Brent Budowsky is extremely optimistic about Paul’s chances in Virginia:

If this does not change, the Virginia vote will be a pure play of Romney versus Paul, and also a contest purely of Romney versus the conservative movement, which I would expect to unify behind Paul for the Virginia vote.

I would be very pleased with this outcome, but why would Budowsky expect this? This is the sort of prediction one makes because it is so far-fetched and unlikely that no one would expect it. Because the other candidates failed to qualify for the ballot, it’s quite plausible that Paul will receive a much higher share of the Virginia vote than he has in other large primary states in the past. He might surprise a lot of people with a 25 or 30% result in a two-way race, but let’s remember that Paul received 4% of the vote in Virginia in 2008. He tripled his 2008 support in New Hampshire and South Carolina, but for him to get the percentage I’m talking about he would need to increase support at least sixfold. It’s possible that some of the voters who supported McCain and Huckabee last time will switch to Paul, and there could be more independents turning out, and there will be some anti-Romney protest voting going on.

Granting all that, to expect the conservative movement to “unify behind Paul” is to ignore that large parts of the conservative movement have been aligned with Romney all along and a great many movement conservatives dislike Paul more than they dislike Romney. Movement conservatives enabled and facilitated Romney’s reinvention of himself as a conservative, and he has contorted himself to fit the mold that the movement requires. Romney represents what the conservative movement is. Paul represents what it could be. Most conservative voters in Virginia are likely going to choose the former.