PA Senate Debate Could Decide Leader

U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey talks during a news conference at which he received an official endorsement from the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association on Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2010, in Harrisburg, Pa. (AP Photo/Ann Foster)

The two candidates vying for the Senate seat in Pennsylvania will meet Wednesday night for their first televised debate - a debate that has increasingly high stakes for both candidates, as the race has suddenly become a nail-biter.

Republican candidate Pat Toomey has been consistently polling ahead of Democratic rival Rep. Joe Sestak. But as Fox News recently reported, new internal campaign polls show that Toomey is now only leading Sestak by only two points - down from a 10-point lead just one month ago.

All this makes tonight's debate even more crucial for both candidates. Sestak and Toomey debated each other twice during the primaries, but tonight's debate will be the first televised one, to be moderated by ABC's George Stephanopoulos.

One of the key issues will surely be the Pennsylvania's economy - specifically the number of jobs lost in the past few years. Both candidates have been ramping up attacks on their opponent's economic policies. On Friday, Sestak spoke to a group of manufacturing workers near Harrisburg and blasted Toomey for supporting policies that Sestak says moved jobs overseas and led to widespread job losses in the state. Toomey, in turn, told reporters last week that Sestak repeatedly voted for financial bailouts that hindered the recovery and claimed that Sestak was trying to rewrite his voting record on economic policies.

If recent rhetoric on the campaign trail is any indication, Toomey will likely try to portray Sestak as an out-of-touch Washington, DC bureaucrat in Wednesday's debate, while Sestak will likely focus on Toomey's economic positions and also emphasize his own military career as a three-star admiral in the U.S. Navy.

With the election just two weeks away, Wednesday's debate promises to be heated - in such a close race, every sentence counts.