Virginia - Ocean of newly registered voters 300,000 and still counting HP: Obama leads all regions

Last week the big story was Michigan.

This week is Virginia.

New polls show Virginia is going Obama by double digits.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/06/mccains-decline-in-virgin_n_132330.html
Huffington Post:

McCain no longer leads in any region of the state. In Northeastern VA, which includes the DC suburbs, Obama leads by 24 points. In Central Virginia, home of the Confederate White House, the Museum of the Confederacy and Appomattox, Obama today leads by 8. In Southeastern Virginia, Obama leads by 11. In the Shenandoah, where John McCain led by 24 points one month ago, Obama and McCain today tie.


Poll results here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/06/obama-up-10-in-virginia-a_n_132268.html

A new SurveyUSA poll finds John McCain's chances of winning Virginia slipping away. Barack Obama is ahead in the state by ten points, 53% to 43%. The full results

A Suffolk Poll shows Obama with a similarly commanding lead in the state, 51% to 39%



The story on the voter registration here

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-tucker/surge-of-new-voters-and-o_b_132115.html

McLEAN, Va. -- Virginia increased its voter rolls by a whopping 6.2 percent during the 2008 New Voter Registration period ending today, a figure that is more than double the Obama campaign goal. All these new voters could have a huge impact in a tossup state with fewer than 5 million registered voters. The official tally so far -- 307,482 new voters -- will be even higher once October registrations are counted.

Who are these new decision-makers? "Mostly they're young, independent, and tired of what's going on in Washington. Many moved to Virginia from other states. More than 60 percent are under age 35," Jared Leopold told OffTheBus. Leopold is communications director for the Democratic Party of Virginia Coordinated Campaign.



Virginia Republicans tell McCain he is about to lose Virginia

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14285.html

Virginia Republicans are warning that John McCain's prospects for winning a state that has been in the GOP column in every presidential election since 1964 could be in jeopardy. With Barack Obama treating the Old Dominion like a battleground state and reliable polls showing a margin-of-error race there, some are cautioning that McCain is making a critical mistake by allowing the Democratic nominee to outpace him in terms of visits and resources committed.

The two best indicators of which states the campaigns are serious about – time and money – tell the story.

Since wrapping up the Democratic nomination in June, Obama, his wife, Michelle, and his running mate Joe Biden have visited the commonwealth a combined 12 times. The candidate himself was in the Tidewater city of Newport News Saturday.

Obama is also plowing millions into Virginia, blanketing the airwaves with TV and radio ads, filling up mailboxes with leaflets and, along with the state party, operating 49 campaign offices.


Longtime Virginia operatives are more outspoken, grumbling that McCain is now having to play catch up.

“He didn't take threat seriously soon enough,” said one Richmond-based GOP strategist in the state, noting that McCain had the nomination wrapped up in early March but didn’t have staff or infrastructure in Virginia until July. “One public visit since securing the nomination and I can’t tell you one significant surrogate who has come.”

It’s puzzling because McCain’s campaign is based in Arlington, Va., and the senator lives there when he’s at his headquarters or across the river in his Senate office. Yet whenever he’s back in the area he never ventures beyond the office and condo-filled Crystal City neighborhood to more politically competitive communities nearby where he could get extensive local media coverage by just dropping by a diner.

“He, not she, needs to return to northern Virginia,” said a veteran GOP operative from the region about the GOP ticket. “That's where he needs to perform, and where he can. He can get a lot of Mark Warner voters, but he needs to show the ticket-splitting centrists in voter-rich Fairfax and Loudoun some love and understanding.”

McCain’s top aide for the mid-Atlantic region, Trey Walker, held a conference call for party leaders on Friday and was pressed as to why McCain and Palin hadn’t been back to Virginia since their joint visit to Fairfax City last month.

“One of the hardest things we have to do is getting more folks to take a national view,” Walker told Politico, when told about concerns that the campaign wasn’t devoting enough attention to Virginia.

They've got one of the worst papers in the nation there, the rabidly right wing Harrisonburg Daily News-Record. Spent a lot of time there in years past. That's extraordinary.

:evilgrin:

My wife and I are under 30. Moved to Northern Virginia (Lorton) from Las Vegas, Nevada. We're both fired up and ready to VOTE.