HARRISBURG (MarketWatch) -- Pennsylvania has long been a key state for presidential hopefuls to win in November, but because of the tightness of this election's Democratic race for the nomination and the state's relatively late primary, voters in the Keystone State are already enjoying a place in the political sun.

In the final days before next Tuesday's primary, Democratic contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are running a close contest, with the latest polls showing Clinton leading Obama in the state by a narrow 47% to 44%. That three-point lead was down from a 15-point advantage in early March.

“ Economic issues are at the forefront of voters' minds, but finding a message to appeal to Pennsylvanians as a whole is no easy task. ”

With 188 delegates at stake for the Democrats - and with every delegate counting as Obama's delegate count of 1,645 is just edging out Clinton's tally of 1,504 - the two Democratic senators have been canvassing the state for weeks, hoping to hook into the concerns of the voters, who put the economy at the top of their worry lists.

Pennsylvania also will loom large in November. If David Black has his way, Pennsylvania will go Republican-red in November. Democrat Audra Traynham, though, wants to see the Keystone State go blue. Now, with its primary just days away, this so-called "purple" state appears to be leaning blue, raising the possibility that the Democratic nominee could take home this important swing state in the general election.

Until recently, Sen. John McCain had stacked up about evenly compared to Clinton and Obama here. But presumptive Republican nominee McCain has lost his standing against both Democrats and is now trailing Obama by 8 percentage points and Clinton by 9 points, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll.

Pennsylvania's status as a "purple" state -- closely split between Republicans and Democrats -- makes it a key battleground, and this year appears to be no exception, guaranteeing that candidates will have to craft highly strategic appeals to capture the state. The Keystone State holds 21 electoral votes and has the sixth largest population in the U.S. Democrats outnumber Republicans, but not by much. However, Democrats' ranks have been swelling in Pennsylvania thanks to the pivotal importance of the state's April 22 primary. Recently, their number topped four million for the first time.

A state in play

"Pennsylvania generally is in play," says Black, 54, the president and chief executive of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber and Capital Region Economic Development Corporation.

Now, as Democrats Clinton and Obama take the race for their party's nomination down to the wire, the Pennsylvania primary is getting some unaccustomed national attention.

"I am so excited that Pennsylvania is finally counting," says Traynham, a 41-year-old janitor in Philadelphia.

Polls and interviews across the state indicate that economic issues are at the forefront of voters' minds here. In the April Franklin & Marshall College poll, the economy again outpaced the Iraq war as the single most important issue in the presidential election. But with Democrats clustered in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other urban areas, and Republicans generally huddling in the rural stretches in between the state's eastern and western borders, appealing to Pennsylvanians as a whole is no easy task.

"It's a little bit of a chess game," says Prof. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall.

Talking trade

As a long-time manufacturing state, jobs and trade are of key importance to Pennsylvania. The state has lost more than 207,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000, or about a quarter of all Pennsylvania factory jobs, according to figures provided by the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

Bitterness about those job losses runs through places like Reading, a city of about 83,000 in Berks County, to the northwest of Philadelphia. Citing plant closures in her area, residents like Ruth Mathews say the next resident of the White House must come up with trade policies that work for U.S. workers.

"There's a whole raft of things that need, I believe, to be revisited," says Mathews, 70, the executive director of United Community Services. Manufacturers, she says, go where their profit margin is the highest, hiring workers in China or Mexico or the Philippines. But, the Democrat says, "somewhere along the line, we've got to ask the central question of how much profit are you allowed?"

"There aren't any jobs like I used to have," chimes in Carl Ramich, a 67-year-old retiree who worked in fabrication for Dana Corp. in Reading and sat down to be interviewed with Mathews.

Democrats' appeals

Clinton and Obama are both actively courting voters like Mathews and Ramich. Clinton spent part of the week of March 31 on a swing through Pennsylvania cities including Harrisburg, Wilkes-Barre and Philadelphia, talking up her plans on the economy, including creating manufacturing jobs and pushing through tax cuts for the middle class.

"I believe our government should get out of the business of rewarding companies for shipping jobs overseas, and get back into the business of rewarding companies that create good, high-wage jobs -- with good benefits -- right here in America," Clinton said in Pittsburgh on April 2.

Talk like that sounds good to 57-year-old Greg Bowers, president of the United Steelworkers of America's local union 1688 in Steelton. "We're getting our butts kicked because of trade," says Bowers. "We've got to get back to making and not just buying."

The only trouble for Clinton is that Bowers, like fellow union members Jim Roberts and Jim Laws, is backing Obama.

"I think he makes more sense," says Roberts, who is 60. "He is not displaying a measure of desperation, as she is, and people pick up on that."

Obama also canvassed Pennsylvania around the same time Clinton did, and polls show the Illinois senator's stock rising in the Keystone State. On Friday, a Rasmussen Reports poll showed Clinton leading Obama in Pennsylvania 47% to 44%, closing a 15-point lead in early March.

The poll was conducted after Wednesday night's debate between the two Democrats in Philadelphia, where the candidates addressed taxes, energy and the Iraq war. See Election Notebook.

"His numbers typically surge, I think, when he comes into a state," says Marty Santalucia, 19, the vice president of Penn State Harrisburg's student government and president of that school's students for Obama organization. Obama has also won the support of 22-year-old Lebanon Valley College senior Lauren Woodring, who believes she has a better chance of retaining health insurance if a Democrat wins the White House. But, says the history and political science major, "if [Clinton] turns out to be the nominee, I'd be fine with that."

Red center

Pennsylvania's recent history would suggest that a Democrat will win the state in November: voters here haven't gone for a Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988. But Tammy Shearer and David Black want to change that.

"People want somebody that's going to look out for them," says Shearer, who is vice president of The Camera Box in Camp Hill, near Harrisburg. "They want somebody that's going to take care of their taxes, that's going to think about the gas price issue. And people are thinking...they want their streets safe, they want the country safe."

For Shearer and many of her neighbors, that somebody is John McCain.

"Central Pennsylvania is die-hard Republican and it has been as long as I can remember," said Shearer in an interview at the Silver Spring Diner in Mechanicsburg. The 37-year-old cites spiraling energy and health care costs as her chief economic concerns.

But a heavy-handed approach to issues like those by government won't play well in this part of the state, suggests Black of the Chamber.

"The biggest fear of the business community is that we're going to get too much government," says Black, a former Republican county commissioner in Clarion County. He worries about higher taxes and more regulation if a Democrat is elected to the White House.

Black acknowledges that there are "fundamental problems" with the delivery of health care in the U.S. but says "let's try to fix it before we start to have government paying for it."

McCain says he'll address bringing health care costs under control to save affordable health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid. Bringing those costs under control, McCain says, is the only way to protect private health benefits for retirees and allow U.S. companies "to effectively compete around the world."

The Arizona senator will probably win the votes of conservatives in the central part of the state. But the Republican nominee-in-waiting will have a tougher time in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and certain suburbs can go either way.

Swing county in a swing state

McCain will have to fine-tune his message in places like Doylestown, Bucks County, just above Philadelphia. The county is home to moderate Republicans and has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in the last four elections.

In this relatively prosperous county, Republicans like John Soffronoff, the president and chief executive of Monument Bank, are weary of the Iraq war and argue that there need to be tighter rules on mortgage brokers in order to shield borrowers from getting into risky loans.

"Consumers need to be protected," says Soffronoff, 61.

Both Soffronoff and Peter Thompson, a 66-year-old lawyer and Democrat, acknowledge that the economy has slowed down, even in their county.

"I don't think there's any question growth has slowed," says Soffronoff. Thompson says he sees empty storefronts in Doylestown, an unusual sight over the last 15 to 20 years.

Still, the county's politically diverse demographics suggest it'll go for a Democrat in the general election, says Binny Silverman, a Hillary Clinton supporter who helps to run a real estate development and management company. Silverman says that the middle-class needs help and praises Clinton for reaching out to it.

"I think you can't help the economy if you don't help the middle class. The middle class is really struggling," says Silverman.

Despite Obama's recent surge in popularity, it's economic concerns like those that suggest Clinton may bag Pennsylvania's primary. In the April Franklin & Marshall poll, more voters said the economy came to mind when they heard Clinton's name versus Obama's.

But Clinton doesn't have Audra Traynham's vote, and neither does John McCain. The Philadelphia janitor will be voting for Obama, as will, she predicts, most of the residents of her state on Tuesday and in November.

"Think about the last eight years," Traynham said in an interview. "We have been at war. Poverty is rising. Unemployment is rising. And families are losing their children" in Iraq.

"When was the last time a Republican pulled off Pennsylvania?" she asked.