Virginia emerging as election “battleground state”

BY JEFF E. SCHAPIRO AND JIM NOLAN
Media General News Service

Published: June 4, 2008

Underscoring Virginia’s potential as a battleground state, Barack Obama plans appearances Thursday at opposite ends of the commonwealth.

He starts at a high school in Bristol, in the far southwest, reaching out to white rural voters before veering north to the Washington suburb of Prince William County, where he will appear at the Nissan Pavilion. Both events are free.

John McCain, the probable Republican candidate, heads to Richmond Monday for a fundraising luncheon, charging $1,000 to $2,300 per plate. McCain recently opened his state headquarters in Arlington County.

“We’re going to witness the first presidential race inside Virginia in decades,” said Robert D. Holsworth, a VCU political analyst.

Only two Democratic presidential candidates have carried Virginia in the last 60 years — Harry S. Truman in 1948 and Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

“Virginia is a lot of things, but I don’t think Virginia is a liberal state,” said the new state Republican chairman, Del. Jeffery M. Frederick of Prince William.

“Even if you look at the Democrats we’re electing, they’re not running as liberals — they’re running right of center,” said Frederick. “Obama, it would be very difficult to for him to hide from the No. 1 most liberal voting record in the Senate.”

But Democratic gains over the past seven years for governor, the U.S. Senate and General Assembly are viewed as warning shots that a historically red state could flip blue this November.

“You can’t discount the Democratic momentum since 2001,” said Ken Hutcheson, a veteran Republican strategist.

Early polls show McCain leading Obama in Virginia, though the Republican is at less than 50 percent.

But a sharp increase in voter registration — 100,000 new names as of mid-May, compared with 50,000 for all of 2004 — and the candidates’ performance in the Feb. 12 primary may add perspective not found in polling.

Obama, with 623,141 votes, outdrew the Republican field. McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee combined for 442,381 votes.

Young voters turned out in droves this winter for Obama.

Nearly 135,000 Virginians ages 17 to 29 cast ballots for Obama. That’s up from nearly 32,000 in the 2004 Democratic primary.

In contrast, about 53,000 voters ages 17 to 29 participated in the GOP primary this year. The previous contested Republican primary in 2000 — between McCain and George Bush — drew just over 66,000 young voters.

Del. Christopher B. Saxman, R-Staunton, head of the McCain effort in Virginia, also sees promise for his candidate in churning voting rolls.

“It gives us an opportunity to get a message out to those younger voters about who John McCain is and what he’s done for the country. And what his policies are, so we can turn those new voters into new Republican voters.”

Holsworth said that with McCain’s war-hero record, the Arizona senator “would be almost unbeatable” in defense-rich Virginia but is hobbled by the “national decline of the Republican brand.”

Obama, too, faces obstacles such as breaking through to GOP-leaning rural voters, who appeared to favor Clinton.

Virginia Democrats have paired inroads in the countryside with huge gains in Northern Virginia.

“If you say to rural voters, to whom guns and conservative lifestyle are important, that you’re not going to disrupt that, then you can talk about the economy and jobs,” said House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong, D-Henry, originally a backer of former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

Jeff E. Schapiro and Jim Nolan are staff writers for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.