It’s looking less and less likely that the Democratic candidate, whoever it might be, will pick up Virginia in the General Election:
Obama has to introduce himself to voters while playing up McCain’s support for the war in Iraq, which nearly six in 10 Virginians polled last fall said was not worth fighting.
It probably isn’t going to be easy, especially because some party leaders in conservative southwest Virginia are threatening to sit out the election if Obama is the nominee.
Even if Obama keeps all of the voters who showed up for him in the primary, he would need to find about 600,000 additional voters in the fall, assuming turnout was the same as in 2004.
But Obama can’t hunt for new voters as long as he is locked in a bitter battle with Clinton, who many analysts believe has little mathematical chance to win the nomination because she trails in pledged delegates.
Some Democrats argue that the extended nomination fight is good for the Democrats, bolstering party registration and excitement.
In states that have yet to hold primaries, such as Pennsylvania and Indiana, the nomination battle probably is good for Democrats. In Virginia, however, the nomination battle may only be distracting Democrats from the general election fight.
In the most recent Rasmussen poll, McCain was leading Obama by eleven points and Hillary by twenty-two points. Given that, it seems unlikely that Virginia will go blue this year.
