ALEXANDRIA, Virginia -- With Democratic bet Barack Obama holding his lead in surveys two days before the US presidential elections, Filipino-Americans in the US Republican Party are scrambling to push Sen. John McCain’s candidacy in this crucial battleground state.

Various surveys show Obama ahead by three points or more in Virginia. There are an estimated 100,000 Fil-Ams here, about half of them in the Hampton Roads region – comprising Virginia Beach and Norfolk, among others, where many retired US Navy sailors live.

Virginia has 13 electoral votes (the number of electoral votes is equal to the number of senators and congressmen in each state). The first candidate to get 270 electoral votes wins the elections.

There are more than five million registered voters in Virginia (6.1 percent Hispanic and 5.2 percent Asian). No Democratic presidential candidate has won the state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The fact that Democrats are performing so well here seem to underscore the Republicans overall predicament – they’ve had to fight hard for states that have been traditionally GOP bastions.

On the surface, Fil-Am Republicans are unfazed by the numbers. They’ve played a prominent role in the McCain campaign here. “We were the first and biggest sponsor of a fund-raising for the Republican party of Virginia,” Vellie Dietrich Hall tells ABS-CBN’s Balitang America over the phone.

Vellie served as President Bush’s consultant on Asian and Pacific Islanders (API) affairs and is co-chairperson of Women for McCain. She is also one of the prime movers of Filipino-American Republicans of Virginia (FARV), the only GOP Asian political action committee (PAC) officially registered in Virginia.

Fil-Am Republicans have raised thousands of dollars for McCain. “The FARV is the leading minority group and the envy of the mainstream Republicans because we are well known for being involved, not only with manpower but with money as well,” Vellie said.

Lawyer Wari Azarcon, FARV president, said the group has a core of leaders who are very committed to McCain's candidacy. He admits though that the community is divided. “The debate is really which side would help people," he said.

 The partisan divide has never been more pronounced than this election cycle, mainly because of the severe economic downturn that has left 760,000 Americans jobless in just the first nine months of the year. The US economic meltdown threatens to engulf much of the world.

The 2006 midterm elections may have provided a glimpse of voting trends in Virginia. The unpopular war in Iraq and the Democratic Party’s promise to bring American troops home became the key issue in that electoral exercise. Fil-Am Democrats say changing demographics was also a factor, particularly the rapid rise in the Latino and Asian population in northern Virginia.

A bastion of Fil-Am Republicans in the state, the largely retired military families in Virginia Beach, may be changing as well. Azarcon insists Virginia Beach will stay Republican, although Fil-Ams in nearby Norfolk, with its sprawling naval facilities, have tended to go Democrat.

“Here’s the way I look at it,” Azarcon said, explaining what could be the biggest issues for Fil-Ams in Virginia. “There are two issues that could pull Filipino Americans one way or another – abortion and fiscal issues.”

“Many Filipino Americans are Catholics who are attached closely to their religion, and believe life is sacred. If that is their primary consideration they will vote for McCain. There are also Filipino Americans, notwithstanding their religion, who adhere to the belief that women have the right to choose whether to terminate pregnancy or not. They would go for Obama.”

“There are Filipino Americans who believe that the way to help people is to provide incentives to persons and institutions that can create jobs. That group would go to McCain.  On the other hand, there are people who look up to government as the provider for human needs like housing, healthcare and others. They would go for the Democrats.”

Fil-Am Republicans suspect the survey results are closer than reported in media, but acknowledge Obama is ahead. This has spurred many Fil-Am Republicans to double their efforts. Vellie, for instance, was asked to work as a “field marshall” in the so-called Florida Panhandle (that includes the large Fil-Am enclaves in Pensacola, Tallahassee and Panama City). Florida, with 27 electoral votes, is another traditional Republican state where Obama holds a lead in the polls.

But this reinforces perceptions Obama is beating McCain in the “ground war”. For weeks, Obama supporters have manned train stops, bus terminals, mall lobbies all over northern Virginia – urging passers-by to register to vote. Early polls indicate that a majority of Virginia’s early-voters were going for Obama.

Some McCain supporters have complained privately about the dearth of campaign materials about their candidate. Possibly one sign GOP logistics have been lacking, for every McCain sign there will likely be five, 10 or more Obama campaign signs blocking it.

There is a grudging acknowledgement that Obama has outspent, outflanked and basically beaten the McCain machinery in Virginia and other states.

In conversations, they blame Obama’s decision to renege on his commitment to take public financing which McCain has done. This has allowed Obama to raise $150 million from 3 million small donors in September alone. McCain can only spend $84 million from September all the way to Election Day. They argue this forced the McCain campaign to match Obama’s formidable advertising blitz, pulling away resources from the “ground war”.

They cite, for instance, that Obama has thousands of paid campaign workers who backstop an even bigger number of unpaid volunteers. In contrast, they say, McCain has mostly unpaid volunteers. Vellie said the cost of her trip and stay in Florida are all coming from her pocketbook.

Despite the daunting odds, Fil-Am Republicans are still hoping for an upset. A survey of Asian Americans in September showed that one in three Fil-Ams were undecided or considered themselves non-partisan. They also cite a 2004 Asian American exit poll that suggested while there were more registered Fil-Am Democrats than Republicans, many of them voted to give Republican President George W. Bush another four years in the White House.