Virginia’s diverse electorate — including rural tea party supporters, urban African-American voters, coal miners in Southwest Virginia and wealthy liberals in the Washington, D.C., suburbs — make it a worthwhile destination for time-strapped candidates in both parties, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg.
Farnsworth said that kind of diversity also makes a Virginia win special.
“Virginia is America in miniature,” he said. “A win here means more than a win in a lot of other states.”
