To read the entire article, go to link. A few highlights quoting Larry Sabato on the national perspective: The party has become so dominated by its hold on urban areas, minorities and university communities, he said, that Democrats have lost footing in the undeveloped parts of the South. “They’re completely removed in the rural person’s mind from the problems of non-urban areas,” he said, “and Republicans are the opposite.” and: And it’s not just Virginia. In other Southern states, such as Mississippi, rural Democrats have been losing ground for years. In Alabama, the GOP last year took control of the legislature for the first time since 1874. And Rural Democrats in North Carolina last year lost control of their statehouse for the first time in 140 years. “Look at North Carolina — they’ve been wiped out there,” Sabato said. “It’s redistricting, that’s part of it, but it’s just difficult to get rural areas to vote Democratic anymore.” He added that the cycle is self-reinforcing, with each loss of a moderate Democrat creating a more liberal caucus, which only serves to further alienate rural voters. As a result, Sabato doesn’t hold out much hope for the species. “They’re not quite unicorns,” he said, “but they’re close.”
Larry Sabato, a political analyst and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, called the gradual demise “a major problem for Democrats,” and one not confined to Virginia.