What were the first signs that Virginia was trending leftward?

[RINO Tom]

Probably 2000, as most here have said.  It's weird to see how differently "political people" and "regular people" view these things, though.  Most people don't pay attention to what demographics swing which way or which counties vote for whom; they just think of states as "solid red" or "solid blue" until they vote a certain way like two or three elections in a row.  My aunt and uncle live in Annandale in Fairfax, and not only were they "shocked" when Obama won VA in 2008, they were surprised that NOVA had become "the blue lagoon," LOL.  Even though this is not entirely accurate, to them it's "people from the shltty Maryland side coming over here because of their high taxes, and then they'll just vote to make ours higher."  Again, that doesn't explain the whole story, but what do they say?  Perception is reality?  Haha.

[RINO Tom]

Definitely 2000, when it trended Democratic.  Political analysts were slow to realize that though, and I remember them in 2004 mocking the Kerry campaign for suggesting that Virginia could be competitive. The pundits thought that The Democratic nominee had a better chance in such states as West Virginia, Arkansas, and Louisiana.  LOL

I mean, most people rely pretty heavily on the previous election (rightly or wrongly), and these were the 2000 results:

VA: +8.04% GOP
LA: +7.68% GOP
WV: +6.32% GOP
AR: +5.44% GOP

Even in 2004, these were the results:

LA: +14.51% GOP
WV: +12.86% GOP
AR: +9.76% GOP
VA: +8.02% GOP

So VA ended up being more Democratic  than all of them in 2004, but it was more Republican than all of them in 2000, and it wasn't THAT much more Democratic than Arkansas in 2004.  It really wasn't that crazy of a thing to think in 2004, though Kerry wasn't exactly a great fit for Southern Democrats.  What pundits should have put a LOT more stock in, looking back, is that Democrats were having a lot of their voters down in Dixie die off between 1996 and 2008, and their kids weren't nearly as open to supporting the "right kind of Democrat," let alone a John Kerry type.  VA, on the other hand, was changing its voter pool to a significantly more Democratic-friendly electorate.