Virginia is the key to 2016

In our Washington Post column, Paul Goldman and I didn’t offer an autopsy of Tuesday’s vote (we’re working on that now…and Mr. Warner won’t like it).

Instead, we make a bet on 2016:

So we wager the coal mines in the Southwest, CIA headquarters in NOVA, the VCU campus in Richmond, the agricultural communities in Southside and the resort hotels in Virginia Beach on this: As Virginia goes, so goes the 2016 GOP presidential nominee’s chances. No Republican in the modern era has won the White House without carrying Florida, Ohio — and Virginia.

Of the three, Virginia should be the more difficult challenge.

This gives us the key 13 electors in the 2016 presidential 270 calculations. Colorado and Iowa could combine to outplay Virginia. But that’s a sucker bet. It’s Virginia (plus another small state), boom or bust, for the GOP in 2016. It is win here or go home.

Virginia is now the key to a Republican presidential victory. Not one of several — it’s THE key.

If a Republican can win the statewide vote here, that Republican has hit on a formula for winning — on the numbers and on the message.

Look over the field of potential and likely GOP presidential contenders. Which, if any, of them looks like a guy who could pull that off?