Hopefully, Obama can maintain the momentum.  However, it is just June and there is a long way to go.  My guess is that Gore and Kerry were probably both in similar places at this point in the election season.

They didn't have an unpopular war and recession at their back.

has ever before shown a blue Virginia.

none
nunca
never

not in my lifetime.

how sweet it is!

...Gore was behind in June 2000, and Kerry was tied with Bush in June 2004.

to the traditional and new swing states (like Virginia and Colorado), I think we should look out for North Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi.  While I do not believe at this point we will win all or any of them, I do believe Obama can make these traditionally Republican states competitive.  Republican money spent in these states is money not spent in states like FL, OH, and VA.  Can you just imagine the pundits on election night waiting out to see which direction GA or MS is going?  

Texas is the next Virginia!!

that just may be possible (I am not sure about this year, though).  Texas is now a minority-majority state.  A coalition of Hispanics, blacks, and progressive and moderate whites in Texas could give us this state in the future.

One state that is getting a lot of buzz is Georgia.

Georgia has 1,090,000 registered black voters, as of 2004, of which, 54.3%, or 591,870 turned out in 2004 and voted for Kerry.  If Obama can maximize turnout to 80%, that would produce a total turnout of 872,000, a gain of 280,130 votes.  

In addition, there are between 500,000 and 600,000 unregistered black voters in the state of Georgia.  If, and this is a big if, the Obama campaign can register 30% or more of this group of unregistered voters, that could add another 150,000 to 180,000 new voters to the rolls, potentially adding another 120,000 to 144,000 to Obama's vote total, again, using the same 80% turnout figure.  

Based on an historic turnout, adding the 280,130 votes with the 120,000 votes coming from newly registered voters, that would be a gain of 400,130 votes.  

Plus, Georgia is changing just like Virginia.  Progeressive white voters are moving into suburban Atlanta, where Obama crused Clinton in the primary, which should help Obama in the fall as well.

And then  there is Bob Barr, running for president on the Libertarian ticket.  Barr is now pulling in 8% of the vote in polls in Gerogia.  Barr may do for Obama in Georgia what Perot did for Clinton in Georgia in 1992.

If Barr can peel off 8% of the vote from McCain, that equals 260,295, based on the 2004 turnout of 3,253,698.

Bush won Georgia by 544,800.  With Obama potentailly gaining 400,00 votes and McCain potentially losing 260,000 to Barr, you can see the window of opportunity opening for the Obama campaign in Georgia.    

Georgia is certainly a state to watch.  In the end Obama may not win there, but keeping it close and forcing McCain to spend time and resources in Georgia may help Obama elsewhere.

McCain's big problem in Georgia, and in the rest of the country is the economy.  And if the economy continues to suck wind throughout the fall, a number of states besides Georgia may become ripe for the picking.  And I know David Plouffe is going to be watching those states like a hawk!

YES WE CAN!

http://www.time.com/time/polit...

While this poll is good news, does anyone really think that Obama will win a Landslide Victory in November??

Well actually, YES I do think it's possible. If Barrack Obama selects the right person for V.P. .... melds a centrist message into his HOPEFUL theme then I truly think every state is in play.

There are enough people (Independents, Libertarians, John Chafee republicans) who will vote for Obama as long as they perceive him to be thoughtful and fair. AUTHENTIC!  A decent man with a compassionate wife. (Believe it or not that's why Dubya won a second term - Laura was always his best asset and many people identified with her).

So Obama's pick of a Vice President is the first and most telling decision he could make as the potential Commander in Chief. It needs to be pick that is "Good for the Nation" ... not the party or his political ambitions.

To win a landslide victory (not seen since Reagan or Nixon) Barrack Obama's Vice President should be none other than JIM WEBB.

Do that ... Obama wins a Landslide Victory!!  

He was running against Bob Dole, who is an overwhelmingly similar candidate to John McSame.

in both popular and electoral votes;
I suspect it will be 58-64% of the popular vote!!!
I am having trouble figuring out all the possibilities, but we are talking ~340 electoral votes or more...

I think we will see  59-63 Democratic Senators (not counting Lieberman; who is not a Democrat).  I do not think we will lose a single Democratic incumbent U.S. Senator.

I think we may see as many as 40 additional Democratic Congress critters (though that is a net number and we may lose a few existing ones to get there).

Yes, landslide; of really historic proportions.

The bottom line, we have a statesman in the race, a Lincoln/Adams/Jefferson calibre statesman like we have not seen in my lifetime.  Multiply that by the fact that we are emotionally wounded from the fiasco of the neo-con infiltration and control of the GOP and the Bush administration.  The backlash from ordinary citizens is enormous.

The best news is that in a few years a new party of real conservatives may arise from the ashes of the neo-con controlled Republican party and actually join Democrats in healing the country... and it will take decades.  The damage is huge.

given the makeup of various state electorates.  

When McCain's campaign themselves list AZ as a state that may be competitive, you know he is in trouble.

Look at it this way.   There are 12 states which if you win the top ten and one of the other two you have a majority of electoral votes.

Obama is safely ahead in CA, NY, IL for them to be off the table

He leads consistently now in MI and PA and OH and NJ

polls now showing him even or slightly ahead in NC and VA and FL

that leaves TX and GA for McCain.

Let's give those two to Johnny Boy.  But if he loses all the rest, and all the safe Dem states like DC, CT, RI, MD, WA, VT, ME,  and HA he has already won the presidency, without even looking at somewhat more competitive states in which Obama also leads:  IA, NM, CO, MN, MO and OR

heck, Obama is competitive in places like ND and MT, for gosh sakes, and is likely to pick up at least one if not two EVs from NE (which splits by Congressional district, with Obama currently leading in one and close behind in a second, while well behind in the last).  Depending on new registrations and black turnout IN, AR, MS and LA also look to be competitive.

From my perspective, and being generous, McCain starts right now with a relatively small safe base:  AZ (it is his home state). SD, AK (but maybe not if Paul joins Barr on Libertarian ticket and Begich does well against Stevens - AK Republican party, except for the Governor, is in great disrepute right now), WV, AL, ID, WY .. that ain't a heck of a lot.

And if he is having to defend base states, how does he have the resources to try to take away Dem states like MN or WI.

As of right now, I do not think McCain will carry ANY state that Kerry carried, the sole possible exception being NH, in which he has maintained popularity - but that is only 4 EVs.

He will almost certainly lose IA, NM and CO, for a total of 20 EVS.   He looks likely to also lose OH, for another 20 EVs.  At that point the only question is by how many electoral votes he will lose.

I suspect this is a blue year in the Old Dominion, regardless of VP running mate, if for no other reason than how strongly Warner will run.  

And the dimensions of a possible electoral landslide begin to appear.

Also consider this - while in the recent NBC/WSJ poll McCain had a 6 point lead among suburban women, that will almost certainly disappear as they become aware that he wants to overturn Roe, that he opposed SCHIP. etc.

I think it more likely than not that the only states with more than 10 EVs that McCain can caryy are AZ (probably), GA (maybe, but Barr and new registrations and black turnout put it in play), TN, and probably TX (although that is not a giv en) and maybe FL (although his position on offshore drilling and his willingness to privatize SS could both hurt).  To me it is not inconceivable that he carries less than 100 EVs, and I think it likely that he will carry less than 200.  IF he gets 200, he loses 538-200.   If that number includes FL and he loses that he is down to just over 170, and the Dem total is over 360.  Regardless of popular vote margin, that will still be seen as substantial, if not as a landslide.

And should Obama reach a national popular vote margin in double digits, then McCain will be lucky to have 100 EVS, because he will lose both FL and OH as well as most of the competitive medium sized states.

on FL, OH and PA from the Quinnipac poll:

McCain faces at least three major drags heading into this year's election: Iraq, the economy, and President Bush. Just how big of a handicap do each of these represent? We get some sense of an answer by digging through the latest Quinnipiac polls in the key states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Here are candidate preferences based on the issue of the economy and Iraq:

The Economy
Florida: Obama +19 (55-36)
Ohio: Obama +18 (55-37)
Pennsylvania: Obama +19 (56-37)

That's a fairly uniform (and serious) deficit facing McCain. These numbers are also consistent with the latest ABC News/WaPo survey released yesterday which showed voters "trusted" Obama more than McCain on the issue of the economy by a 16-point margin, 52 to 36.

The War in Iraq
Florida: Obama +29 (61-32)
Ohio: Obama +8 (48-40)
Pennsylvania: Obama +29 (59-30)

The Florida number is a bit surprising, given the Republican tilt of the state and the number of military families and veterans who live there. So too is the result in Ohio: if I recall correctly the state was particularly hard hit by Iraq war casualties which played some part (along with corruption and the economy) in the 2006 drubbing Buckeye voters put on the GOP. Quite frankly, I would have expected the Florida and Ohio numbers to be reversed.

Again, looking to the WaPo national survey as a reference point, we do not see the same sort of consistency on Iraq that was demonstrated on the economy. Voters in the WaPo survey were evenly split on who they trusted more to deal with Iraq, with McCain garnering 47% and Obama 46%.

President Bush
Florida: Bush job approval 27%
Ohio: Bush job approval 22%
Pennsylvania: Bush job approval 24%

It's not terribly surprising that Bush's job approval in these three states is below the national average of 29.8%. Surely McCain would like these numbers to be higher, but it's awfully hard to quantify how much Bush's low job approval is impacting McCain.

One interesting measure is how many Bush voters in 2004 are planning to vote for McCain, and how many plan to switch to Obama:

Bush ' 04 Voters
Florida: 80% voting McCain, 13% voting Obama
Ohio: 80% voting McCain, 13% voting Obama
Pennsylvania: 74% voting McCain, 19% voting Obama

Compare these numbers to how Kerry voters in 2004 plan to vote this year:

Kerry ' 04 Voters
Florida: 82% voting Obama, 9% voting McCain
Ohio: 78% voting Obama, 13% voting McCain
Pennsylvania: 83% voting Obama, 11% voting McCain

Overall, then, using this admittedly crude metric, we see McCain is losing a net of roughly 4% of Bush '04 voters to Obama in Florida, 0% in Ohio, and 8% in Pennsylvania.

Obviously, these numbers can't tell us how much of this migration is based on disappointment with President Bush in particular or a broader disappointment in/trending away from Republicans in general, but they are intriguing nonetheless and will take on more relevance as we get closer and closer to the election.

And with Bush pushing off-shore drilling, perhaps that might swing additional voters in Florida to Obama, considering the FL ban on off-shore drilling is very popular across the state.

http://news.aol.com/?feature=2...

Another poll of Virginians is showing a close race.  The PPP shows Obama with a 2 point lead.

http://www.publicpolicypolling...

is a bit confusing to me.

While the PPP polls in FL, OH and PA show Obama with 90 to 95 per cent of the black vote, it shows McCain winning 32 per cent of the black vote in Virginia.  Increase Obama's per cent of the black vote to 90% and Obama's lead expands to an 11 point margin.  

I think I would ignore this poll - especially in light of the primary results in Virginia earlier this year.  

One possible explanation for this is that a lot of active duty military here in Virginia are African American, and traditionally military votes have been Republican in majority.  OH, PA, and FL do not have as many military based in state...

However, that does not account for several facts:
1) most Active Duty Military are registered to vote either in their home state or the state they were last assigned to that has lowest income taxes; not necessarily Virginia; while Virginia's taxes are low, there are military base states with lower or no income taxes.

2) the tradition of military voters voting Republican is changing as more and more active duty members figure out that the Republicans in office recently have done little to help their lot in life, and lots to keep them fighting on a front that has nothing to do with defending our liberty or families.

So I agree, something is wrong with the PPP numbers in Virginia, they favor McCain too much IMHO.

I think North Carolina is a better bet than Georgia. Also, Missouri and Colorado are leaning toward Obama. We really need to deliver Virginia. I think that is critical. If Virginia and North Carolina can be delivered to Obama we will be seeing the beginning of the end-of-life of the Republicans' "Southern Strategy". That will mean the beginning of the end of the last leg they have to stand on. They've been running out the clock on residual racism left over from the Civil Rights movement for the last twenty years.

reflecting the latest polls.

New Hampshire has swung decisively to Obama.

Michigan, Missouri and Virginia, though slightly red, are essentially tied.  

If the election were held today, based on the latest polls, even with Michigan, Missouri and Virginia red, it would be Obama 303 vs. McCain 235.

And with the wind at Obama's back, Michigan, Missouri and Virginia are going blue.