This could have both short-term and long-term political implications for Virginia.
Virginia has added nearly a quarter-million registered voters since the 2004 elections, and about half of that growth came from increasingly Democratic Northern Virginia.[...]
Democrats are especially targeting younger voters, black residents and people who have recently moved to the state's fast-growing outer suburbs, such as Fredericksburg.
Since the start of the year, 202,000 people have registered to vote in Virginia. Of those, 64 percent are younger than 35, a demographic Obama expects to win handily.
State election officials and the Obama campaign expect to add tens of thousands more voters by the deadline. Fairfax County, for example, is processing, on average, 1,800 registration applications a week, county officials said recently.
In short, Virginia has added a quarter million new voters since 2004, the vast majority of whom appear to be young, African American, from "increasingly Democratic Northern Virginia," etc. All this in a state which was almost evenly divided in 2006 between Jim Webb and George Allen, the most recent statewide federal election in Virginia. Assuming that 70% or so of those quarter million new voters vote Democratic (and I frankly believe the percentage is higher, probably around 80%, given where the registrations are coming from and who's pushing them), and we're talking about a net Democratic gain of around 100,000 votes right there. That's huge, and it's probably a low estimate, considering that Democrats are hard at work registering tens of thousands MORE voters before the October 6 deadline.
On the flip side, check this out:
...many counties in southwest Virginia, which is expected to be a Republican stronghold in the presidential race, have seen a slight dip in the number of registered voters compared with four years ago. Wise County, in Virginia's coal country, has 1,070 fewer registered voters than it did when Bush was reelected.
The bottom line is that voter registration in Virginia is surging in Democratic strongholds and demographic groups, falling where Republicans have historically been strong. All that adds up to a potential game changer in the November elections:
"The Obama campaign is changing the map. They are not accepting the rules of the game," said Scott A. Surovell, chairman of the Democratic Party in Fairfax, where there are 21,000 more registered voters than there were in 2004. "They are putting more voters in play. Obama has decided to put more cards in the deck, and they are dealing themselves more kings and queens."
The question is, will all these "kings and queens" add up to a winning hand come November? We'll see in 2 1/2 months, but if I were a Republican, I'd be really, really worried right now. I'd also be increasingly worried about what all this might mean for 2009 and beyond...
Other places that should be similarly targeted are Hopewell, Richmond, Suffolk, Portsmouth, northern Chesapeake, Norfolk, Newport News and Hampton. The campaign did organize registration out here in Bristol which was perhaps a wash.
Such a registration effort in low-registration African American communities would also help our congressional candidates, especially Tom Perriello and Glen Nye.
Interesting article today about registration. However, not enough to win. Let us assume all 100% of those registered vote and that Obama gets 60% that gives him 120,000 votes but it also gives McCain 80,000 votes so you get a net gain of 40,000 votes. Then look at the realities.2004--- Bush 1,716,959
Kerry 1,454,742Difference 262,217
Kerry also got almost 200,000 more votes than Webb and Webb got 160,000 more votes than Kaine and Kaine got a 110,000 more votes than Warner.
You need to look by district
Congressional District ranked by number voting in 2004 and the winner and margin.
7-334,587 Bush by 76,107
10-330,687 Bush by 36,469
11-322,720 Bush by 2,049
1---313,443 Bush by 65,646
8---296,605 Kerry by 85,227
4---293,566 Bush by 41,525
5---283,625 Bush by 36,608
6---280, 577 Bush by 76,572
9---258,608 Bush by 52,206
2---244,569 Bush by 39,521
3---239,380 Kerry by 79,259What does the analysis suggest:
1) Move more voters in the 3rd to the polls newly registered and everyone else. Best hope they actually turned out in the primary but not enough. Need more. Ought to be everyone's first priority.
2) In the 7th got to get the Richmond precincts out in very high numbers. Not enough to win but they will be out in big numbers try to narrow the margin.
3) You have to get the under performing areas in the 4th where there are black voters out again to offset the margins.
4) In the 11th it was close. Fairfax went big for Kerry but a huge amount of the 33,000 vote margin in the county came from the 8th portion. Have to drive out democrats in the other parts of Fairfax. While Webb carried the county with a 66,000 vote margin and Kaine did it with 60,000 margin that is largely because he republicans stayed home. Prince William a large hole but it isn't likely to do a lot better but we can move the 11th into a democratic margin.
5) The 10th is key because it is a huge turn out district. Have to try and turn it up,
6) If it wasn't Obama you would try and go for the 9th Clinton carried it in 1996. However, it is the weakest are in the state for Obama and the more who don't get to the polls the better off we will b e.
7) Dry up the 8th but not likely to get a lot more from the 8th. I know about 80% turn-out 80% vote. However, at least 10 to 15% of the voters in all of the northern Virginia Congressional districts no longer live here or are dead or unable to vote but aren't off the roles yet. Getting to 80% of the voters to vote is almost saying get every voter to the polls. Getting above 72% of the vote for a candidate will be very hard to do if you can get 80% to the polls.
It is a very hard state to win-not impossible and the new voters will help but you have to do these other things.
Here is the map Lowell posted followed by another with the county names added in:
http://www.electoral-math.com/...
http://www.google.com/imgres?i...
The counties that are colored medium red and dark red are on Lowell's map (Pittsylvania to the west, Buckingham to the north, Charles City to the east) are those where Democratic performance dropped from 5 to 7 points versus the 2004 results. Perhaps turnout was low among AA voters in 2006 in these counties, which might explain the drop off, but unless the electorate is expanded dramatically in these rural counties in the 4th and 5th CD's, it might be difficult to carry the state for Obama or the 5th CD for Periello.
These counties shaded in medium and dark red have HUGE numbers of unregistered AA's. And based on voter registration statistics through the end of July, neither the Obama campaign nor the Periello campaign appear to be having much success registering new voters in these areas.
The four counties in the northern neck shaded light red are prime areas for voter registration as well. AA's are 19.2% of the population in Virginia but in these counties, AA's are a much bigger slice of the population: King and Queen (31.9%), Essex (38.5%), Richmond (33.4%) and Westmoreland (29.7).
