Arizona Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin campaign today in Virginia, a state where the Republican presidential ticket is being outmanned, outspent and outvisited by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

But the McCain camp says its team is lean and battle-tested and can mobilize quickly.

Consider that Obama's campaign announced on a recent Fri-day that Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. would hold a rally in Henrico County -- an appearance the Democratic vice presidential nominee wound up canceling because of a family illness.

Of all the places in the Richmond area, Biden was to appear at J.R. Tucker High School -- directly across the street from the Republican campaign's office.

The Republicans scrambled to organize a counterevent on their turf, and in a roughly 24-hour window they turned out about 125 people.

It's just one event, but it's indicative of the campaigning in the battle for Virginia's 13 electoral votes.

The Democrats have opened 49 offices in Virginia and frequently parade political surrogates and celebrities through the state.

Obama, an Illinois senator, has stumped in Virginia six times since he locked up the Democratic nomination. Biden has made four campaign trips to the state.

Today McCain and Palin make their second public campaign trip to Virginia, for a rally in Virginia Beach before Palin campaigns this afternoon at Richmond International Raceway.

The contrast in the number of visits partly can be attributed to the fact that historically, Republican presidential candidates have had Virginia locked down. No Democratic presidential nominee has carried the state in 40 years.

In 2004, President Bush carried the state by 8 percentage points. His opponent, Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, made a play for Virginia but moved two-thirds of his staff out of the state in early October.

Four years later, some polls show Obama and McCain running neck-and-neck in Virginia. Others show Obama taking a lead outside the margin of error.

About three weeks until Election Day, both campaigns are ratcheting up their efforts to secure the state's 13 electoral votes.

Until recently, the Republican ticket has been less visible here in terms of the public campaign, media events and television ads.

Obama outspent McCain on TV ads more than 3-to-1 in Virginia from Sept. 28 through Oct. 4. Obama spent $2 million, compared with $547,000 by McCain, according to a study by the Wisconsin Advertising Project.

In a recent conference call, McCain's national political director, Mike DuHaime, said their team is leaner and efficient.

"I will take what is going to be a very passionate, very enthusiastic, well-trained group of volunteers over a larger staff any day of the week," DuHaime said.

The McCain campaign recently opened 12 more offices in the state, bringing its total to at least 21. They are doubling field staff to put about 50 people on the ground. The Obama campaign declined to disclose how many paid staffers it has in Virginia.

"We've always known that Virginia is a state that's close. It has changed over the years, having more to do with the makeup and the growth of the state more than anything else," DuHaime said. He noted that Obama opted out of public financing, which allows him to spend an unlimited amount of money during the general election. McCain has accepted public financing.

The McCain camp has just as much activity in the state as the Obama camp, said Gail Gitcho, the campaign's spokeswoman for Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland and Washington, D.C. The Obama-Biden campaign has at least half a dozen spokesmen dealing with the Virginia media.

Many of the Obama-Biden campaign's 49 offices are in rural communities such as Tazewell, Emporia, Bristol and Big Stone Gap. Several of the offices are small and sparse, planted as bases for local volunteers largely to supplement the campaign's "Neighbor-to-Neighbor" word-of-mouth endorsement system.

Accompanying technology enables a volunteer, using a home computer, to pull up a list of voters who have not been visited by Obama campaigners, a map plotting the voters' houses and a script. The volunteer can knock on doors on his or her own time.

The system is the center of the grass-roots machine driving Obama volunteers into Virginia enclaves that Democrats all but wrote off in recent runs for the White House. The Ashland campaign office, for example, is a bare-bones cinder-block building with a few phone-bank tables and canvassing packets for volunteers who pop in. On a recent Saturday, a small band was playing outside, and volunteers chatted and ate fried fish on the front lawn.

The Obama campaign's presence in Hanover County, which Bush carried nearly 3-to-1 in 2004, shows the campaign is attempting to pick up votes wherever it can in hopes of delivering the state.

McCain's local campaign says canvassing is on track and energy is building.

The McCain camp recently announced that each of the state's cities and counties will have a local chairman to serve as the contact for volunteers and supporters as part of what it calls Virginia's Grassroots Leadership Team.

"We are not taking anything for granted," Gitcho said.