Virginia: Purple Haze

At a tidy suburban home in Alexandria outside Washington, D.C., with a Toyota Prius in the driveway, an American flag out front, and an “Obama for America” sign at the door, a half-dozen backers of the President are working their cell phones to try to rekindle the support that won him the state of Virginia in 2008. “Are you a supporter of the President for reelection?” volunteer Lucia Brawley asks as she bounces her year-old daughter on one hip. Brawley, 34, performs a silent victory dance as she gets her first “yes” of the evening.

More than 100 miles south, amid the pickup trucks and grain elevators that dot the landscape west of Richmond, 77-year-old Ann Tenser says she’s doing everything in her power to deny Obama a second term. “He’s a liar,” says Tenser, of Rockville, a member of the Goochland County Tea Party. “He said he was going to bring about change, but he did not tell us what kind of change. He wants us to go socialist.”