The financial meltdown, changing demographics, and population increases in voter-rich Northern Virginia helped make the state more competitive for Obama.

His victory marked a powerful shift in the political climate in Virginia, as the state would go on to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election thereafter.

Democrats made such gains in part due to the ever-expanding Northern Virginia, particularly the suburbs surrounding Washington, D.C.

Obama campaigned extensively in Virginia and counted on the booming northern parts of the state for a Democratic victory.

Here are their last predictions before election day: After McCain clinched the Republican Party nomination in early March, he took a wide lead in polls against Obama, averaging almost 50%.

[23] In Arlington County and the independent city of Alexandria, the most traditionally Democratic jurisdictions in the region, Obama got over 70% of the vote, improving on Kerry by between 4% and 5% in both.

Just beyond Fairfax, to its south and west, Obama flipped the large counties of Loudoun and Prince William, becoming the first Democrat to carry either since 1964.

He also won the independent cities of Harrisonburg for the first time since 1940, Hopewell since 1952, Manassas Park since 1976, Staunton since 1944, and Winchester since 1964.

[24] The two other major metropolitan areas in the eastern part of the state, Richmond and Hampton Roads, are somewhat less Democratic than Northern Virginia.

[26] Both counties had historically been strongly Republican at the national level; Chesterfield had given George W. Bush his largest raw vote margin in Virginia in both 2000 and 2004.

The four Democratic-leaning cities along the harbor - Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, and Portsmouth - gave him margins exceeding 60%.

Obama's strong performance in the area likely contributed to Democrat Glenn Nye unseating two-term Republican incumbent Thelma Drake in the 2nd Congressional District, a heavy military district which includes all of Virginia Beach and large portions of Norfolk and Hampton.

[26] In the Shenandoah Valley and Southside Virginia, both traditional bases for the Republican Party in Virginia,[27] Obama ran roughly evenly with Kerry; but in southwestern Virginia—at the time one of the more traditionally Democratic regions of the state—McCain outperformed Bush in 2004, even flipping two counties (Buchanan and Dickenson), both of which last voted Republican in 1972; Obama thus became the first Democrat to win the White House without carrying the aforementioned two counties since Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

However, without the support of suburban voters in the eastern metropolitan areas of the commonwealth, McCain was ultimately unable to hold Virginia.