John McCain

Over the last year John McCain's fate in Pennsylvania may have been sealed by the registration and organization efforts of the Democratic State Committee, Democratic National Committee and the campaign organizations of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

PHILADELPHIA -- With John McCain largely ceding Michigan to the Democrats, the stakes in Pennsylvania and other battleground states are becoming higher by the day. But a month before the election, Republicans across the state sound increasingly worried that McCain's chances of winning Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes are growing increasingly slim, and there is little time to turn around the GOP nominee's sagging poll numbers in the Keystone State.

"There's a window of opportunity, but it's closing," said Jeff Coleman, a Republican political and media consultant in Harrisburg.

Since the start of the general election, McCain viewed Pennsylvania as a major prize, consistently voicing confidence that he could capture a state no Republican nominee has won since 1988. Since June McCain has been to the state 10 times to Democratic nominee Barack Obama's 5 trips, and has significantly outspent Obama on the air.

But like in other battleground states, polls in Pennsylvania have gradually been moving against him in the past two weeks. The financial crisis refocused the election on economic issues. Democrats have continued to build a registration edge that now exceeds one million voters. A Rasmussen poll last Monday showed McCain trailing Obama by 8 points, two weeks after the same poll saw the race tied. And a Muhlenberg College tracking poll Friday had Obama leading 51 percent to 39 percent, the first time the Democrat's edge in that survey had exceeded 10 points (the lead was back to 10 the next day).

Campaign, state and party officials are still confident the state can be won by McCain, saying the coordination between campaign workers and local party organizers will make for an effective ground-game in turning out Republican voters.

But several Republican consultants interviewed by PolitickerPA.com late last week saw McCain's chances here dwindling. While still considered more of a must-win for Obama than it is for McCain, the Republican's road to 270 electoral votes will become increasingly narrow without Pennsylvania.

Winning the state, Republican consultant Charlie Gerow said, is "going to depend really on the activity at the grass-roots level over the next four weeks, and that remains to be seen.

"It's going to be the old-fashioned, identify and turnout voters model that's going to work here," Gerow said.

Elliott Curson, a longtime Republican consultant in Philadelphia, went so far as to say that McCain had likely already lost the critical Philadelphia suburbs, without which it is exceedingly difficult to win a state-wide race. The only way for McCain to win, Curson said, would be a "full-court-press" to identify and turn-out Reagan Democrats in central and southwestern Pennsylvania.

"That's what it's going to take to overcome the insurmountable numbers coming out of the southeast for Obama," Curson said. "They're in a very defensive position now."

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Barack Obama will return to Pennsylvania on Friday when he makes a morning campaign stop in Montgomery County, one of the all-important suburbs of Philadelphia that could decide which direction the state swing in November.

The event, to be held at 9 a.m. in Abbington High School, comes at the heels of polls released this week that shows the Democratic presidential nominee increasing his lead over Republican nominee John McCain. 

Obama has not campaigned in Pennsylvania in nearly a month, when he held events in York, Lancaster and Wilkes-Barre the first week of September. 

Since the primary, McCain has made significantly more campaign stops than Obama in Pennsylvania. Republicans say the state's 21 electoral votes could go to a Republican for the first time in 20 years because of McCain's appeal to independents.

Obama, however, has had the advantage of a six-week campaign here in April when he competed against U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) in the primary.

Obama is expected to talk about his plans to "stand up for middle-class families."

Barack Obama holds a 7-point advantage over John McCain in Pennsylvania largely because voters think he understands the concerns of ordinary Americans, according to a new Franklin & Marshall poll.

The poll surveyed 767 registered voters in Pennsylvania from Sept. 23 to Sept. 28 and had a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

The poll is consistent with others taken in Pennsylvania that show Obama's lead increasing in recent weeks in the Keystone State, which both campaigns consider critical to their hopes this fall. 

Sixty-one percent of voters said they thought Obama best understands the concerns of ordinary Americans, compared to just 28 percent for McCain, the poll reports. Voters also think Obama can better handle the economy compared to McCain, 46 percent to 37 percent, it finds.

2008 is starting to look like 2004 in the Pennsylvania presidential election. A new poll released this morning from Franklin & Marshall confirms other polls that show the Democratic nominee opening up a lead. According to this poll, Barack Obama now leads John McCain 45% to 38%. Towards the end of September - beginning of October is when John Kerry started pulling away from George Bush in 2004. In a mid-September poll in 2004 George Bush lead Kerry 47% to then by the first poll in October Kerry had gained control with a 48% to 41% advantage.

Bruce Springsteen will be performing a free concert Barack Obama in Philadelphia on Saturday. The gates to the event will open around 2 PM and the show will start at 3 PM. The event is an attempt to register more voters before Monday's deadline. A new poll released thismorning shows as many as 60 percent of all new registered voters are supporting Obama over John McCain, which explains why the campaign may be eager to register as many new voters as possible. The event will be held on the Ben Franklin Parkway, between 20th and 22nd streets.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday reports Barack Obama now has a 15-point advantage over John McCain in Pennsylvania, a dramatic swing in Obama's favor the poll credits largely to the country's financial crisis, the declining popularity of GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and Obama's debate performance.

The Democratic presidential nominee is up 54 percent to 39 percent over his Republican opponent in the Keystone State, the poll reports. It sampled voters from Sept. 27 to Sept. 29, the three days after Friday's first presidential debate. 

A Quinnipiac poll taken before the debate showed Obama up only six percentage points -- 49 percent to 43 percent -- over McCain.

Fiften points is by far the largest margin shown between the two candidates by any poll in the Keystone State, considered critical to both candidate's chances this fall. All of the polls, however, have shown the senator from Illinois increasing his once slim lead over McCain since the onset of the country's financial crisis. 

The poll showed Obama gaining similar leads since the debate in other battleground states. It reports Obama is up 8 points in Ohio and Florida.

"Pennsylvania is back in its role as the most Democratic swing state of the 2008 election, mainly because voters believe Obama will do a better job handling the economy," said Clay Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama will make his first campaign visit to Philadelphia of the general election on Oct. 11, PolitickerPA.com has learned.

Obama has multiple events scheduled, but details are still being worked out.

While his lead in Pennsylvania polls has been widening, there's no doubt that Obama needs to win the Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia by wide margins to beat John McCain for the state's 21 electoral votes.

With Democrats and Republicans trading blame over yesterday's defeat of the bailout bill, the Republican National Committee is airing an ad in Pennsylvania and other key states to persuade voters that Barack Obama's economic plans will make things worse.

See the 30-second spot, titled "Worse," embedded below: