Obama looks to regain momentum in Florida as polls show tightening race Supporters listen as Barack Obama speaks at a campaign event at Ohio State University in Columbus. Photograph: Larry Downing/Reuters When Barack Obama was last at the University of Miami he was riding high in Florida's opinion polls and seemingly on course for a comfortable win in the coveted swing state. Fast forward three weeks, past a poorly handled debate and one or two other perceived missteps, and the president is back on campus looking at a decidedly different landscape. It is now his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, who holds a narrow advantage in the sunshine state, according to the latest opinion polls at least, and south Florida's young Democrats who are spreading Obama's message with less than a month until polling day want to hear their candidate come out fighting when he takes to the podium Thursday afternoon. "He needs to be a little more aggressive, show more confidence and look more sure of himself," said Emily Young, campus team leader of Canes for Obama, the student supporters group named for the University of Miami's moniker 'The Hurricanes'. The first debate definitely didn't go well for him. People need to hear more specifics. One of the biggest things you got from the debate was that there was a lot that went over most people's heads. It's true for both candidates; they need to spend less time bringing each other down and more explaining what their policies are. Obama will appear before a full house at the university's BankUnited Center in Coral Gables before moving on to a $1,000-a-head fundraiser at Miami's swanky JW Marriott Marquis hotel hosted by actress Eva Longoria. The university has proved a popular stopover for Obama on the campaign trail this year following visits in February and for a Spanish language television interview to rally Hispanic voters late last month, the day after an appearance there by Romney. More than 1,800 tickets - almost a quarter of the venue's capacity - have been handed out to students keen to hear the president outline his "vision for an economy that grows from the middle out," according to his campaign staff's description of the subject of Obama's remarks. "For most of the students it's our first time voting and people are in tune with the issues," Young said. It's about driving home the things he has accomplished so far and that he needs four more years to finish what he started. Four years is not enough to turn the economy around. With its 29 electoral votes up for grabs, more than one-tenth of the 270 a candidate needs to secure the White House, it is little surprise that Obama is now well into double figures in the number of campaign visits he has made to Florida, which he won in 2008 by barely 200,000 votes from more than 8 million cast. He has also dominated the state's airwaves with 5,000 more television advertisements appearing in favour of Obama than Romney during the last three weeks of September, according to a study by the Wesleyan Media Project. Despite this, two recent opinion polls in Florida, one conducted by Rasmussen soon after the first debate, show Romney with an advantage of up to three percentage points. It gives the Republican candidate his first lead of the year in Real Clear Politics tracking average, albeit by 0.7%, well within the margin of error. The final weeks of the campaign in the state will be "a dogfight" in the view of Jordan Lewis, a third-year political science major at the University of Miami and president of its Democratic group. Florida is the state that makes the difference. If Obama wins it like he did in 2008 then he will win the election no matter what," he said. That's why I want to see a stronger president, I want to see him come out combative. When he's speaking to students he needs to be strong on education, strong on jobs. We want to finish college not having to worry about the economy, not having to worry about finding a job.