Now the ground game begins.
The Democratic and Republican national conventions captured the attention of a record number of Americans -- 38.9 million for Republican John McCain's speech, and 38.4 million for Democrat Barack Obama's, according to Nielsen Media Research.
"I think the conventions themselves have really set up what we're going to see from this campaign," said Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster.
Democrats will pound away at the country's economic troubles and try to convince voters that McCain will continue the policies of President Bush. McCain and running mate Sarah Palin will portray themselves as "mavericks" and try to focus the race on character issues -- McCain's war hero credentials and Palin's work to dethrone her state's Republican establishment, Yost said.
Another convention theme likely will continue to shape the campaigns' final 60 days: the focus on Pennsylvania.
"I believe in Pennsylvania we have a big, big responsibility this year. I believe the odds are the election will be decided in Pennsylvania," said Sen. Arlen Specter, a Philadelphia Republican.
The state figured prominently in both parties' four-day shows, which featured repeated references to the state and its people. As the Republican convention was wrapping up, Obama and running mate Joe Biden, a Scranton native, began a two-day swing through the state. McCain and Palin made the state one of their last stops before their convention began in St. Paul, Minn.
Though Obama has consistently led McCain in state polls, both campaigns see openings to snag Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes.
Bush is more unpopular in the state's post-industrial corners than in the rest of the country, and polls show the economy -- which has become the central talking point of Obama's campaign -- ranks far above every other issue in voters' minds, Yost said.
"This race is essentially a referendum on who can fundamentally change where our economic policy is," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.
Both candidates claimed to be the agents of change during their conventions. Obama's campaign slogan for more than a year has been "Change we can believe in," and McCain rallied his followers Thursday saying, "Change is coming! Change is coming!"
The excitement of a lengthy primary fight between Obama and Hillary Clinton helped Democrats rack up a 1.1 million voter advantage on the state's registration rolls.
Obama, however, lost the Pennsylvania primary by more than 9 percentage points. Republicans plan to continue hammering him over his remarks that some voters in the state "cling" to guns and religion because they're "bitter."
"Folks on the other side are showing their elitist skirts, or elitist trousers or elitist DNA when they 'dis' people from small towns," former Gov. Tom Ridge, who was said to be a finalist for the VP slot, told the state's delegation to the Republican convention.
Palin resurrected the comments Wednesday in her speech, which was seen by more than 37 million people.
"I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening," Palin said. "We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco."
Palin's Scranton reference highlighted a wild card in what was already a pretty wild race. Vice presidential candidates often end up relegated to side shows in presidential campaigns, but analysts say that could change this year.
Palin, staunchly pro-life and pro-gun, is hailed by Republicans as someone who can connect with the conservative, rural voters who aren't smitten with McCain. Biden has made his working-class, Pennsylvania roots a centerpiece of his campaign in order to sway blue-collar voters who flocked to Clinton in the April primary.
"Those Hillary Democrats, I think that's what this race is going to come down to," said John Fea, associate professor of history at Messiah College in Grantham, Cumberland County.
While the candidates stump for the next two months, their campaigns will work furiously to build voter turnout organizations in the state.
Said state GOP Chairman Robert Gleason, "It's going to be hand-to-hand combat for the next 60 days."
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