Conservatives have been in denial about Virginia for years

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The Republicans having all statewide offices (except the 2 Senators), controlling both houses of the state legislature, a large (8-3) US House delegation majority, and Virginia having been more Republican than the nation in every election since I believe 1964 isn't cause for concern?

Virginia is trending Democratic, but it definitely still has a long ways to go before you can say the state Democrats are more powerful than Republicans.

That's true, but Virginia is falling into the same pattern that a lot of swing states do.  That county by county they are a conservative or Republican state, which leads to many Republican victories within the state.  However, on a statewide population basis, they are now more likely to vote Democrat, especially in national elections, than Republican.  And, that trend is only going to strengthen as the population centers that are more likely to vote Democrat grow at a faster rate than the more rural parts that tend to vote for Republicans.

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We'll see in 2016 when the Democratic Nominee will be somebody else besides Obama. I do believe the high turnout of the African-American community in Virginia and North Carolina led to Democratic success in 2008, and again in Virginia in 2012. I don't think Hillary would bring the kind of turnout that Obama did, but she'll help swing moderates to vote Dem.

In 2012 Obama got 93% of the black vote in Virginia.  If you compare that to the 87% that Kerry got in 2004, the difference is less than the margin Obama won by.  Meaning ... if Obama would have gotten the same percentages in turnout and votes of the black community that Kerry got, he would have still won the state.

Also with Hillary as a candidate, even if the share of the black vote she got dropped by 10%, a slight 3%-4% increase in the women's vote would more than cover the difference.

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Obama won Virginia by roughly the same amount he won the national vote. I think the turnout of african-americans would have been around 3-4 percent lower if he wasnt the nominee, which would swing the election.

The weird thing is that while more african-americans voted in Virginia in 2008 and 2012 than they did in 2004, they made up a slightly smaller percentage of the electorate.  In both 2008 and 2012 they accounted for 20% of the vote, but in 2004 it was 21%.  But putting that to the side.  Even if in 2012 the african-american vote in Virginia was only 18% instead of 20% and Obama got 87% of the vote instead of 93% ... he still would have won.  It would have been like Florida in 2000, but unless something would have changed during the recount, he would have still won.

The one factor I never hear in the whole "Obama won Virginia because the black community came out and voted in large numbers" theory is the reverse side.  That a part of the white community came out and voted in large numbers against Obama.  Therefore reducing the effects of a large african-american turnout.

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Who is in for a rude awakening? History favors republicans, current trends favor democrats.

Historical trends do not favor Republicans.  Matter of fact, historical trends don't favor anyone.  If you're familiar with the Time for Change election forecasting model, historical trends indicate that if a party has held the White House for one term it is has an advantage in the next election, if it has held the White House for two terms it's a draw, and if it has held the White House for three or more terms it is at an increasing disadvantage ... everything else being equal of course.  Obviously this trend can be overridden by other factors.

I really dont see how the current trend is toward the dems. We all know Republicans turnout more during midterms then dems, and with the current political winds shifting away from the President, and the economy is still staggering along.

Usually when you hear someone say that current trends favor Democrats, 9 out of 10 times they're talking about voter demographics. 

First would probably be sex and race demos.  In both 2008 and 2012 the Republican Presidential candidate took in less than 30% of the minority vote and 45% of the female vote.  No Republican can win the Presidency with those kind of numbers.  Plus it's getting worse for Republicans because the minority vote share is growing every election.  More minorities will vote in 2016 than ever before, regardless of who's running. 

Second is the geographical demos.  Large population centers tend to vote Democratic, and our population keeps continually becoming more urban.  As state's urban populations overtake their rural counterparts, they become less and less likely to swing towards a Republican candidate.  This is what's driving Virginia's slow political change (on the national level).

2016 is going to be a hard race for Republicans.  For a Republican candidate to be successful they're going to have to be able to steal voters away that have been voting Democrat in the past few elections.  It can be done, but it's not easy or common.

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There's nothing wrong with thinking that the temporary future trends favor one party, but I get bothered sometimes when one thinks that one party will dominate for a generation or more (which is the aspiration of many D's around here too). Its pretty unprecedented and hasn't happened since post Lincoln.

Democrats held the Presidency from 1932 to 1952.  Also, Republicans held the White House from 1968 to 1988 with only one term going to a Dem.  Actually ... between 1968 and 2008 there were five Republican Presidents serving seven terms vs. two Democratic Presidents serving three terms.  That's pretty dominate, and it's not too crazy to think that Democrats could do (or are doing now) something similar.

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It's not crazy but if you look at those 40 years only one Democrat was voted out of office and one Republican.

True, but if you look at the only two Democrats to win, they were both Southern moderate Democrats that could eat into the Republican base and they got help from outside factors.  Carter was just able to edge out Ford, even though no one ever elected Ford to anything and it was following the whole Nixon scandal.  Clinton was able to beat Bush the elder mainly due to a very strong 3rd party candidate, Perot, that took a good portion of the conservative vote away from Bush. 

Actually ... Since Truman, we've only had two Democratic Presidents that weren't conservative Southern Democrats, Kennedy and Obama.  In that period of time it's always been Democrats that had to put up a candidate that appealed well to moderate Republicans.  To win they had to steal votes from the Republican base.  Now it looks like the shoe is on the other foot.

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If we can't eat into the north, then we'll be stuck under 300 EV. PA, NH, and possibly ME are the only winnable ones unless Christie runs and then NJ.

Isn't that the big worry among Republican strategists?  That it's becoming harder and harder for their candidate to have a clear path to winning.  They're having to depend more and more on winning just about every toss-up and/or getting slight upsets in Dem. leaning states.  Where as the Dem. candidate only has to win the states they're suppose to win plus one or maybe two battleground states.

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Do you think we're in a realignment period? If you look at the 1970's and 1980's we see most states were or would have been trending especially if not for such landslides. However, in the 1990's and 2000's most states stayed about the same and had the same competitive battleground states. However, in the last two elections it's beginning to look like we'll be living in an age where we have 5 maybe but no more than 10 battleground states for each cycle. Some states are trending as well. Are we in another period of transition?

I think we're in the middle of a demographic transition and at the beginning of a transition that's going to happen in the Republican party because of it.  If you do a quick comparison between 2000 and 2012, you'll see that Romney did better with Republicans than Bush, 93% vs. 91%, and better with Independents, 50% vs. 48%, yet Romney lost by almost 4%. It's not that it's becoming impossible for Republicans to win.  It's just becoming slightly harder each passing election, building up tension within the party.  Sooner or later that tension is going to break, and there's going to be a shift.