With the 2012 results, are VA/CO slowly becoming D leans and not 50/50?

[sg0508]

Obviously, it comes down to yet again, the "demographic" problem for the Republicans as the more democratic areas of both states are growing far, far faster than republican areas.  Colorado Springs remains red, but Denver is blue as are the suburbs and southern CO keeps growing.  Since Bush carried the state in 2004, the GOP hasn't won a statewide race there (I believe), unless for a race below the Governor's mansion.  Even in 2010, outside of winning two house seats, the Republicans were shutout here.

In the Old Dominion, the DC suburbs have exploded and even with a weaker platform nationally in 2012, the president won the state going away with the final count; VA's economy seems slightly stronger and yet again, the bluish areas are growing far more quickly.  The democratic machine keeps pumping out moderate democrats, which fit the state well and they keep winning.  VA Beach is slowing changing in the southeast too, more good news for democrats.

Is it time to basically say that these states at least "lean" democratic at the presidential level if not strongholds going forward?

[sg0508]

Add to the Old Dominion argument, every time now the GOP puts up one of its ole conservative candidates (i.e. Kilgore, Allen, etc) against the moderate democratic machine, they lose.  That being said, Bob McDonnell seems to oppose that trend, although with gun control laws, he is somewhat more progressive concerning who should have guns and who shouldn't.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think much comes down to turnout. If democrats are able to stabilize turnout to 2012 levels among their key constituencies, yes, those two States should be lean-D. In a low-turnout election, anything could still happen.

[DrScholl]

I do think it's reasonable to view both of these as Lean Democratic in the future.

[Lief 🗽]

Colorado probably is, but Virginia is still a pure toss-up.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Colorado probably is, but Virginia is still a pure toss-up.

Yeah, Colorado is close to gone for Republicans but Virginia once again will be the state closest to the national result.

[Nichlemn]

CO trended D by 0.33% and VA by 1.73% - pretty trivial amounts. And while both are D relative to the national average, as far as the key electoral votes are concerned, CO was the tipping point state and VA was more Republican. Both are certainly key targets in any GOP electoral strategy.

[opebo]

Yeah slight but clear lean D in every election for Colorado, and in presidential elections for VA.  (the latter being more likely to backslide in midterms than CO).

[All Along The Watchtower]

Both are purple states.

[5280]

Liberal migration from California and Hispanics going to CO make it more D every year, they're the root of the cause.  I'm calling my home state, Colofornia/Calirado from now on. CO and VA are still purple states, which is better as is than trending to one party dominance.  Political competitiveness helps both parties fight for the state and turnouts are increased substantially.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Liberal migration from California and Hispanics going to CO make it more D every year, they're the root of the cause.  I'm calling my home state, Colofornia/Calirado from now on. CO and VA are still purple states, which is better as is than trending to one party dominance.  Political competitiveness helps both parties fight for the state and turnouts are increased substantially.

Uh what? Many of those Californians are conservative "refugees", especially from Southern CA.

[Holmes]

Liberal migration from California and Hispanics going to CO make it more D every year, they're the root of the cause.  I'm calling my home state, Colofornia/Calirado from now on.

Non Colorado-born not allowed.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Liberal migration from California and Hispanics going to CO make it more D every year, they're the root of the cause.  I'm calling my home state, Colofornia/Calirado from now on.

Non Colorado-born not allowed.

Should we call this Stativism?

[pa2011]

Don't think you can call Virignia lean Democratic until we see in 2016/2020 what black turnout looks like when there is not an African-American leading the ticket.  

 Massive black turnout resulted in Obama winning Henrico Co in suburban Richmond by about 10 points, both in 2008 and 2012.  Without a large turnout, Henrico is at best 50-50 and likely lean Republican. And in traditionally-conservative Chesterfield, also suburban Richmond, black voters really, really kept GOP margins in check. Same can be said for numerous other counties across southern Virginia and Hampton Roads.

Without black voters, Northern Virginia alone can't carry the state for Democrats, at least not yet.

It's just far from certain that another Democratic candidate will be ever again be able to motivate African-Americans anything even close to what Obama was able to.

[dspNY]

Colorado is officially Lean Democratic, but Virginia is still a tossup due to the fact that the final margin in VA is probably closer to the national margin than any of the other states

In Colorado, the Republicans haven't won a statewide race for Gov, Senate, or Prez since GWB edged Kerry in 2004

[Smash255]

Don't think you can call Virignia lean Democratic until we see in 2016/2020 what black turnout looks like when there is not an African-American leading the ticket.  

 Massive black turnout resulted in Obama winning Henrico Co in suburban Richmond by about 10 points, both in 2008 and 2012.  Without a large turnout, Henrico is at best 50-50 and likely lean Republican. And in traditionally-conservative Chesterfield, also suburban Richmond, black voters really, really kept GOP margins in check. Same can be said for numerous other counties across southern Virginia and Hampton Roads.

Without black voters, Northern Virginia alone can't carry the state for Democrats, at least not yet.

It's just far from certain that another Democratic candidate will be ever again be able to motivate African-Americans anything even close to what Obama was able to.

I really don't think you can attribute Henrico to black turnout increases.  While it didn't go Democratic since 48 prior to 2008 there was a rather strong Demm trend in the county for quite sometime.


Compared to national average

1988    GOP  +31.57
1992    GOP  +24.03
1996    GOP  +21.56
2000    GOP  +12.98
2004    GOP  +5.66
2008    Dem  +4.96
2012    Dem  +8.77  (not final)

Henrico is GONE for the GOP and that was going to happen black guy or no black guy.  This wasn't some one time trend here, the county was moving sharply towards the Dems well before Obama.

[Skill and Chance]

I would say that at least until 2016, both are at the Tilt D end of toss up.  Colorado looks stronger for Democrats on paper, but 1. it's much easier to get a big swing in a Western state than in a Southern state and 2. there is an obvious strategy to win Colorado in a close race- a libertarian and/or Hispanic Republican could flip all of the counties surrounding Denver.  Virginia is more intimidating, because while an Evangelical nominee would boost rural turnout, he/she would be lucky to get 35% in Fairfax.  On the other hand, Romney was just about the best style of Republican possible for NOVA and Fairfax barely swung at all from 2008.  Henrico seems more like a mini-Fairfax than anything else in its voting patterns and probably isn't coming back anytime soon.  Looking south to NC, we see that the Democratic floor in a competitive race is probably above 47% now.  In VA, you have to wonder if the Democratic floor is now something like 49%.     

[pa2011]

Henrico is GONE for the GOP and that was going to happen black guy or no black guy.  This wasn't some one time trend here, the county was moving sharply towards the Dems well before Obama.

Yes, but the reason why is the African-American population in Henrico has been growing at a rapid clip as more leave Richmond for the suburbs.  Simple census numbers. Black population grew from 25% to nearly 30 percent just from 2000 to 2010.  In 1980 Henrico was only 15 percent black.  Obviously, the growth in the black population is going to shift voting habits. But that doesn' mean the black population always turns out in large enough nunbers to be decisive, one reason Kerry couldn't win it but Obama could.

[Smash255]

Henrico is GONE for the GOP and that was going to happen black guy or no black guy.  This wasn't some one time trend here, the county was moving sharply towards the Dems well before Obama.

Yes, but the reason why is the African-American population in Henrico has been growing at a rapid clip as more leave Richmond for the suburbs.  Simple census numbers. Black population grew from 25% to nearly 30 percent just from 2000 to 2010.  In 1980 Henrico was only 15 percent black.  Obviously, the growth in the black population is going to shift voting habits. But that doesn' mean the black population always turns out in large enough nunbers to be decisive, one reason Kerry couldn't win it but Obama could.

It has been trending hard towards the Dems for 25 years.  While Kerry didn't win it, it was certainly moving hard towards the Dems.   Granted Kerry didn't win it, but compared to the national margin it jumped 16 points from 96  to 2004.  That is absolutely massive, and obviously has nothing to do with Obama.  There is nothing to indicate the hard Dem trend in Henrico would not have continued if it was someone other than Obama.  Henrico is GONE

[sg0508]

Concerning CO, if the GOP couldn't win a statewide race two years ago in a very strong GOP year with weak turnout (as expected), then the party in-state has big, big issues.

[pa2011]

Really don't understand how you can emphatically say Henrico "is gone." -- Albeit, in a non-presidential year, GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell carried Henrico in 2009 with 56 percent of the vote. In 2006 -- a big Democratic year -- Henrico narrowly went for Republican George Allen over Democrat Jim Webb in the Senate race.

It all really does depend on turnout in the African-American community. The white population remains very conservative in Henrico.

[Vosem]

Concerning CO, if the GOP couldn't win a statewide race two years ago in a very strong GOP year with weak turnout (as expected), then the party in-state has big, big issues.

The Republicans won the statewide congressional vote, and also Attorney General (by double-digits), Secretary of State (would've been double-digits if not for a Constitution Party candidate sucking away votes), and Treasurer that year. Of these, only the race for Treasurer was close enough that it could be attributed to the wave. By comparison, it lost the race for the Senate, where it ran a very bad candidate, and the race for Governor, where it ran two very bad candidates. A 4-2 record isn't that bad.

[Holmes]

Blaming bad candidates for losses isn't a one way street. Who were the Democratic candidates in the Attorney General and Secretary of State races? Were they bad candidates or not?

[Vosem]

Blaming bad candidates for losses isn't a one way street. Who were the Democratic candidates in the Attorney General and Secretary of State races? Were they bad candidates or not?

The Democratic candidate for Atty Gen was Stan Garnett, who was Boulder County District Attorney -- here's his Ballotpedia page: http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Stan_Garnett

The Democratic candidate for SecState was the incumbent Secretary of State Bernie Buescher, who had been appointed by unpopular incumbent Bill Ritter.

Googled 'bernie buescher gaffe' -- nothing. Googled 'stan garnett gaffe' -- he's a prominent supporter of marijuana legalization, but I can't imagine that'd be a big problem in Colorado. Both of them seem to be well-qualified, good candidates who were soundly defeated in a swing state in a year bad for their party.

You're right that bad candidates aren't a one-way street, but Democrats were the beneficiaries of bad Republican candidates in 2010 in Colorado, not the other way around.

[tokar]

Virginia is a tough case...

Presidentially, it is probably a SLIGHT DEM lean. There have been 900,000+ new voter registrations in Virginia in the past 8 years. I have been trying to find registration data by county, but it is all broken down by locality AND MONTH. Forget trying to sort through all that to get the information I want (registration by county per year). I will venture a guess and say that the majority of those registrations were to the 5 NoVA counties (Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Loudon, Prince William), indicating the state has become a lot more democratic. 1/3rd of the vote comes from these 5 counties (akin to Pennsylvania and its 5 major counties of Montgomery, Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware). But, like other people have been alluding to, it is all about turnout. While Virginia has that nice 33% vote from the 5 counties, the state doesn't have the luxury of leaning on one particular county like Pennsylvania does with Philadelphia.

I calculated the numbers. In 2008, the vote margin in Philadelphia ALONE covered the vote margin in Republican-won counties, and then some. Philadelphia margin was 478.7k, the sum of the Republican-won counties was 317.9k.
In 2012, the republican-won counties beat out Philadelphia's margin by a mere 10,000 votes (477.7k to 467.2k).
With good turnout, Democrats can just lean on Philadelphia, which is why the PVI is a DEM lean. This is not the case as I am seeing in the numbers for Virginia. I mean, it is CLOSE, but not there yet.
In 2008, the vote margin in republican-won counties was 262.3k, while the 8 localities of Northern VA (Loudon, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Prince William, Fairfax City, Manassas City, Falls Church City) accounted for a margin of 250.9k. A difference of ~12k.
In 2012, the vote margin in republican-won counties was 346.3k, while the vote margin in the aforementioned Nothern VA localities was 280.2k. A difference of ~66k. Dem margin in NoVA went up, but so did the margin in republican-won counties, at a larger clip than NoVA did (+84k vs +30k in NoVA).
Thankfully for Democrats there are a handful of other vote-sinks in Virginia (Norfolk, Richmond, Charlottesville). Add in just Richmond City in 2008, and the margin covers the republican-won counties. Add in Richmond City in 2012 and Dems are still short 15k. Add in Norfolk and it is covered by 15k.

I mean the numbers are there, but until margins are great enough where we don't have to wait for 90% of the vote tallied for NBC/ABC/FOX to make a call, it wont be lean DEM. I think the reason that the news organizations are able to call Pennsylvania so early is that they can just determine the turnout in the 5 Philly counties and see if the margins will be there. With Virginia the margins in most counties are rather thin, so we have to wait for returns in many democratic counties before determining.


One other point with Virginia...
While Obama and Tim Kaine got the majority of the popular vote in the state, Republicans received a higher percent of the vote in the house elections, 1.877m to 1.806m (a margin of 70.7k votes).
(Pennsylvania DEM's received 2.703m votes to GOP's 2.627m votes in house elections, a margin of 75.9k votes).

I only analyzed the two states I know best. I am sure it is a similar story with other states as well, just like Colorado (i.e. the margins in the Denver area are enough, overall, to overtake all Republican-won counties, but the margins are probably too slim to the point where the news organizations have to wait for a good portion of the vote to be counted).