Prince William, the State's Bellwether

County supervisors, who were elected to four-year terms last November, will not be up again until 2011.

It won't be long before Prince William's population is majority minority, and that means some incumbents will be vulnerable, Supervisor John D. Jenkins (D-Neabsco) said. Tremendous population growth, fueled almost entirely by minorities, has made Prince William the most ethnically and racially diverse county in Northern Virginia.

In the city of Manassas Park, where there had not been a Democrat on the local ballot in more than 20 years, two won seats on the council last week.

"This election we made a determined effort to recruit candidates," said EJ Scott, the chairman of the Manassas/Manassas Park Cities Democratic Committee. "This ride was partly due to the coattails of an inspirational candidate like Barack Obama. But it also has a lot to do with the complexion of our area."

Republicans downplay the political shift and say there is no reason they can't be competitive on the new playing field, especially if they continue to focus on quality-of-life issues.

"It's too early to draw any long-term conclusions about what Virginia will look like over the next several years," Prince William Supervisor Michael C. May (R-Occoquan) said of his party statewide. "We'll have to see if this is a long-term trend and whether we can regain our footing and redeem our advantage."

Obama became the first Democrat to carry Virginia in 44 years. The state will be represented by two Democrats in the U.S. Senate for the first time since 1970. And the Democratic Party picked up at least two, possibly three, U.S. House seats.

Prince William Democrats hope to keep newly identified voters engaged and replicate that kind of success on the local level.

"We have a superior ground game, and we've been growing since 2005. We have a volunteer base of 5,000 people throughout the county who are still willing to work hard," Pete Frisbie, chairman of the Prince William County Democratic Committee, said of the contacts the local party made during this year's presidential campaign.

Just because Democrats made gains on the national and state level doesn't mean they will translate locally, Stewart said. Local GOP elected officials have catered to issues that are central to the quality of life in the outer suburbs, such as controlling growth and development, building roads and even cracking down on illegal immigration, he said.

"It's not a rejection of conservative principles; it's a rejection of a Congress and president that failed to get anything done," Stewart said of last week's results. He said he has faith in the independence of Prince William voters.

"They vote for the candidate, not the party," he said. "We've held our own, largely due to the nature of the issues we address."

Polling director Jon Cohen contributed to this report.