CINCINNATI – Perhaps it’s superstition, but just as he did two days before the 2008 election, Barack Obama was at the University of Cincinnati Sunday night, hoping to win over one of the most Republican corners of the state.

Four years ago, he drew a crowd of 27,000 to Nippert Stadium at the University of Cincinnati on a chilly November night. Last night, a crowd that fire officials estimated at 15,500 – including 2,000 in an overflow room – showed up at Fifth Third Arena for a rally that also included a performance by Stevie Wonder, who led chants of “Fired up…ready to go,” before the rally and who ended it with “Sign, Sealed, Delivered,” a favorite song of Obama’s on the campaign trail.

“The choice should be pretty clear,” Obama, his voice hoarse from campaigning, said, “But Gov. Romney is a very talented salesman. So in this campaign he’s tried as hard as he can to repackage old ideas that didn’t work as new ideas. In fact, he’s offered them up as change. He said he’s the candidate of change.

“But here’s the thing, Cincinnati. We know what change looks like. What Gov. Romney is selling is not change.”

Obama won Hamilton County in 2008, becoming the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to win the third most populous county in the state.

But he also pulled off another coup in 2008: In the extremely Republican counties of southwest Ohio, he did better than the five previous Democrats who ran. On average, they lost those counties by a combined average of 19.8 percentage points. Obama lost by 11 percent – 8.7 percent better than they did.

“We want to squeeze out votes every place possible,” said Obama chief Ohio strategist Aaron Pickrell. “We’re not going to win every county, but we’re going to get as many votes as we need to win statewide.”

In the final days, the campaign is focused enough on southwest Ohio that it sent Michelle Obama to nearby Miami University – the alma mater of Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan and home county of House Speaker John Boehner – on Saturday.

But this corner of the state may prove tough. Sunday’s Dispatch Poll showed Obama trailing Romney in southwest Ohio by 23 percentage points. That poll also showed Obama and Biden narrowly leading Republicans Romney and Paul Ryan, 50 percent to 48 percent, in the race for Ohio’s 18 electoral votes.

Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from the Cincinnati suburb of Terrace Park, said he is confident Romney will return the Cincinnati media market to its typically strong Republican orientation.

“Our numbers in southwestern Ohio have been improving dramatically in the last couple of weeks,” Portman said. “We’re right now actually overachieving our vote goals in southwestern Ohio.”

“I think he really needs Cincinnati,” said Sharon Watkins, 51, a Cincinnati paralegal who attended the UC rally. She predicted he would win Hamilton County again, but admitted that his 2008 appearance drew more enthusiasm than the 2012 event.

Although the campaign has paid special attention to the southwest corner of the state, they’re not forgetting the rest of Ohio. Vice President Joe Biden spent yesterday in Ohio, with stops in Lakewood, Fremont and Lancaster - the latter also a Republican stronghold.

Joe Hallett and Lydia Coutre contributed to this report.