MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. -- While the presidential campaigns pop in and out of the swing states that surround it, West Virginia sits on the sideline, consigned to red state status by polls and experts who don't see its five electoral votes worth fighting for any longer.

The voters, however, remain passionate, worked up over a number of hot-button issues that range from hard realities to Internet rumors.

Marshall County is at the base of the state's northern panhandle, pinched between Ohio and Pennsylvania, just south of Wheeling. It is a rugged mix of shrinking riverbank steel towns and rural mountain communities that rely on farming and coal mining.

It also is a statistical peculiarity in that in the past two presidential elections, the voting percentages here mirrored the statewide numbers.

As Marshall County goes, so goes West Virginia.

"I can see why Marshall would reflect the rest of the state, because the county is split the same way the state is," said Christian Lee, 46, an associate professor of communications at West Liberty State College in neighboring Ohio County. "Moundsville and the [Ohio] river towns are strong union towns because of the steel mills, the chemical plants and the former toy factory. But it gets much more conservative once you leave the riverbank and go east into the mountains."

The population of Marshall County wouldn't fill PNC Park's 38,496 seats. There are 22,847 registered voters, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans 2-to-1.

Local elected officials tend to be Democrats, as do the state's governor and both senators. But the voters aren't shy about backing Republicans for president. In 2004, the county and the state supported President Bush, 56 to 43 percent, over Sen. John F. Kerry. In 2000, Mr. Bush bested Al Gore 51 to 45 percent in Marshall County.

"It's a reflection of the conservatism," Mr. Lee said. "The people here are more religious and social conservatives than economically conservative."

For a while, both parties were working for West Virginia's votes. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made it part of her campaign's last stand, and the Democrats detected a glimmer of hope in the darkness of the economy.

Earlier this month, vice presidential candidates Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Gov. Sarah Palin stumped for votes. But lately, the national focus has been elsewhere, including neighboring Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia.

Brian Long, 48, an automobile salesman in Glen Dale, fights an uphill battle. A lifelong resident of Marshall County, he is the GOP county chairman, working to get a slate of Republicans elected.

"West Virginia has always been big-time Democratic," he said. "Sometimes, it's hard to recruit Republican candidates to run for local offices.

"But on the national stage, we do all right, especially if the Democratic candidates are seen as weak. There's family tradition in party affiliation and voting, but it's mostly limited to local candidates."

Sitting in the party's tiny campaign headquarters on Jefferson Street, Mr. Long hands out bumper stickers, buttons and yard signs to people looking to support Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate for president. But the visitors virtually ignore the signs and pamphlets for the party's local candidates.

"I've had lifelong Democrats call me and say, 'Brian, I need two John McCain yard signs.' One gentleman, I asked him why he wanted it, and he said because John McCain is a veteran," Mr. Long said. "I believe John McCain will win Marshall County. I believe he will win West Virginia. Whether he wins the presidency, I don't know. I hope."

Mr. Long described the residents of Marshall County -- and all of West Virginia, for that matter -- as "good, hardworking, God-fearing people, family people with conservative values. They're strong for the military. Second Amendment gun-rights folks, a lot of hunters and fishermen."

In a county that is 98.4 percent white, he said, race is not a determining factor. That isn't why Democratic Sen. Barack Obama is going to lose here.

"It isn't that he's black," Mr. Long said. "It's more he's got the middle name 'Hussein' and his past associations. Those are the things that trouble these people. That's why Barack Obama is in trouble in West Virginia."

Douglas Martin, 40, sees Marshall County from a different perspective. A salesman who moved in 1991 from Canada to Cameron, closer to the Pennsylvania side of the county, he has been a registered Democrat since becoming a U.S. citizen in 2001.

Stopping by the Democratic Party headquarters on Seventh Street, he picked up the last Obama sign they had.

"I had a bunch of signs back during the primary, but they kept getting stolen, destroyed, vandalized," he said. "I live in redneckville. It's very deep, deep red. A lot of passion. The good old boys go around and they see an Obama sign. I called them in to the sheriff, but what can he do?

"My wife's not too fond of my doing it, but the way I see it, people died for civil rights. Surely I can put up with losing a sign or two."

The rare liberal in Marshall County, Mr. Martin still sees his neighbors in the best possible light.

"There's a level of hostility toward Obama, and I've seen it," he said. "I've heard [the n-word] dropped in conversation by people that I never would have expected to hear it from. And they seem to be hanging on to the Internet nonsense about him.

"They're good people, don't get me wrong, but they buy into these smears. I mean, you can be a good person and still be a racist. Does that make any sense? People that I would trust my kids with and I would trust my life with, but at the same time, I know they're prejudiced. We're human, I guess."

Terry McDiffitt, 42, a legal assistant who lives in Cameron, is co-chair of the Democratic Party headquarters in Moundsville, working out of an insurance office. He remains "cautiously optimistic" about Mr. Obama's chances, if not in West Virginia, then across the country.

And he hasn't given up on getting Marshall County into the Obama column.

"It's been very, very positive," he said. "We cannot keep our signs in the headquarters."

He also has more resources than his Republican counterparts. More money, more volunteers, more registered voters. At Melosky's Tavern, if you vote, you get a free beer. If you vote Democratic, you get two free beers.

His workers are not trying to sway Republicans or even the independents. There are enough Democrats in the county that getting them to vote the party line would mean success.

"The Second Amendment is a huge thing in this county," Mr. McDiffitt said when asked what issue means most to the locals. "And that's something that they're afraid the [national] Democrats will take away from them.

"We have been making it known that we are not going to take anyone's gun rights away. In fact, we had a gun raffle as a fundraiser. And it was won by a Republican woman. But we were happy to take her money."

Ella Mae Muldrew, 64, of Benwood, is a Democrat, but she's voting for Mr. McCain. Part of the reason, she admits, is Mr. Obama's race.

"I'm just a poor old woman on a widow's pension," she said. "I can't help being prejudiced. I was brought up that way. I try not to be. I ask God to take this away from me, but the era in which I was brought up instilled these feelings in me. I can't vote for a radical or a Muslim."

One of her daughters, however, plans to vote for Mr. Obama.

Marshall County Clerk Jan Pest said that is part of the region's makeup. It's slow to change, she said, but it's changing.

"My parents were prejudiced," she said. "And when I was growing up, I saw the things that happened on TV during the civil rights era, and I wondered, 'How could this happen?'

"But you can't make it change. You just gotta let that bleed itself out."

Whatever the reason, Ms. Pest said, this election has the people of Marshall County stirred up. More than 2,000 residents had taken part in early voting by Wednesday.

The results of the election, if they reflect the polls, will be telling.

"I think it'll be closer than the last election, but I don't think Obama can win this state," Mr. Lee said. "But just the fact that a black man is running a close race in West Virginia is really surprising. That shows how bad an economic time it has been around here."