In my previous post, I said that Albemarle County is centered on Cahrlottesville, and so it is. But, for election purposes, the city is distinct from the county that surrounds it.
As of 1 p.m. in Charlottesville City, 7,059 people had voted, or 25 percent of all voters. That is more than a third of the 19,642 who voted in the 2008 congressional race in Charlottesville.
In the last congressional midterm, in 2006, only 11,827 voters cast ballots in Charlottesville City all day long, so the numbers are already more than two-thirds of the way to that total.
Why is turnout especially critical here? Because as well as Perriello did in Albemarle County last time, winning 63 percent of the county-wide vote, in Charlottesville he took a whopping 81 percent of the total.
For Perriello to win, he needs to not only maintain those overwhelming percentages, but he needs turnout to come closer to 2008 levels than 2006 levels in both Charlottesville City and Albemarle County.
