Obama will not win Va. The Demographics don’t favor him. McCain is a Republican who polls well in Northern Va. He polls over 40%, so he is in good shape.
Plus, Democrats have won VA statewide by running as conservatives. Obama is not running as a conservative. VA hasn’t gone for a Democrat presidential candidate since LBJ.
McCain will win VA.
I’m fairly confident you are correct. It’s just the black turnout factor that scares me a bit. How else did they get Douglas Wilder elected back in the 90s?
Precisely. Virginia Democrats who have won statewide gubernatorial and senate elections in the past 40 years (Robb, Baliles, Wilder, Webb) have all been far to the right of Obama. Jim Webb won ONLY because of Allen's "macaca" statement (Miller would not have been able to pull it off), and other than the war Webb ran on a fairly mainstream platform.
There have certainly been a lot of changes with more liberals in Northern Virginia, but the rest of the state is still quite conservative.