dixie with a f from the nra. what? how? who? how are they doing this? best example is bill nelson who ran for the first time in 2000 when gun control supposedly cost al gore the presidency and won the state by five points and most importantly, he was winning in pensacola and not pence ka lo but the florida panhandle. he was carrying a place like liberty county which voted for romney by 40 points in november. and these are areas that are only separated from alabama by an artificial border and he didn t just have a f rating from the nra. nate, the washington post polled republicans before the president announced his gun control package. and there were a lot of people who are very much in favor of the things the president would end up proposing. 89% of republicans in favor of background checks. 61% in favor of a federal database of gun sales.
the same level, house and senate controlled by republicans, governorship, controlled by republicans and went blue. but something to take note of here that s absolutely incredible is prior to 2008, prior to president obama winning virginia in 2008, a democrat had not won virginia for 44 years. lbj was the last democrat to win at the national level in virginia in 44 years. for the presidency. so basically, with this plan, republicans are giving up. they re saying, we can t win virginia. we can t win it the way that it is. we have got to do these tricks to try to get back our advantage. that s incredible. because if you re losing virginia, for the presidency, you re losing. period. so i think that s an incredible thing to take note of. one other thing, the virginia republicans have been quite busy this week. on monday during the president s inauguration, civil rights icon in virginia, first african-american mayor of richmond and a state senator decided to attend the
popular vote by 5 million votes. there is a lot to talk about here. the point to appreciate about why a move like this would work so much in republican party s favor is that sort of ideologically and partisan identity, the country s sorting itself out and the rising democratic coalition, nonwhite, young, college educated, this sort of thing, that rising democratic coalition is packed in to metropolitan areas and you will have overwhelming take a big state that might have 15 electoral votes, you will have 3 or 4 congressional districts with overwhelming democratic majorities, 80%, 90% but then 9 or 10 districts in the state where the republicans have about 60% let s say. take it together, enough for the democrats to win the state but when you break it down by congressional district republicans start racking up some pretty significant majorities and what you see with the model in pennsylvania and
thinks it can win only by cheating, by subverting the system and stacking the deck in its favor. i got to say, at least optically even if disagree with some of those points, he is right. for exactly the reason we re having conversations like this around this table. because it gives democrats an opportunity to say, they re cheating. and i m actually incredibly optimistic about our party and future of conservatism. this isn t acting like it and i d rather we optimistic. to your point, the voting i.d. laws passed last time around to do essentially the same thing really backfired on republicans and created this atmosphere where people felt like they were absolutely what you re saying and saying about appearing fearful, it seems with voter i.d. and with this, the gop is trying to change the game rather than change their messaging. sort of saying, like we can t win. we can t win a state like virginia which is really important in a gop defeatist. there s definitely something
59% in favor of a ban on high capacity magazines. eastbound 45% in favor of a ban on assault weapons, a large number given we re talking about republicans. so why is it that we have so much support, independent support and democratic support is way higher than that on most of those things, but yet people say it s a nonstarter in the congress. i think it mainly comes from miss reading mystery. people looked at the 1994 midterm elections and saw that republicans wiped out in the south and i think in reality we can say that it was just the association with the liberal democratic president. i think the people look at the 2000 election and blame mr. gore s loss on gun control. i don t think that s fair in retrospect either especially since other candidates like bill nelson were winning in the south while supporting gun control. you make the point there s