Turnout for Tuesday’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination contest is expected to be far from overwhelming. Political prognosticators forecast roughly 200,000 to 300,000 Democrats will head to the ballot box, out of more than 5 million registered voters in Virginia.

Elections officials have registered a net 38,000 new Virginia voters since November. That’s a relatively modest increase after Virginia saw a net gain of 436,000 new registrations between January and November 2008, a result of Virginia’s status as a battleground state in the presidential election.