In presidential politics, Virginia used to be firmly in the Republican column. | REUTERS Is Virginia going purple?

Virginia may have reached a tipping point in the 2012 elections.

Major demographic changes in the state over the past ten years — including a sharp influx of Hispanics and single women in Northern Virginia and the changing nature of the outer Washington, D.C., suburbs — may have finally reached critical mass, permanently converting Virginia into a swing state in presidential politics.


( See also: POLITICO's swing-state map)

“It’s not a red state any more, it’s a very purple state,” said GOP pollster Whit Ayres, who lives in Northern Virginia. “Northern Virginia has changed the complexion of this state completely.”

The new landscape began emerging in 2008, when Barack Obama won the state by 7 points over John McCain, driving up African-American turnout and winning Northern Virginia by 19 points.

But public polls in the 2012 race show that 2008 may not have been a fluke, but a more long-term realignment of state politics. Despite loads of time and money invested there, Mitt Romney is trailing Obama in Virginia by as many as 9 percentage points, according to a recent Washington Post poll. Tim Kaine is also leading George Allen in the Virginia Senate race. Republicans argue that their internal polling shows the presidential race closer.

“Over the years, the migration, if you will, there has been a lot of demographic changes in the Commonwealth,” said longtime Virginia Republican strategist Chris LaCivita. “That growth has brought in a lot of new voters and a lot of new people.”

But LaCivita isn’t convinced the state has gone blue.

“Democrats in Virginia would love to say that Virginia is more of a bluish purple,” he said, but countered that a lot of signs still point to Republicans having the upper hand, like GOP victories on the state level in 2009 and 2010 . “The coalition that supported Barack Obama in Virginia in 2008 is not entirely there in 2012.”

In presidential politics, Virginia used to be firmly in the Republican column, having never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964 until Obama four years ago.

But Republicans were heartened by Gov. Bob McDonnell’s sweeping 2009 victory and felt that returning the state to GOP hands in 2012 was well within reach. Obama has privately told people that in a close election, Virginia would be the decisive state.

But despite heavy targeting by the Romney campaign — the GOP nominee has visited the state six times since the start of August and announced his vice presidential pick there — his campaign appears to be lagging in Virginia. The two campaigns spent a collective $68.3 million in advertising in Virginia between April 9 and August 9, according to a Romney campaign official.

Republicans argue that the public polling shows is wrong because it oversamples Democrats, who turned out in higher numbers to support Obama in the 2008 election. They say pollsters are erroneously using 2008 exit polls to structure their data samples.

LaCivita also argues that the election will come down to independents, not Democrats. Virginia has no official party affiliations.

“No one political party dominates, it’s always been a battle about independents, but the independents are just as much in play,” he said. “The political persuasions of large swaths of voters are frankly unknown.”

They also decry the idea that Democrats have a better ground game.

“The Obama campaign’s narrative that they are going to win these close states because they have a much larger organization is simply not bearing out to be the truth,” said Rich Beeson, Romney’s political director. “When we have half the staff and half the offices in Virginia as they do, but contact the same number of people, our ability to work smarter and better will pay off.”

Among the Romney campaign’s problems are the double-digit gender gap he faces with female voters — which Obama and his allies have been working aggressively to exploit — a comparatively healthy economy and big demographic changes that some argue are permanent.

The biggest shifts are to the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. — which contain a high proportion of government workers, single women and Hispanics — all demographics that tend to favor Democrats. But the changes have also radiated outward into the previously reliably conservative counties. In 2008, Prince William went to Obama, who took 57 percent of the vote, compared to 2004 when George W. Bush won with 53 percent. Stafford County went to Bush big in 2004, with 62 percent of the vote, but McCain captured only 53 percent in 2008.

Loudoun County and Fairfax are also keys to any candidate’s victory. Bush won Loudoun County in 2004, taking 56 percent of the vote . But Obama captured 54 percent of the vote there four years later. And in Fairfax County, while it went to John Kerry in 2004 with 53 percent of the vote, Obama was able to drive up the margins there in 2008 and took 60 percent.

Virginia’s changing dynamics are also evident in this year’s Senate race, where ex-Gov. Kaine is outperforming ex-Gov. Allen. Allen operatives profess a lack of concern and say they’re counting on cross-over votes from those supporting Obama.

“George Allen’s grassroots-focused campaign is working hand-in-hand with coordinated Republican infrastructure that is leaps and bounds ahead of previous statewide efforts,” said Emily Davis, Allen’s campaign spokeswoman.

One sign of Virginia’s paramount importance is Romney’s decision to announce his selection of Paul Ryan as his running-mate at an August event in Norfolk.

Romney surrogates have also blanketed the state, including his wife, sons and most recently South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who held a “Women for Mitt” event in the northern part of the state.

Pete Snyder, the chair of the joint Republican Victory operation, says Republicans have contacted 2.5 million people through a joint operation of the Romney campaign, the Republican National Committee and the state party.

But Democrats also have a formidable ground operation, with about 50 field offices in the state.

“We have offices in every corner of the Commonwealth in a race that we expect to be extremely close,” an Obama campaign official said. ”We feel that through the organization that we’re building we have the advantage.”

One reason Obama seems to be outperforming Romney in Virginia is that the state enjoys one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country at 8.1 percent, partially because of its high proportion of federal government workers.

Fifty percent of those polled in Virginia cited the economy as their primary concern, but unlike elsewhere, that could be helping the president.

“Generally, in these elections people want to know are you better off than you were four years ago,” said former Virginia Democratic congressman Tom Perriello said. “Romney banked in many ways that people had short memories that misremembered just how bad things were four years ago. States like Virginia and Ohio; they’ve been recovering a head of the national average.”

Romney is also far behind with women in Virginia — by 19 percentage points according to the Washington Post poll (compared to the sample of men that found Romney leading by 6 points.) And Obama’s campaign is doing everything it can to make the gap larger.

Obama began running advertisements over the summer describing Romney’s desire to overturn Roe v. Wade as “too extreme” for Virginia . In another spot, Obama describes Romney’s desire to cut Planned Parenthood spending as risking cancer screenings.

Furthermore, Planned Parenthood launched a $1.85 million advertising campaign criticizing Romney for supporting defunding the organization.

Romney’s campaign has countered with its own ad titled, “Dear Daughter” that features an infant and includes women-specific economic statistics, arguing they have suffered more under Obama.

When Romney made a stop in Fairfax in mid-September, his campaign arranged to have only women seated behind him as a backdrop. And only women spoke during the introductions.

But even in the rural southwestern region of the state where Republicans typically do well, some Democrats think Romney will struggle.

Perriello thinks Obama could pick off some of the rural voters who would traditionally vote Republican because of Romney’s business background.

He thinks that voters will be turned off by the accusations that Bain Capital contributed to the outsourcing of jobs, Obama’s message that Romney wants to cut taxes for the rich — which Romney denies — and Romney’s remarks that 47 percent of Americans are “dependent” on the government.

“Rural, white men, they don’t like Romney,” Perriello said. “That’s not a demographic shift, that’s as old school Virginia as they get. People don’t really trust him and can’t figure out what he’s about.”

Yet Romney’s Virginia operatives are hardly waving the white flag of surrender.

“Virginia is just beginning. There is a chance that you and I will be talking about Virginia a month after the election,” Snyder said.