Obama Hopes to Find Southern Comfort in Va.

Barack Obama is seeking to become the first Democrat to win Virginia since LBJ in 1964. He's got a good shot, writes the New York Times: demographic changes favor his party, and Virginia has now elected two Democratic governors and a senator. But John McCain has the support of several key constituencies, and the critical race is neck-and-neck.

Democrats do best in Virginia's north, near Washington, while Republicans prevail in the rural south. But on the coast lies the critical, hard-to-predict region of Hampton Roads; while more than 500,000 people there work for the McCain-friendly military, more than 20% of the population is African-American. One Obama field worker says that "there is serious momentum here, but whatever happens, it's going to be close."
(More Barack Obama stories.)