What were the first signs that Virginia was trending leftward?

[OSR stands with Israel]

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.

In 2002 the Republicans won VA by a huge landslide, while losing in WV,AR,LA(WV in a landslide)

[OSR stands with Israel]

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. 

Yeah, the Fairfax curb-stomping in 2004 shoulda been the big warning sign, just like I suspect Gwinnet and Cobb Counties in 2016 will be looked at as the big warning signs for Georgia when it inevitably goes Democratic in either 2020 or 2024.

Unless Trump goes to below 30 approval then maybe 2024 and even then it will be tight. Even though Georgia is suburban it needs more time for the suburban areas to be able to counter the deeply conservative rural areas.

Virginia was more Republican in 2004 than Georgia was in 2016 and it ended up going for Obama by 7 God damn points four years later. Don't tell me Georgia can't go blue in 2020 in a wave.

Thats because Bush won nationally by 2.5 points while Trump lost by 2.1 points(which means Bush did 4.6 points better than Trump nationally).

PVI wise


Virginia was : +5.7 GOP in 2004 ( Bush won nationally by 2.5 points , won VA by 8.2 points)


while Georgia was: +7.2 GOP in 2016(Hillary won nationally by 2.1 points , lost GA by 5.1)



So no thats not true