Obama Campaign Clears its Va. Voter Registration Goal

Voters rally for Obama at Ball Circle University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va., on Sept. 27, 2008. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)

By Alec MacGillis
With his decision to pull out of Michigan, John McCain will have more resources to devote to holding the Republican states he needs get to 270 electoral votes, including Virginia. And -- would you look at that -- just yesterday McCain and the Republican National Committee announced the opening of 12 new offices in the Old Dominion, giving the campaign a total of 21 offices in the state.

But the Virginia Board of Elections today posted new numbers showing the GOP nominee facing an unusually challenging climate in the state, which George Bush won with 54 percent of the vote in 2004. In September, the board reports, 106,150 people registered to vote in the state; combined with deaths and people moving out of the state, the net increase for the month was 101,737.

That is more than double the number of new registrants in August, and it places Barack Obama's campaign ahead its goal of making sure 150,000 Virginians got added to the rolls in the months since the primaries ended (on top of the 142,000 Virginians who registered in the first five months of the year).

As it now stands, there have been 163,000 voters added to the rolls during the general election period, for a total of 305,000 new voters since the start of the year. And a few days still remain before the Oct. 6 registration deadline. That compares with 210,000 new voters who were added between the start of 2004 and Oct. 1 of that year.

There is no way of knowing which way the new voters lean politically, since Virginia's registrations are nonpartisan. But one can speculate about their inclinations based on where they're coming from -- and a disproportionate number of the new voters reside in Democratic strongholds.

Roughly 30,000 of the 106,000 new voters registered in September reside in just six pro-Kerry cities and counties, with many more living in other jurisdictions that voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. More than 11,000 new voters signed up in Fairfax County, more than 5,000 signed up in Richmond, more than 4,500 signed up in Arlington, more than 3,500 in both Norfolk and Newport News, and nearly 2,500 in Alexandria.

The Obama campaign has been estimating that 80 percent of the new voters are Obama supporters, and that they'll turn out at a rate of about 75 percent, which the campaign predicts could mean about a 1.75 percent boost on Election Day. That's enough to make a difference in a close race -- but not nearly enough to close the full 8 point gap that Bush enjoyed.

Original here