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RALEIGH (AP) - Returning to a state he'd love to win - but may not necessarily need - to become president, Democratic nominee Barack Obama told a North Carolina crowd Wednesday he wants their help to bring change "in this defining moment in history."

"In six days, we can give this country the change we need," Obama said to an estimated 25,000 people on the grassy Halifax Mall, surrounded by government buildings where more even state workers watched from windows.

"That's how we'll change this country - with your help," he said, urging people to vote early and to tell their friends to do the same. "And that's why Raleigh we cannot afford to slow down or sit back or let up one day, one minute, one second in this last week."

Many of the crowd came for a taste of history - Obama could become America's first black president and if he won North Carolina, would be the first Democrat to gain the state's electoral votes since 1976.

This was the third time that retired grocer Limous Brown, 78, had seen Obama in Raleigh this year. In 1936, his grandfather told him there will one day be a black president, but he laughed at the idea.

"I've been waiting 78 years for this," said Brown, who is black. "I can't hardly take it."

It was Obama's seventh visit since the primary to North Carolina, a state that turned competitive after the Illinois senator capitalized on his decisive victory over Hillary Clinton in May.

An Associated Press-GfK poll released Wednesday showed the race too close to call, with Obama receiving 48 percent of the support among survey participants, compared to 46 percent for Republican nominee John McCain.

But with similar AP polls in other battleground states showing him ahead or tied, a North Carolina victory may not be needed to win the White House.

A boom in Democratic registrations and one million new residents to the state since 2000 has made the state winnable for Obama even though President Bush twice won here by double-digit margins.

Obama spent several days before the second presidential debate prepping in Asheville. The senator seemed comfortable with the Raleigh crowd, tossing water bottles from his lectern on two occasions after rally participants fainted.

"He seems like's the right person for this moment of history," said Linda Dejongh, 67, of Chapel Hill, who attended with 34-year-old daughter Vanessa.

In advance of his 30-minute prime-time infomercial to run on network and cable television Wednesday night, Obama hit McCain hard, arguing that the Arizona senator's health care plan could leave millions more uninsured and that he would keep in place President Bush's tax cuts for the highest wage-earners.

"When it comes to the central issue of this election, the plain truth is that John McCain has stood with the president every step of the way," Obama said. "He hasn't been a maverick, he's been a sidekick."

State Republican Party chairman Linda Daves said that Obama's tax plan, which includes letting the Bush tax cuts expire, will penalize successful small business owners and redistribute wealth.

Republican "priorities are encouraging American innovation and ingenuity, rewarding hard work, and keeping more of our own money," Daves said.

"Obama's priorities are finding more ways to take our money and decide how best he can spend it for us."

But politics took a back seat for others in attendance Wednesday.

"Anything that can bring people so many people from so many walks of life under one cause, it's something different," said Fred Brewington, 40, of Goldsboro, who waited in a line that snaked its way around the Legislative Building and the state government complex.

"No matter which side you vote on, you're part of history."