Virginia Democrats please enlighten me.

[arely staircase]

What has led to the capital state of the confederacy turning purple? Obama won it twice. You are about to elect Bill Clinton's old fundraiser governor. What happened?

[coldmountain]

1. Yankees, more African Americans and immigrants moved in and changed the demographics

Immigration is the only thing that really changes the Confederate states. As we've found out the native white population of the South is the home base of the Tea party.

"Because of immigration in the late 20th century and early 21st century, there are rapidly growing populations of Hispanics, with Salvadorans and Mexicans more concentrated in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, and Puerto Ricans more concentrated in the Hampton Roads area. There is also a significant Asian population in Northern Virginia. As of 2005, 6.1% of Virginians are Hispanic and 5.2% are Asian.[4] Northern Virginia has the largest Vietnamese population on the East Coast, with about 48,000 Vietnamese statewide as of 2007.[19] Their major wave of immigration followed the Vietnam War.[20] Hampton Roads has a sizable Filipino population with about 45,000 in the area, many of whom have ties to the U.S. Navy.[21] Virginia also continues to be home to eight Native American tribes recognized by the state, though all lack federal recognition status. Most Native American groups are located in the Tidewater region.[22]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Virginia

For instance Virginia now has a significant Muslim population
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/27/most-and-least-muslim-states_n_1626144.html

[polichick]

3. That's what has happened - and Northern Virginia seems like a whole other state.

[clydefrand]

2. What happened? geezzey

The GOP going absolutely crazy

[Nay]

4. According to a long-time GOP activist who's a friend, the teabaggers have

managed to take over everything to the detriment of normal Republicans like him. It has pissed off quite a few Pubs, who may not turn out to vote or may vote 3rd party (the libertarian).

Cooch, Jackson and Obenshain are all so far right that they scare even the Republicans.

Obama won here twice because every liberal and every black person came out to vote. That doesn't mean that VA is turning purple, though. If the GOP had had the common sense to run a less rabid ticket Nov 5, we'd have a Pub gov, lt gov, and AG Nov 6. But they have miscalculated the exact teabagginess of their whole Republican base, and decided to push for as far right as possible.

[Chan790]

5. As an outsider (I live in MD, just north of DC): Most simply...

the largest metropolitan area in the state, the one with nearly 40% of the population...is NoVA, the southern suburbs of DC. It basically functions more as part of DC than it does part of VA. The people there ID with DC, not VA.

It'd be like the effect on TX if NYC was 0.2 miles over the OK border so all the wealthy educated increasingly-liberal people from the city looking for reasonable cost-of-living and nice places to raise their kids started flooding into N. TX. Add into that the coastal area around Hampton Roads, Norfolk, VA Beach is rapidly becoming a metro-region city, which means it's also becoming less Republican...and the writing is on the wall.

As DC residents, we joke about the Woodbridge line. North of Woodbridge, VA you're not really in the South. Everybody commutes into DC to work, to play, to live. South of Woodbridge, it's an entirely different state...but one that is shrinking both in area as the DC suburbs expand and population.