Did Southwest Virginia surprise you last night?

[TDAS04]

With the election results last night, Virginia became even more polarized geographically.  In the three statewide races, NOVA continued to trend left, while Democrats appear to have collapsed even further in the Southwest corner of the state.  McAuliffe even underperformed Deeds.

Particularly, does it surprise you that even EW Jackson, the black GOP Lt. Governor candidate, carried the region so overwhelmingly?  (He even outperformed Cuccenelli in some counties.)  It is a little bit interesting that in this area where Obama underperformed Kerry, voters solidly backed a black candidate over a fairly moderate white Democrat, but it doesn't surprise me too much that Jackson won the region.  Does Jackson's performance in SW VA provide credibility to the argument that Appalachia does not vote based on racism?  I suppose that even some racists in the area were eager to vote for a firebrand, Obama-bashing candidate, even if the candidate was black.

Also, does the failure of Democrats to contain losses in SW VA indicate that winning back West Virginia may not be even remotely easy for the party?

[TDAS04]

Not really, because McAuliffe is basically a liberal Romney- i.e. the worst possible fit for this region.  I think this also suggests that Obama's economic populism helped him save face in some rural areas last year and that generic Dems still have further to fall in the countryside.  McAuliffe probably couldn't win Iowa for example.  VA is changing enough that this won't matter, but it could spell serious trouble in PA.  I would not be surprised if WV is 80R/20D in the 2020's, along with Appalachia in general.

I doubt it.  It happened in a couple of states in 1964, but not since then (other than in DC).  I don't see any state becoming 80%+ for one party today.  Vermont is pretty monolithic too (for the opposite party), but even it did not provide Obama with 70%.

I suppose that it would happen if West Virginia whites ended up voting like Deep South whites,  but I don't think it would go that far.