Senior Republicans are planning to meet at a rural retreat in Virginia within days of the election to discuss how to rebuild a party they expect to be badly beaten in the White House and congressional races.

News of the meeting emerged as a poll in Arizona indicated that John McCain could suffer the embarrassing loss of his home state. The poll put McCain on 46% and Barack Obama on 44%, indicating the Republicans are struggling to hold on in their traditional heartlands.

Details of next week's post-election meeting, to be attended by state chairmen and prominent activists from the conservative wing of the party, are being kept secret for fear of being seen to preempt the outcome of the presidential contest.

It is intended to look at who should take over chairmanship of the party, whether the party needs to switch to the right, and to make plans for the next presidential election.

Sarah Palin, John McCain's running mate, though not present, will be a central figure in discussions about the party's future.

"It is about what direction the party takes, the proverbial struggle for the soul of the party," Norm Ornstein, an analyst at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, the home of the neo-conservatives, said today.

"There will be a million post-mortems and finger-pointing. What is unusual is that the finger-pointing has begun before the campaign is ended."

One of the biggest post-mortems, if McCain loses, is scheduled for the week after the election, the Republican governors' annual meeting in Miami. Sessions planned include one looking back on the election titled, An in-depth evaluation of the 2008 election cycle.

Another session is titled, Looking towards the future: the Grand Ole Party in transition. There is also a section on the "rising stars of the party".

One of the concerns of the party is that, if the polls prove accurate, the Democrats are poised to make huge advances into its traditional base in the south and in western states such as Colorado. With New York and the north-east and almost all of the West Coast primarily in Democratic hands, the question is where to rebuild their base.

The other problem is that the party is short of political "stars" in contrast with the Democrats, apart from Palin. The hunt for new potential leaders could shift to the younger generation, including figures such as Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana.

The Virginia meeting, to avoid accusations of being premature, is to go ahead whether McCain wins or loses. If he were to win, the discussion would turn to how conservatives can influence the new administration.

On the agenda for the meeting, at the home of a prominent Republican, are economic, foreign and social policy. The aim is to build a new grassroots organisation, comparable to Republican efforts after Jimmy Carter won the White House for the Democrats in 1976, and a similar rebuilding by the Democrats after a wipe-out in the 1994 congressional race.

An unnamed source involved in the planning told the Politico website, which first disclosed news of the Virginia meeting, said: "This is going on if McCain wins, loses or has a recount - we're not planning for the loss of John McCain."

The source blamed the party's decline on betrayal of conservative principles by President George Bush and Republican leaders in Congress.

"There's a sense that the Republican party is broken, but the conservative movement is not."

Ornstein said he had heard the buzz about the Virginia meeting for some time and had spoken to some of those involved. The participants were mainly state chairman and political activists and he did not anticipate elected representatives taking part.

"There are a bunch of people who are planning, assuming that McCain loses, to try to shape the future of the Republican party. You are going to get a little bit of a struggle," Ornstein said. There will be those who argue that the party lost because it strayed from the conservative path while others will argue that the party lost the middle ground, he said.

At the governor's conference, from November 12 to 14, speakers lined up include Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida, and a host of southern governors, as well as retired general Tommy Franks, the right-wing columnist Bill Kristol and the pollster, Frank Luntz.

Another post-election meeting is one to be hosted by the South Carolina Republican chairman, Katon Dawson, who has invited state party leaders and others to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to ""discuss the lessons learned from the 2008 campaign, what we can do better and what it will take to win in 2010", the congressional mid-terms will be held. Dawson is among those seeking to become the next party chairman.