At TPM, Josh Marshall says Virginia is 2012’s presidential prize:
[I]f Obama wins Virginia he can lose both Florida and Ohio and he’ll almost certainly still going to win. Another way of putting it is that Virginia is one state where 2008 really seemed to change the map rather than just being another state – like Indiana, for instance – that just got swept up in the tide. Florida and to a lesser extent Ohio look like the same sandbox we remember from 2000, 2004 and 2008. But Virginia’s quite different. Or at least that’s what the Obama campaign are betting on. My sense is that the demography of the state really has passed a tipping point. And the economy in the state is relatively strong. So I think Obama still has a very solid shot. But for my money, Virginia really is the state to watch.
Unfortunately for President Obama, the Democratic Party of Virginia has watched many of 2008’s gains slip away. But at the moment, even right-tilting pollster Rasmussen has Obama leading Romney in Virginia.
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