Content Section

Final Factor: Loudoun County - Virginia's Bellwether Battleground

Why Loudoun County is a Must-Win for Obama and Romney

This election will be decided by swing voters in swing districts of swing states.  The second installment of OutFront's election series The Final Factors took me to the key swing district of Virgina - Loudoun County. This is the heart of the new northern Virginia - fast growing, increasingly diverse and wealthy after a decade of defense spending.  It voted for President Obama by 11,500 votes in 2008 - making him the first Democrat to win the Old Dominion State since LBJ.  Unemployment is now 4% - half the national average.  But the swing voters here are feeling the heat from the looming automatic defense cuts set to kick in next year.  

"This is going to be as serious a problem to our north Virginia region as the fallout of the car industry was to Detroit," Hammler says. "It will be small businesses like ours that are going to be hit the most. Two million jobs will be lost, half of which will be from small companies. We'll be hit earliest and hardest."

Hammler blames sequestration on congressional division and dysfunction: "It's as if there are certain factions within the parties who are setting things up where because of the pressure of the next primary, because of the pressure of the election, there's no incentive for compromise and collaboration to find meaningful solutions to complex problems."  

Read More at CNN.com and watch the package on Erin Burnett OutFront's homepage.  

You Might Also Like

About the Author

Author headshot

John Avlon

John Avlon is senior columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, and the host of Beast TV. He is a CNN contributor regularly appearing on the show Erin Burnett Out Front at 7 p.m. EST. He won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ award for best online column in 2012.

Avlon: Government Has 'Proper' Regulation Role

Last week's tragic fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, has brought the issue of government regulation back to the forefront. On Friday night's Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Beast's Political Director John Avlon denounces deregulation rhetoric. 

  1. John Avlon: There is Some Fear-Mongering Going On Play

    John Avlon: There is Some Fear-Mongering Going On

  2. John Avlon: Incivility Is on the Rise Play

    John Avlon: Incivility Is on the Rise

  3. Best and Worst of 2012 Play

    Best and Worst of 2012

Unlimited Funds

Probing the Super-PAC Economy

The Dark Money Shuffle

The Dark Money Shuffle

The strange, opaque world of politically minded nonprofits. By John Avlon and Michael Keller.

Our Toothless Watchdogs

BENEFACTORS

Stop Hating the Super PAC Moneymen!

The Coming GOP Super-PAC Tsunami

The Super-PAC Economy

See More Politics

From The Daily Beast

An Unforgiving America

An Unforgiving America

Writer George Packer mostly succeeds in describing the dissolution of our civic culture, says Michael Tomasky.

Arming Rebels

Obama Gets Syria Rebuke

AFTER OKLAHOMA

More Shelters? Not Necessarily

Bluster

No Answers on the IRS

Double Standards

The Right’s Scandal Hypocrisy