Obama did well in areas besides N.Va.

BY ANDREW CAIN
Media General News Service
Published: November 10, 2008

If you think Barack Obama cruised to victory in Virginia based on his strength in Northern Virginia alone, think again.

On Tuesday, Obama won Hampton Roads by nearly 79,000 votes. In 2004, President Bush beat Democrat John Kerry there by 48,000.

In greater Richmond, Obama beat John McCain by 39,000 votes. Four years ago, Bush won by 55,000.

On four Sundays leading up to Election Day, the Richmond Times-Dispatch took detailed looks at four key regions — Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, Southwest Virginia and central Virginia. Here’s what Tuesday’s results tell us about each:

As the polls projected, Obama roared out of Northern Virginia with a big lead. The key here is that Obama more than tripled Kerry’s margin from 2004. Kerry won Northern Virginia by 68,000 votes. Obama beat McCain by 233,000.

Obama carried Fairfax County alone by 109,000. He also knocked down the Republicans’ firewall by winning the big outer counties of Loudoun and Prince William, which voted for Bush in 2004.

In Hampton Roads, Obama expanded Kerry’s margins in cities with large black populations, such as Norfolk, Newport News and Hampton.

The stunner here is that even with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on the ticket, McCain got no boost in the state’s religiously conservative base.

In Virginia Beach, where Pat Robertson founded the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Christian Coalition and Regent University, McCain edged Obama by only 1,184 votes. Bush had carried the city by 33,000 in 2004.

Obama beat McCain by 1,369 votes in Chesapeake, a city that Bush carried by 13,500 votes in 2004.

In greater Richmond, the results recall a warning that Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-11th, issued to fellow Republicans last May.

“My argument to the downstate folks [is that] Henrico and Chesterfield [counties] are becoming more like Northern Virginia than they are like the rest of the state,“ Davis told Neil Simon of Media General News Service.

It’s premature to color those counties blue, but they have become battlegrounds, reducing Republicans’ ability to make up big Democratic margins in Richmond.

In Henrico, a county Bush carried by nearly 11,000 votes in 2004, Obama won by nearly 19,000 on Tuesday. In Chesterfield, which Bush carried by 34,000 votes, McCain won by just 12,000.

Meantime, Obama carried the city of Richmond by 54,700 votes, up from Kerry’s margin of 30,500 four years ago.

So with all that going for him, why didn’t Obama win Virginia by more than 6 percentage points?

McCain dominated in the state’s rural regions.

In the 9th Congressional District, most of which is in Southwest Virginia, Kerry had taken only one of 27 localities in 2004, the tiny city of Covington.

On Tuesday, Obama didn’t do much better, carrying Covington, Montgomery County — home to Virginia Tech — and Radford — home to Radford University. McCain captured 59 percent of the vote in Southwest Virginia to 40 percent for Obama.

As Virginia politicos turn their attention to the 2009 governor’s race, Sen.-elect Mark R. Warner is tempering his fellow Democrats’ glee, saying he sees no sign of a permanent realignment.

Warner knows well that in Virginia politics, the pendulum swings. Since 1969, each party has won the governorship five times.

Then there’s this: Since 1976, Virginians have followed every single presidential election by electing a governor from the other party a year later.

Time will tell whether Attorney General Bob McDonnell, the likely GOP nominee for governor, can find a silver lining in Obama’s Virginia victory.

Andrew Cain is the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s political editor.