It’s unclear how closely the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary will parallel 2008. Certainly the candidacies of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders are very different in nature. Their trajectory and momentum, however, must feel eerily familiar to Hillary Clinton. In the 2008 Virginia Democratic Primary, Obama overran Clinton winning by 28.2%. That margin was even more pronounced in 26 of the 28 precincts in Albemarle County.
To anticipate key precincts for each candidate in 2016, we decided to look back at 2008. In varying shades of blue you see precincts that offered Obama a larger margin than the state as a whole. In shares of red you see that only in the Monticello and Scottsville precincts did Clinton perform better in Albemarle than in the entire state. Clinton support in Keswick, Ivy, Porters, and Free Union was abysmal. Will these trends hold? Will these precincts be critical for both campaigns in Albemarle? Be sure to vote in either this primary or the Republican one on March 1st.