NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Sophomore Michelle Miller is the head of her university's Obama for America chapter, and she's doing everything she can to get him elected. That isn't surprising, considering the 46-year-old senator's popularity among college voters.

What is surprising is Miller's college: Liberty University, the Christian school in Lynchburg, Virginia, started by Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell. It's an unlikely place for fans of a Democrat who defends abortion rights and gay civil unions.

Miller, 23, calls recruiting political converts there "an uphill battle". Still, the group's existence signals an opening for Barack Obama among conservative evangelicals — especially younger ones — that may help sway the outcome of the presidential vote in states like Virginia and Florida.

Evangelicals, who make up more than one-quarter of the US population and consist of predominantly white Protestants outside "mainline" denominations, have for decades overwhelmingly backed Republicans. Seventy-eight percent voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, exit polls showed.

Now, Obama is courting them, and there are indications he's getting through to some.

Republican John McCain, who is private about his faith and alienated evangelicals by denouncing Falwell and other right- wing preachers in 2000 as "agents of intolerance," hasn't stirred enthusiasm among the faithful.

Surveys show evangelicals are increasingly concerned about such issues as the economy, global warming and the Iraq War. While Obama has little chance of carrying this group, if he persuades ten percent of those who typically vote Republican that he reflects their values better than McCain, that may make a difference in some battleground states.

"We're certainly not expecting to outright win the evangelical vote," said Joshua DuBois, 25, director of religious affairs for the Obama campaign. "We're trying to make it more comfortable for religious folks who are more moderate or conservative to support Obama."

The campaign has highlighted health care and helping the poor as moral issues, and talks about Obama as "a family man." It's hosted 200 "American Values" forums, and on July 19 kicked off "American Values" house parties in supporters' homes, with a goal of 1,500 gatherings by October.

The message is resonating with churchgoers, said Cameron Strang, founder of an Orlando, Florida-based media group that publishes Relevant, a magazine for young evangelical adults.

"I've never seen this before in the Christian community," said Strang, 32. "They're staunchly morally conservative still, but they're saying maybe there's a different paradigm."

Strang, a Republican who voted for Bush, said the hot topic among his readers is "broadening the definition of pro- life" to include the fight against poverty, war, disease, global warming and genocide — as well as abortion. "What I'm hearing is that out of the two candidates, one of them is pro- life on five of the six" issues, he said of Obama. "And one is pro-life on one of the six."

It's "the first time my mind hasn't been made up blindly that I'm going to vote Republican."

The generational shift is embodied by Strang and his father, Steve Strang, 57, founder of a separate Christian media group that publishes Charisma magazine.

Both were among about 40 evangelical leaders invited for a meeting with the Illinois senator in Chicago in June. The elder Strang listened and was unconvinced. "The right to life and marriage are the two core values" on which most evangelicals decide, no matter what Obama says about poverty and finding Jesus, he said. Strang and 90 pro- life activists met in Denver July 1 to declare their support for McCain, 71.

While surveys show younger evangelicals are more opposed to abortion than their elders, Obama's supporters say they have heard him talk more than McCain about making the procedure less frequent.

A survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 61 percent of white evangelicals support McCain, down from 69 percent who backed Bush at this time in 2004. Support for Obama, at 25 percent, was no better than for Democrat John Kerry in June 2004. The difference is undecided voters: In June 2004, they were four percent; today, 12 percent.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said the Arizona senator is "mobilising evangelicals and reaching out to people of faith." McCain "has a documented and strong record of defending school choice for families and the rights of the unborn," Bounds said. "By November, evangelicals will know that John McCain is their choice."

To Katelyn Steaffans, 21, a church worker in Vienna, Virginia, "The difference between 2004 and 2008 is young evangelicals no longer feel we have to be Republicans to be Christians."