Pollsters say Republicans are clearly fired up and potentially maxed out.
"GOP voters are incredibly unified this year, and most Republican candidates don't have much room to grow with their base over the final month of the campaign," Public Policy Polling director Tom Jensen wrote in a recent blog post. "There's no guarantee that the undecided Democrats will end up coming home, but more than likely they will. Last year's New Jersey governor's race is a good example of this."
On Monday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Mr. Obama's stepped-up engagement on the campaign trail has boosted Democrats' chances this fall.
"I think the president has made the case effectively about why people need to be involved and what's at stake," he told reporters.
One Democratic strategist also pointed to Gallup's job-approval numbers for Mr. Obama, which showed traditional Democratic demographics still supporting him, including more than 90 percent of blacks and more than 60 percent of Hispanics. Among self-identified Democrats, his approval is 81 percent, but among self-identified liberals it's a slightly lower 73 percent - suggesting he has shed some support on his left flank.
In particular, Mr. Obama has been focusing on young voters, a key voting bloc in his presidential campaign but one that's historically less likely to show up to vote in non-presidential races. To help counter that trend, Mr. Obama is hosting another rally Sunday, this time in Philadelphia and featuring hip-hop group the Roots, which hit the trail with him in 2008.
The One Nation event, put together by progressive groups, unions and civil rights organizations, followed a rally hosted by Mr. Obama at the University of Wisconsin at Madison that drew 26,000 people. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. also drew an overflow crowd at Penn State University last week.
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