What were the first signs that Virginia was trending leftward?

[RFayette]

To me, 2004 would have been the obvious wakeup call due to Bush's loss of Fairfax County.  Clinton's strength in VA was largely due to strength in rural Western Virginia and the Southeast, with NoVA being solidly Republican at the time.  2001 is possible, but again, this was very much the "Old Virginia Democrat" coalition - Warner was very strong all across rural Virginia, and despite winning Fairfax, it wasn't instrumental to his win.  Also there was a tradition of the opposite party of the White House winning in off years, so this shouldn't be a huge surprise.  2004, on the other hand, showed a sharp shift of the NoVA suburbs away from Bush and the state barely voting more Republican than the country as a whole, a novel situation.