When President Obama rolls into Virginia Tuesday for the next stop of his national jobs tour, he won’t necessarily be welcomed warmly in a state that propelled him to a landslide victory in 2008.
Since that historic victory, Obama, the first Democrat to carry Virginia in nearly a half-century, has been a regular visitor to a state he concedes is vital to his re-election prospects. But with stubbornly high unemployment and an enormously popular Republican governor, Virginia is trending from purple to red again.
“No doubt Virginia is a different state then when Obama toured it in 2008,” said Jeremy Mayer, a political scientist at George Mason University. “If Mitt Romney were the [Republican] nominee — and the election were held tomorrow — he would beat Barack Obama in Virginia.”
Republicans have made substantial inroads in the state since Obama took office.
The GOP took over three Democratic congressional seats last year, and the race for retiring Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s seat — likely between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican George Allen — is expected to be among the closest in the nation.
Aside from the political capital he’s invested in Virginia, Obama needs the commonwealth to counteract his waning popularity in the Rust Belt and swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.
If Obama were to win both Virginia and North Carolina, for example, he would have more than 10 percent of the delegates needed to win the election.
Obama’s three-day bus tour through Virginia and North Carolina will begin Monday. On the second day of the tour, Obama will start in Jamestown, N.C., and travel through Virginia, with stops scheduled in Emporia and Hampton, before returning to the White House.
Though billed as a way to sell his stalled jobs plan, the trip will undoubtedly have a campaign-feel as Obama seeks to convince voters he remains in touch with their biggest worries — jobs and the economy — a year out from Election Day.
Obama has pledged to lavish copious attention on Virginia, which, combined with Kaine’s Senate candidacy, could bolster young-voter turnout in Charlottesville and mobilize reliable liberals in Northern Virginia — or so Obama campaign officials hope.
The Democratic National Convention, being held next year in neighboring Charlotte, N.C., is also likely to expand Obama’s presence in southern Virginia media markets.
Obama captured nearly 53 percent of the vote in Virginia in 2008 and analysts say a loss in the Old Dominion in 2012 wouldn’t bode well for Obama’s national prospects.
Mayer questioned Obama’s chances in the next go-around, saying that any Republican who can hold his own with Obama among Northern Virginia voters would most likely dominate rural parts of the state and the military-reliant Hampton Roads area. And that could spell doom for Obama’s re-election chances, he said.
“A Republican who can avoid getting clobbered in Northern Virginia — and I think Romney would play well there — he’s going to win,” Mayer said.
