Richmond, Va ? Democratic front-runner John Kerry has a good chance to win his first Southern state in the Virginia primary Tuesday, a potentially crippling blow to the candidacies of John Edwards and Wesley Clark, who rely on Southern support.

Party activists say Kerry has the apparent edge in Virginia, and two recent polls show the Massachusetts senator with a solid lead over Edwards. On Sunday, Kerry received the endorsement of Gov. Mark Warner, who’s popular with state Democrats.

With 82 delegates at stake, Virginia is the second-biggest prize this month after Michigan, which Kerry won Saturday. And Virginia and Tennessee, with 69 delegates up for grabs Tuesday, also are close to must-win states for Edwards and Clark, who claim they could take Southern states away from President Bush.

“Edwards needs one of these two states, if not both, or that undercuts his whole rationale for running,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Sunday morning, Kerry and Warner attended church in Richmond at New Deliverance Evangelist Church, where Kerry invoked Martin Luther King Jr., quoted Scripture and swayed to the rhythms of tambourines, bongos, piano and bass.

Kerry ended his day in Chesapeake, in Virginia’s conservative tidewater region. More than 800 people crowded into the gym of the Oscar E. Smith High School to hear Kerry express his kinship with the people of the Norfolk area, home of the biggest U.S. naval base on the Atlantic.

“This is part of the country that is close to my heart because I’m a Navy man through and through,” said Kerry, who skippered a Navy Swift boat in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War.

Kerry, Edwards and Clark campaigned across the state during the weekend, added TV spots and spoke to an overflow crowd of 2,000 Democrats at the party’s annual dinner in Richmond.

“I haven’t seen this much excitement among Democrats since the 1960s,” said Amanda Macaulay, 63, of Richmond, at a Kerry rally. She said she was leaning toward Kerry but also liked Edwards, a sentiment heard often at the dinner.

Edwards made the most direct, impassioned pitch to Southerners, including black voters, saying that as a North Carolinian, he felt a “special responsibility” on race relations. His speech drew several ovations and raves from state Democrats.