What 2000 states are you most worried about your canidate losing?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Go all the way back to 1960 and go forward from there. Beyond the little 72 blip you can easily see that the Democrats have been losing ground over the years.

No... no... no...
From the '50's until the '80's, Virginia swung towards the GOP and became the bastion of conservatism that a lot of people still assume it is... But at some point in the '90's it started to go the other way.
In 1988, Dukakis lost VA by about 20%

[Filuwaúrdjan]

is kerry going to do better there?

He SHOULD do better... he actually did very well in Coal Country in the primary.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

how did chuck robb do in the coal country in 2000.  im assuming gore out-performed robb there?  correct?

I don't know... I'd assume that Gore did better as Robb wasn't exactly popular...
It should be on the Virginia board of elections site (link on the links page of the Atlas).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

yes but va-9 contains a large portion of the non-coal areas of sw va also.

outside of the coal counties, union activity drops off significantly in va.

many of those counties in sw va are former coal counties.  unions left with the departure of the coal companies.

VA-9 contains Coal Country (the majority of the district) and some "GOP since the Civil War" counties further east.
The Coal counties (which also have some very nice mountains) almost always outvote the eastern "Great Valley" counties.
In the Primary Kerry won huge majorities in the Coal counties (he was endorsed by both Warner and Senator Rockefeller (D-WV), while Edwards' won the eastern counties in the district.
Gore lost several coal counties (Wise for example) in 2000.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

See?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

ha.  edwards won the county i was born in.

but al wouldnt you also argue that kerry's strength in the va primary was largely due to his 'frontrunner status'?  most folks, even at that early stage, assumed kerry was going to be the nominee.

True, but 60% is 60%