Virginia will be the focus of much national attention this year with a hotly contested race for governor. At stake are national party-bragging rights and “the storyline.” We’ll get a preliminary answer to the question: “Has Barack Obama permanently changed the political make-up of a formerly Red state or was his victory unique and personal?”

We got a small clue this week: House of Delegate Brian Moran resigned his seat to run in the Democratic primary for governor. A hastily arranged special election was held with a shocking result, as the Washington Post reported:

Democrat Charniele Herring held a minuscule lead over Republican opponent Joe Murray in a special House election yesterday in the Alexandria area, according to unofficial results.

Herring, a lawyer, led Murray by 16 votes, with all precincts reporting, and election officials were meeting last night to review the tallies. Murray, a Republican congressional aide, said he had not decided whether to seek a recount. “We’re not conceding,” he said.

The surprisingly close race in the heavily Democratic 46th House District capped a harried month of campaigning for a seat left open when Brian Moran stepped down to run full time for governor. It was seen by some as an embarrassing stumble by Alexandria Democrats. President-elect Barack Obama won the city with 72 percent of the vote.

There will, in fact, be a recount, and the House of Delegate has refused to seat Herring until that is completed. So what does this mean? I think the lesson is that turnout and voter composition mean a lot. If the gubernatorial election is a repeat of 2008, with huge African-American and young voter turnout, then the Democrats are in good shape. But we know from this test run that voters don’t turn out in off-year elections the way they do for presidential contests, especially one-in-a-lifetime historic ones like 2008. Certainly a rushed special election with tiny turnout won’t be the model for 2009’s gubernatorial run. But neither, I suspect, will the presidential turnout be a reliable indicator of the electorate for a gubernatorial race with no African American in the contest.

This means that Republicans will need to rebuild their decrepit party-organization and turn out their voters. And Democrats taking the 2008 presidential-race electorate for granted should think twice. It may be a whole new ballgame.