Early VA-Sen swing map

[Calthrina950]

You do realise that gaining a majority is impossible with writing off rural (and urban, a lot of the swings in WV, OH are in semi-urban areas) hicks and I'm pretty sure suburban voters will swing against the Democrats with a Sanders presidency, allowing Democrats to be in the permanent minority.

The annoying thing about takes like these is they act like Democrats are only catering to sunbelt suburbanites.

They aren't. Cordray's records as CFPB chairman is as populist as you can get. The Democratic party of Missouri dropped its litmus test on abortions. The last four years are littered with Rob Quist-type Democrats who ran uphill races that paid just as much, if not more, to a rural electorate that the mainstream media fetishized with diner-reports and Steve Bullock profiles. Voters in rural areas don't care and don't want anything to do with the Democratic party as long as Republicans can corner them on culture war issues. Campaigns that leave votes in urban and suburban areas chasing after voters that won't have anything to do with them for reasons beyond their control are doomed to fail.

edited to add: Richard Ojeda is the quintessential Democratic feel-good populist candidate that won't budge the majority of rural voters.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/07/richard-ojeda-loses-west-virginia-donald-trump-222316


This article is depressing for Ojeda.

Ojeda's loss and Manchin's narrow survival show that West Virginia is gone for the Democrats. Manchin's seat will be an automatic Republican pickup in 2024 once he retires. After 2018, I don't think Democrats will win another statewide race here again until much later on in this century.

[Calthrina950]

Utterly amazing. This is Kaine doing 10 points better than in 2012.

NUT. Pound sand, Racist VA Hicks!

This is a fascinating map. As I said before, Kaine's 16-pt. margin of victory was powered by his strong performance in Northern Virginia, the Richmond metropolitan area, Hampton Roads, and the Virginia Beach metropolitan area, with Charlottesville, Albermarle County, Roanoke, and the rural counties in Southeastern Virginia providing smaller contributions.