how important is loudon county? >> it is incredibly important.you look at the nine-state, swing state battleground area, a to qualify as one of the most essential counties in the nation because of its bellwether function. for many years, it was a strongly republican county, but over time, because of its increasing diversity voting patterns there began to change, and right now, political operatives on both sides of the i'll look at it very closely to see whic winds are blowing. obama won in 2008, but prior to that, it was a george bush counted twice. >> what i the numbers showing in virginia as a whole? >> what is really interesting is you see a slight uptick in the polls, and it came over fairly consistent time when over a dozen polls showed president obama in the lead. five of the seven polls have shown a very narrow mitt romney lead, and this would be one of the swing states that republicans are cautiously optimistic about, and i feel pretty good about it compared to some others. >> two days ago, you vlogged that obama and romney were within fi

john dyer lives in loudon.nder of ksh technology. >> most of my neighbors are government employees or contractors. so, they would be affected by it. this cut. big time. >> dyer is a coveted swing voter. >> what was your first vote for president? >> ronald reagan. so, actually, i have a photograph of my grandfather, my father, my brother and myself all voting together at the same time, so -- >> it's a family tradition. so, you take this seriously. >> it was always a, you know, a big deal in our family. >> you voted for president obama last time around. what are the final considerations? >> issues around the federal government spending, how it affects our business. so, it is my life blood. and my future. >> dyer's business partner is -- she knows just how devastating these cuts could be to loudon. >> the dysfunctional process that brought us to the brink of this problem, which is going to be as serious a problem for our region as the fallout of the car industry was to detroit. it will be small businesses like our

visited one in loudon county. let's take a look. >> loudon county, virginia, has history of bootleg whiskey. probably find some still in business there. some legaly whiskey. despite attala lack of experience, scott, a former technician, and his wife, becky, a chemical engineer, started to build their distillery in 2009, in the depths of the recession. put in a lot of personal equity, but there is also help that comes with it. they had a loan from the small business administration. now their top concern is health care. >> is very difficult to find options for company the size of ours. it remains to be seen. about an hour's drive away, visited this real estate office. time they had 20 agents of three offices, then at the real estate .ubble burst >> when barack obama talks his predecessor's policies responsible, how you respond to that? phooey. >> he has to take responsibility for some of the past four years. don't feel that he is. >> scott and becky harris are k obama.toward barac >> we voted for clinton and in elec

this is a live look at the loudon county fairgrounds where mrs. obama is just finishing speaking with voters. a new service shows mitt romney

loudon county, home of manassas and prince william. go back to 2000.allen was elected. >> when president obama ran in 2008 he won those three by more than 140,000 votes combined. if allen craig can repeat his victories in loudon and prince william and hold down caine, he'll have the edge and tommy thompson and timmy baldwin in a tight race. a state president obama won by double digits in 2008. but when republican and tea party favorite ron johnson ran for senate two years later we saw huge changes in the electorate. take a look at two of the giggest counties, brown and winnebago county. president obama won them by a combined 21,000 in 2008. in 2010 johnson flipped them in a big way winning brown by 13,000 and winnebago by 7,000. he also built on republican margins in whssuka county. watch the margins in those three counties, they could very well be the difference between a win for tommy thompson and one for baldwin. now to nevada. dean heller is trying to hang on to this seat against democrat shelley berkley. two counties are key here. clark county, ho

the you're probably wondering, it is prince william county there, that's what moved, loudon was a countyhat moved as well. it was all right shifting in 2004. bush only one this county by 8,500 votes. this is one of those dual threat counties, it's a county that's growing and becoming more democratic as it's growing and this is why it's an important county for the president to hole on to, but it's margin there will matter. >> is the population growth there something that he's able to take advantage of? >> we have got a lot of new toys, this will also takes all around the country, all senate races everywhere. we're going to be messing around. look at that battleground of senate maps, half of them are going to be senate races decided by about 12 points or less. half of these races. we have got four weeks to go, we're going to be messing with them a lot. if i'm not using it every day, i'm going to make up for it. white house soup of the day, the president doesn't get to the white house for this evening. maybe he can have this for denver. cream of tomato. you can always follow this show on fa

the folks in loudon county, that anti-government rhetoric doesn't work for them.e sequestration cuts. and ohio is shaping up again to be the big one. this is my mother's home state. i know it well. here's a state that has gotten terrible economic news for decades. steel mills closing, manufacturing moving out. in the eastern part of the state, there's an oil and gas boom going on. it's fascinating how that's changing people's lifestyles. >> they have a lot of autoworkers there who like the fact that the auto industry was saved. we're going to be in youngstown, toledo, cambden, right before te election. i'll be tweeting, checking my facebook page the entire trip. i want to hear from you. my twitter handle is

the folks in loudon county, that anti-government rhetoric doesn't work for them.e sequestration cuts. and ohio is shaping up again to be the big one. this is my mother's home state. i know it well. here's a state that has gotten terrible economic news for decades. steel mills closing, manufacturing moving out. in the eastern part of the state, there's an oil and gas boom going on. it's fascinating how that's changing people's lifestyles. >> they have a lot of autoworkers there who like the fact that the auto industry was saved. we're going to be in youngstown, toledo, cambden, right before te election. i'll be tweeting, checking my facebook page the entire trip. i want to hear from you. my twitter handle is @alivelshi. thank you for joining the conversation on your money this week. we're here every saturday and sunday at 3:00 p.m. have a great weekend. >>> in just two days, president obama and mitt romney will face off for a third and final time. this weekend, both candidates are working hard preparing behind closed doors in the hopes of winning the last showdown.

the concentration of it right now for western sections of montgomery, eastern parts of loudon, there for leesburg, reston, great falls. this is just a little light rain, nothing heavy, nothing that will add to any type of flooding situation. so you don't need to worry about that. temperatures don't downright chilly. we started off -- downright chilly. you add in a little wind. the wind chill value is in the 30s for just about all locations. quantico is 43, leonardtown 41, annapolis 45 and here in town you can see there 43 degrees. the winds not much, generally below 10 miles per hour which is almost hard to believe, but these things happen. light rain right through the evening hours. just keep the umbrella handy if you're going to be out and an overcoat, too because it's definitely chilly. we'll fall off into the upper 30s, looks like the next few days we're stuck in the 50s, but we will be fairly dry it looks like right on through the weekend. >>> more than 7,000 people downloaded the fox 5 weather app at the height of the storm last night. you can check the weather any time with th

is it a loudon, a fairfax, a prince william?l, according to our numbers, it's prince william, and the county seat of prince william, that's manassas. the joke about virginia is when you drive on i-66 in virginia, the welcome center when you've entered the state of virginia, you have to drive 30 miles to prince william county in manassas, and that's when you get the "welcome to virginia." but actually, manassas and prince william county went obama in 2008. it is a county that romney has to get that bush carried in 2004. bush only won it by 8,500. obama won it by 26,000 votes. and one of the other things about that county, thomas, it's what i call a dual threat county. it's a county that's growing in population, becoming more democratic, and it's a margin county now at this point when it comes to president obama. >> we love when you get specific and rename all these different states with the counties. >> flohva, baby. flohva, flohva, flohva. >> flohva, flohva, okay. nbc's political director chuck todd. chuck, thank you so much. yo

you get into virginia, and you got a different set of problems including in loudon county in northernirginia. a lot of the industry there is based on government. so things like the sequester and losing defense spending are of great concern. where the rest of the country is worried about how much involvement the government should have in their lives, up here, government has a great deal to do with the lives of the people in northern virginia and southern maryland and that's made property values go up and made people prosperous. you go over here into eastern ohio, you got youngstown, gm plant, you've got fracking, which is making -- natural gas fracking, that's influencing people. and further west to canton and toledo and you've got manufacturing concerns. concerns about china and importing and exporting. so different things all across the country. how do these people think barack obama or mitt romney will serve their interests? what are they thinking? do they think the world gets better after this election? we're going to learn a lot about that, brooke. >> okay, curtailing the question

in early july, i probably was an undecided voter until a young lady from the loudon democrats came by and knocked on my door. she and i got to talking, and she asked me to do a few things. she said, i want you to check your 401-k statement from, you know, 2008. she asked me to look at my pay stub and my housing values, because i never really looked at it to see if i really was better off. i was just listening to all of these political ads. i went back, and did i all that, and i realized, you know, that all three of them were slightly better. it wasn't where it was, but it was slightly better so. it gave me a chance to really look at this whole thing about whether or not i was better or worse. and since then, i've really taken time to look at all of the real information, and now i'm actually supporting barack obama. i'm going out today between 1:00 and 3:00 to do some ground work for them, because i believe that it is going in the right direction. i just really believe that anybody who is republican who can really look at and be optimistic about the economy cannot attribute that to bar

first lady michelle obama will be in loudon county, tomorrow. >>> now, let's get a check on the forecastr afternoon and eving. it will continue to overspread the area. we'll see a high today as we get out of the mid-40s to around 50. let's get a look at first 4 traffic now. >> federal holiday so the interstates look fantastic. mass transit not so much. red line single tracking between the square. also construction delays on orange line and blue line. and of course holiday delays on all lines. angie. >> mike, thanks. coming u on news 4 midday, the >>> from nbc news, this is "today." with kathiely gifford and hoda kotb. >> hey, everybody, it is funday monday, october 8th, happy columbus day to everyone out there. it is freezing out there. >> it is, and friday it was 80s and gorgeous. and in parts of the midwest they have snow. >> colorado has know too, i mean the temperatures are in the freezing -- let's keep in mind it's october 8th, okay? and even in dc are democrats are normally in the 70s, it in the 50s. >> can we talk about your outfit because this outfit rocks, i have something simil

up into montgomery county and farther west, fairfax, into loudon county, around the blue ridges, some lighter rain, but it's coming your way. here's washington. here's the bay. here's the atlantic seaboard. all these areas in the yellows and oranges and reds, those are the areas of the heaviest rain. here's the circulation of sandy passing just to the north of the metro area. late tonight, into tomorrow, it may draw cold air in. this is as of 6:00 on tuesday morning. we might have some wet snowflakes flying in the air here after the heavy rain ends later tonight. and then the snow continues out of the mountains. all through the day, on tuesday, tuesday night now wednesday. acoup lating snow continuing there. that will finally taper off by wednesday night. but here are the expected winds. this is as of 8:00 p.m. today. we could have winds gusting as high as 70 miles an hour. all this area in red. it covers northern virginia, maryland, parts of eastern west virginia, gusts of 70 miles per hour at 8:00 this evening. we'll have gusts over 60 miles an hour through a huge area. that's going