With less than two weeks left before Election Day, recent polls in Pennsylvania suggest Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama leads Republican nominee John McCain by as much as 10 percent.
But this doesn't eliminate Pennsylvania's battleground status just yet.
Despite Obama's lead, the McCain campaign is shooting for a comeback win in the state, and Democrats fear that voter complacency could let that happen.
For McCain to win the presidency, Pennsylvania is "critical," said McCain spokesman Peter Feldman.
"The race is much closer than people think," said Wharton sophomore Michael Stratton, the president of Penn for Obama. "The state hasn't been won yet."
Penn for Obama and the Obama campaign are keeping one thing in mind: the New Hampshire primary.
During last January's New Hampshire Democratic primary, Obama held a strong lead in the polls over Hillary Clinton, but lost the state to her by nearly 3 percent.
Now, McCain is hoping for the same thing to happen in Pennsylvania.
"Pennsylvania and its 21 electoral votes are very much up-for-grabs," Feldman said.
Just yesterday, McCain barnstormed through three rallies in southeastern Pennsylvania, and Cindy McCain, his wife, visited downtown Philadelphia on Monday.
According to Randall Miller, a St. Joseph's professor and political analyst, Pennsylvania has been turning more Democratic in recent elections due in part to the Democratic Party's registration efforts.
In the state, there are now 1.2 million more registered Democrats than Republicans, out of a total of more than 8.6 million registered voters.
In 2004, Democratic candidate John Kerry barely defeated President George W. Bush in Pennsylvania. Kerry won the state by 140,000 votes.
In a conference call, Sean Smith, the Obama campaign's Pennsylvania communications director, stressed that there are 780,000 students in the state, with a majority likely to vote for Obama.
However, Smith said the campaign is depending on energized volunteers to get those students to the polls to actually vote.
On campus, Stratton said he did not believe the number of volunteers was decreasing, but warned against taking anything for granted. He said student volunteers will be critical for get-out-the-vote efforts.
"People feel like if they volunteer on Election Day, it's enough," he said. "It's not."
Miller said it "doesn't look like" Obama can lose Pennsylvania based on new registrations and organizational abilities, but he acknowledged that McCain could still make a comeback.
Analysts believe that for McCain to win, he will have to have a strong showing in the Philadelphia suburbs, particularly in Bucks and Montgomery counties, and in western Pennsylvania, where Obama had difficulty attracting the support of working-class voters in the April primary.
"McCain will have to get a consistent message going," Miller said. "Voters need a reason to vote for him, rather than against Obama."
Perhaps more than any indicator, history should indicate that Pennsylvania cannot be taken for granted.
Despite registration increases, no Democratic presidential candidate has won more than 51 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania since 1964.
