Questions of how much Obama can redo the map

Va., Colo. are ripe for change, but other states could hew to GOP

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. - Senator Barack Obama has built his presidential campaign on a promise of electability, telling voters and Democratic leaders that he can retake the White House by breaking the Republican hold on the West and South.

"I am probably the only candidate who, having won the nomination, can actually redraw the political map," he boasted as early as last summer in New Hampshire, highlighting his support among African-Americans and young voters.

A Globe analysis of six traditionally Republican states where Obama has signaled he will compete - Colorado, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia - suggests that his confident assertion has validity, but only to a point.

Colorado, given its influx of younger, more liberal voters, and Virginia, with its sizable African-American vote and political shifts, are ripe for Democratic coups this year. But any victories elsewhere in the South would require political earthquakes of a sizable magnitude, according to voting patterns, registration data, and interviews with local political analysts.

Larry Sabato, a specialist on national voting trends, said most so-called red (Republican) and blue (Democratic) states will remain so. "People shouldn't think the map's going to change to orange," said Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.

With the last two elections so close, however, all it could take for Obama to win is flipping a handful of states. Many Democrats, including Pat Waak, the state party chairwoman in Colorado and an undeclared superdelegate, believe he can.

"If he continues to build those kinds of coalitions, those old maps are worthless," she said.

Obama's perceived ability to write a new electoral equation is a key part of his appeal to superdelegates, whose endorsements he needs to clinch the Democratic nomination. Obama is currently just 48 delegates away, but Hillary Clinton continues to try to convince superdelegates that her strength in the traditional battlegrounds of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida would make her the stronger nominee.

If Obama were unable to win over the white, working-class Rust Belt voters who have backed Clinton, he would have to compete in more states to reach the 270 electoral college votes required to win the presidency.

Much could change over the next six months, but analyses of each of the six states - which total 66 electoral votes - indicate that in some cases changing the electoral map will be a daunting task.

COLORADO In Highlands Ranch, a far south suburb of Denver, everything has the sheen of the new: the shopping centers, the sport utility vehicles, the housing developments that blanket the ridges. The community has grown more than ninefold since 1990, part of a statewide growth surge.

The area is home to many independent-minded, upscale, and young voters of the type drawn to Obama's pitch for a new era of authentic, post-ideological politics.

An influx of suburbanites - including many migrants from California - has changed the political dynamic of a state that, with the exception of 1992, has voted Republican in every presidential election since Lyndon Johnson won in 1964. Obama, as part of his tour this week of possible Western swing states - New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado - plans to host a town hall meeting with voters today in Thornton, a northern suburb of Denver.

Governor Bill Ritter is a Democrat, and both houses of the state Legislature are under Democratic control for the first time since the 1960s. In 2004, Democrat Ken Salazar won a Senate seat from Republicans, and his brother, John, won a House seat in a historically Republican district. Democrats constitute a majority of the state's congressional delegation.

Republicans still make up a plurality of Colorado voters, but that advantage has eroded: Over the last five years, the number of GOP voters is down 3 percent, while unaffiliated voters are up 10 percent and Democrats are up more than 4 percent.

Obama, who won the Democratic caucuses Feb. 5 by 35 percentage points, is well positioned to defeat John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, in November, many analysts said.

"I hesitate to use the word likely - I wouldn't predict it," said John Straayer, a political scientist at Colorado State University. But, he said, "I would not be the least bit surprised if it happens."

If the state does tip to Obama, it will be because of unaffiliated voters such as Susie Stroh, an artist from Elizabeth, Colo. "I don't like the direction the country is heading," said Stroh, 60. "I think McCain will probably follow along."

Republicans dispute the contention that they will lose Colorado. Dick Wadhams, the state Republican chairman, pointed to Obama's lackluster showing in rural areas during the primary.

"Any statewide election victory for Democrats, they've got to neutralize rural Colorado. I don't think Senator Obama will be able to do that," he said.

But the numbers suggest that Obama could offset that weakness with bigger margins among suburbanites. One opportunity lies in the Seventh Congressional District, in the Denver suburbs. Republicans held the House seat until 2006, when Ed Perlmutter, a centrist Democrat, won a wide victory. The district went for Senator John F. Kerry in 2004, and interviews with voters suggest it is becoming more liberal.

"Everyone I know is going that direction," said Aubrey Jensen, 25, a stay-at-home mother from Arvada, Colo.

VIRGINIA As in Colorado, Democrats in Virginia head into November with the wind at their backs.

Governor Tim Kaine is the state's second consecutive Democratic chief executive, after Mark Warner; and Warner is favored to win the US Senate seat this fall of Republican John Warner, who is retiring. Jim Webb, a freshman Democratic senator who is mentioned as a possible running mate for Obama, narrowly beat George Allen, a conservative incumbent, for the other Senate seat in 2006.

These results, along with growth in the voter-rich, liberal-leaning suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Obama's ability to draw huge numbers of African-American voters to the polls, have Democrats giddy at the prospect of carrying the state for the first time in 44 years.

"There's been a resurgence; people are excited," said Dan Palazzolo, a political scientist at the University of Richmond.

But analysts caution that Virginians might look more favorably on McCain, whose war hero background appeals to the heavy concentration of retired and active-duty military.

"Is Virginia competitive? Yes," Sabato said. "Does it still lean to McCain? Yes."

For Obama to win, he would need a massive registration and turnout effort aimed at African-Americans, who make up about a fifth of the voting-age population; less than half voted in 2004, according to Census data. Obama would have to fare better than Kerry among white voters, whom Bush won 68 percent to 32 percent in 2004, and rack up big margins in northern counties.

Fairfax County, the state's most populous, has grown by about a quarter since 1990, and it has grown more Democratic. Bush won the county by one percentage point in 2000, but Kerry won it by more than seven in 2004.

Interviews with voters in the region suggest that Obama could make more gains this year, especially given the unpopularity of the Iraq war. Matt Franck, 34, of Oakton, Va., said he was undecided, but he left little doubt how he leans. "I'll vote for whoever gets us out of Iraq as soon as possible," he said. Asked whom he voted for in 2004, he said, "I'd rather not say. I'm a little ashamed."

John H. Hager, chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, concedes that the GOP has lost its clear edge. But he said the party learned its lessons and rebuilt its organization.

Obama's campaign says he can win moderates from both parties, pointing to exit polls from his 29-point primary victory over Clinton Feb. 12, which indicated that Obama won about 50,000 of the roughly 68,000 Republicans who voted Democratic.

GEORGIA Georgia may represent the best chance for Obama in the Deep South because of its large African-American population and relatively young electorate.

But an Obama victory in the Peach State is still a long shot and may hinge on variables such as whether Bob Barr, a former House member from suburban Atlanta running for president as a Libertarian, will drain a damaging number of votes from McCain.

The last time Georgia voters backed a Democrat was Bill Clinton in 1992, and only then in an unusual three-way race with George H.W. Bush and independent Ross Perot.

"I would not expect Georgia to be in the Obama column," said Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University.

Obama does have glimmers of hope, however. African-Americans were about a quarter of the Georgia electorate in 2004, according to exit polls, and that share is expected to rise because of increased registration - from 1.3 million in 2004 to more than 1.4 million this year - and the excitement over Obama's candidacy.

Georgia is also younger than other Southern states: Sixty percent of the voting-age population in 2004 was under 45, according to Census figures.

Still, even if those two constituencies turn out heavily, Obama cannot win Georgia without holding his own among white voters, who have overwhelmingly opted for the Republican in every presidential election since 1980. They favored Bush by 30 points over Al Gore in 2000, and 53 points over Kerry in 2004.

To win, Obama would need African-American turnout to rise by a third over 2004, for white turnout to remain roughly level, and for Obama's share of the white vote to match Gore's in 2000.

NORTH CAROLINA Four years ago, Democrats were bullish on North Carolina. Bush carried the state by 13 points in 2000, but with former North Carolina senator John Edwards as Kerry's running mate - and with efforts to turn out young voters and African-Americans - Democrats thought that they stood a chance for the first time since 1976.

On Election Day, turnout among African-Americans and young voters rose by almost a third. But Kerry had barely closed the gap: He lost by 12 points.

Indeed, Democratic candidates have long gotten their hopes up in North Carolina - Bill Clinton took one of his famous bus tours there in 1992 - only to have them dashed. The impediment, analysts said, is that the state is still 75 percent white. No matter how many African-Americans and young voters turn out for Obama, he would need a much stronger performance among white voters overall than any Democrat has managed since Jimmy Carter's win 32 years ago.

"I'd say spend your time and money in Virginia," said Gary Pearce, a local Democratic strategist and former adviser to Edwards and former governor Jim Hunt.

Pearce said Democrats generally need strong African-American turnout and 42 percent of the white vote to win a statewide election; while Democrats have reached that total in state contests - Governor Mike Easley got 43 percent of the white vote in 2004 - they have not come close in national elections. Kerry won only 27 percent of whites, according to exit polls.

Democrats have long hoped that the growth of North Carolina's high-tech industries in the Raleigh-Durham area would add more liberal voters, but analysts said it may be years before that growth shifts the political landscape.

SOUTH CAROLINA Barring a political cataclysm, Obama will not win South Carolina, political analysts said.

The state has backed Republicans in every presidential contest since 1976, and Bush beat Kerry by 17 points in 2004. Both South Carolina senators are Republicans, and the GOP holds the governorship and all but one statewide office.

Obama, for his part, is counting on a highly motivated African-American vote and an unmotivated conservative base to close the gap.

Not very likely, said Bruce Ransom, a political scientist at Clemson University.

"There has been some dissatisfaction with McCain as being a maverick and being viewed as too liberal and independent, but is that enough to lead them to stay at home?" Ransom said.

Even under the most optimistic projections of African-American turnout, Ransom said, Obama would have to win close to 40 percent of the white vote, a level that has eluded all recent Democratic nominees. In 2004, Kerry won only 22 percent of whites.

MISSISSIPPI Hardly anyone would consider Mississippi - a state Bush won by 20 points in 2004 - a likely Democratic pickup.

Then again, hardly anyone thought a Democrat could win election to Congress from the conservative First District - one Bush won by 25 points four years ago. And yet that's what Travis Childers did by eight points in a special election earlier this month.

The win was striking because Republicans nationalized the race by linking Childers with Obama and his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. It's recent GOP losses like this one, said Carter Wrenn, a North Carolina Republican strategist, that has given him "the willies" about the party's prospects.

Still, Mississippi remains a deeply conservative state, and its powerful Republican governor, Haley Barbour, will surely flex the party's organizational muscle to ensure it remains so.

John Bruce, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, said an Obama upset would require everything to go perfectly for him - high Democratic turnout, depressed Republican turnout, and big jump in African-American-voter participation.

Bruce, however, acknowledged that Obama's candidacy has no precedent. "We don't have any template for what a general election candidate like Barack Obama would do to turnout."

African-Americans make up more than a third of Mississippi's voting-age population. If they turn out in big numbers and push their share of the vote to 40 percent, Obama would probably need at least 20 percent of the white vote to win. Kerry got just 14 percent of whites in 2004.

Marty Wiseman, director of the Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University, is more sanguine about Obama's chances, arguing that his plan to end the war in Iraq will draw more white, rural voters than people might expect.

"You can have a conversation anywhere in the state and you never run into a, 'Hell yeah, let's send some more folks and keep on going and kick some butt,' " he said.

"It's 'I don't know why we're over there, we probably ought to end that thing and get on home.' "