that is exactly.  My theory is that the first governor to actively champion civil rights (for which he lost his political career) was A. Linwood Holton, a Republican, and that there's still some memory of that.

Warner didn't restore voting rights to all ex-felons, only to a few who had petitioned to have their rights restored.  It's still good, but it doesn't change the fact that by default, ex-felons cannot vote in Virginia.

I'll echo the concerns about dismissing white evangelicals or born-again Christians as necessarily anti-Democratic.  Their preference for Republicans is as much Republican marketing as the White Christian Party as anything else.  A Democratic strategy to contest these voters would have to appeal to shared principles of social justice; that still might not work, since I suspect there is substantial overlap between this group and other, more anti-gay, -black, -secular, -immigrant, -tax groups, but it might peel away enough to blunt Republican gains.

I'll also echo calls to include North Carolina in this list.

Just ask Alabama Governor Riley (R). He tried to revise a cruelly nonprogressive tax system, saying that the revised version would be more in line with what Jesus would do.

It was trounced. Even demographic groups that would have personally benefitted voted against the plan.

Jesus is not the leader of these people, and common sense cannot penetrate their beliefs.

Ruy Teixeira in "The Emerging Democratic Majority" also makes a pretty convincing argument that, over the next 10/15/20 years, Texas will come to look, politically, more like California than Alabama. That is:
-an aging/dying white Protestant population;
-replacement of that white population with educated tech workers (who are traditionally independent, but are of course a key pickup possibility for Dems)
-higher participation rates among women (from pretty low levels, currently, compared with national levels)
-hugely growing Latino population (and increases in participation in this population, as well)
-continued gradual increases in African-American participation (from, of course, very low historical levels)

As we saw in the 2002 Senate race, Texas isn't quite there - yet. But it should be, soon. A good second step to taking down DeLay and his cronies would be massive investment in registration and organization efforts in Texas, to defeat the gerrymandered state house, and turn Texas Dem.

both will be kerry's...watch and see

The characterizations of VA are a bit odd. NoVA is much different from DC & its MD suburbs. Culturally, it's decidely more southern draws more people from the South and places like Indianapolis and deep suburbia. DC & MD draw more "urban" folks and migrants from the Northeast and parts of the Midwest like Cleveland. NoVA May be more moderate and more "new South" than the rest of the state, but it's decidely more conservative than its neighbors. Parts of Atlanta are closer to NoVA in spriit than DC or Montgomery County (or even Howard County). I'd sure like to see VA in play but would not hold my breath.

Georgia has been tilting Republican and seems likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. The northern transplants here are often as conservative as the locals. It's a city where slimey salemanship is confused with being an enterpreneur. Many of the growth businesses are essentially exploitive of people (temporary hhelp, data mining). And the Atlanta area is the only part of the state with any population or economic growth, so it will drive future electoral trends. There are now also many migrants from Mexico, India, and various parts of East and SE Asia, but they are a long way from becoming significant voting blocs; many are illegal and most of the growth has been in the past 10-15 years, so even the legal folks may not be citizens yet. Despite all its PR, Atlanta has a terrible racial climate and the local Black political machine, as well as the old guard business community are largely the same people who've been fighting the same battles since the 60s. The kind of generational change in both political blocs that you've seen in places as varied as DC, Chicago, Detroit & Cleveland haven't happened in Atlanta. It's a place that appears dynamic, but isn't. The bad racial vibe, the conservative migrants from the North and the lack of voting among new foreign migrants add up to dominance by conservative white guys. Lots of evangelicals, too.

The Dems need to reinvent themselves here, perhaps as a modern and truly reformist (or legitimately populist) alternative. As the GOP takes over major offices, they seem to bring in plenty of corruption (the old clubhouse Dems weren't always much better) and this might create a future basis for the Dems to comeback, along with an economy that continues to sour despite job growth (wages have declined and houses and insurance keep getting more expensive).

Despite the lousy racial climate in Chicago & much of downstate, Illinois elected a Black female senator and will likely vote in a Black male (and would have done it w/o Keyes as an opponent). That kind of dynamic is what separates the South from even the most seemingly polarized parts of the North; people can't swallow some of their prejudices and move on. It's a pretty southern thing---conservative Midwesterners will try something new---they may need to be dragged kicking & screaming and they may not admit to liking it, but they will try it. Soutrherners are too afraid of change. I hold out little short-term hope for much of the South.

stems from recent history.  Virginia's already been through a few transitions; the question in my mind is, why didn't the last Dem realignment hold?

To refresh people's memories, Virginia went through the same realignment that most of the South went through between passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Reagan years: the Dixiecrats gradually turned Republican.  (GOP progressive Lin Holton's term as governor (elected in 1969, IIRC) was sandwiched in between Mills Godwin's two terms, the first as an old-line Dem, the second, realigned as a Republican.

Then a strange thing happened: a string of moderate Democrats won the governorshop (along with LtGov and AG): Chuck Robb in 1981, Gerry Baliles in 1985, and Doug Wilder in 1989.  Right smack in the middle of the Reagan-Bush years.  I think Virginia would have been ripe for the picking at the Presidential level in 1988 if we'd had a better candidate than Dukakis, and in 1992 if Clinton and Gore (especially Gore) had actively campaigned there.

Then we got George Allen in 1993 and Jim Gilmore in 1997.  I'm not sure how we lost Virginia in the early 1990s - I was out of state, working on my doctorate, from 1988-93 - and although I agree that it's starting to swing back, I don't have high expectations.  I think most Virginians realize that Gilmore's doctrinaire anti-tax stance went too far, but while Warner's "we're anti-tax too, just not quite as zealous about it" may have been enough to get him elected, it's not the sort of pitch that wins converts and changes the game. It's the Dem version of the "me-too" Republicanism of the 1960s.

So I see the potential for VA to swing Dem, but the Democratic Party has to go out and win it; the Commonwealth isn't going to just fall in its lap.  I think Virginians - just like people across the country - want to know: what things will the Dems fight for, come hell or high water?  

One year, the environment's a big issue for us; another year, we're for it, but it's on the back burner.  One year, gun control is big; another year, it isn't worth fighting about.  We're for labor unions, but again, the 'oomph' behind it comes and goes, and most Americans don't know what labor unions have to do with them anyway.  We get burned on health care one year, and it drops off our agenda for most of a decade.  We were pressing for a minimum wage increase in 1999-2000, which we didn't get; heard anything about that lately?

This year, I think GWB is so bad that we can win a lot of states just on that.  I don't think VA is one of those states, though.  I think Virginians need to know what issues we'll keep on coming back on, year after year, until we win.  We're 'for' all the right things, but as a party, we've got a tendency to run from a fight, once we get our noses bloodied.  Until we get past that, I don't see us winning Virginia.

I personally do not see Virginia becoming a swing state any time soon.  Virginia is one of the most conservative states in the US.

Of all of the candidates in 04, the only ones (in my opinion) that could possibly have carried Virginia are Wes Clark, John Edwards (but he couldn't carry neighboring NC), and Joe Lieberman (but his run with Al Gore would have killed that chance).

Virginia's own Democratic Governor could be a model for future candidates.  He's a Nascar man, having sponsored one when he ran for Governor. He traveled around the state with a bluegrass band (appeals to rural voters), was not opposed by the NRA, (not good in my view but good politically), accepts some limits on abortion (good for the Christian Right but generally not favorable to some lot Democrats), balanced the budget (from $6 billion in the red to a surplus), increased education (largest increase in VA history), increased Child Health Care, reformed the tax code, supported abolishing parole (while increasing protections for the innocent), and supported the death penalty (I have mixed feelings about that).

Having said all that, to sum it up, Warner did in Virginia what Bill Clinton did nationally.  He beat the Republicans at their own game by running as a Centrist/Moderate.

Mark Warner is a new kind of Democrat with broad appeal to swing voters.  With a 61% approval rating in a state with a heavily Republican majority, he has shown that Democrats can appeal to rural, church-going, and swing voters.

Democrats would be wise to look at candidates like Mark Warner, Evan Bayh, Wes Clark, and other more moderate candidates unless they want to be in the wilderness for the next decade.

There is a growing Draft Mark Warner movement taking shape on the internet.  There is a Draft Mark Warner website at draftmarkwarner.com and a Yahoo Group, and various Warner Blogs linked from the draftmarkwarner.com web site.

If you believe Democrats need to return to the center to win future elections, please start thinking about candidates that can win the "red" states.  Warner did it and has a remarkable record in governing from the center, refusing to be caught up in the debate on hot topics like abortion, gay marriage, and gun control.  

Virginia will never be a swing state until the Democratic Party puts up a candidate that can reach across party lines.  It has not happened since Lyndon Johnson so there is a lot of work to do but, it can be done.

Like everyone across the country, I honestly thought with Bush's record, even Kerry stood a chance in Virginia.  I expected at most a 2-3% Bush lead and expected Kerry to pull off a win.  I worked to get him elected.  Kerry's margin of loss in Virginia shocked me and I know it shocked Democrats nationally as other states went for Bush in greater margins that in 2000.  

We should all view this as a wake up call. You can stick to your guns, hold to your principles, back liberal or left-leaning candidates because they view the world as you do, and keep on losing or you can re-think your positions and consider that if Democrats keep losing, the country will loose faith in their ability to nominate acceptable candidates.  That would be to all our detriment.

I know there is a lot of disagreement about whether we should stand our ground and not be "too Republican" but folks this election told us something.  We are putting up the wrong kind of candidates and if Democrats cannot win a single southern red state, look for the red to spread.

For the record, I am a Hillary fan having visited the Clinton birthplace in Hope, Arkansas and the Clinton Library in Little Rock. I was seeing Edwards potential before he was even though of as a potential candidate.  I backed Kerry 100%.  Now for me, it is tme to see the writing on the wall and reverse course.