President Bush has pulled even or slightly ahead of Sen. John Kerry in two polls of Pennsylvania voters, but he has lost his post-convention bounce and slipped into a dead heat nationally, another poll shows.

A Quinnipiac University poll of likely Pennsylvania voters, released today, puts the Republican president at 49 percent and the Democratic challenger at 48 percent. Among a larger survey of registered voters, Bush opens up a slight lead: 47 percent to 44 percent for Kerry.

Last month, the Quinnipiac poll showed Kerry leading Bush, 47 to 42 percent.

Similarly, an ABC News survey of likely state voters yesterday showed Bush and Kerry running neck-and-neck: 49 percent to 48 percent, respectively.

The ABC News poll also indicated that Bush's team appears to be outhustling the Kerry camp in the state. One in five registered Pennsylvania voters reported being contacted for support by the Bush campaign, compared to 14 percent who said they had heard from Kerry's workers.

Quinnipiac Polling Institute assistant director Clay F. Richards said Bush appears to still be riding a post-convention surge that resonated with Keystone Staters.

"The numbers show that clearly the GOP and the president hammered home the message that he is a stronger leader with a clearer vision of where he wants to take this country in the next four years," Richards said.

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 430,000 ballots in Pennsylvania, which Bush lost in 2000 by just over 204,000 votes. But since he took office, Bush has visited Pennsylvania 36 times -- more than any other state. Kerry has made 17 campaign trips to the state since March 2003, and owns a home in suburban Pittsburgh with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.

Twenty-one electoral votes are at stake in Pennsylvania, making it the nation's fifth-largest prize on Nov. 2 -- and the second largest presidential battleground state this election.

The ABC News poll showed Kerry leads Bush in so-called "kitchen table" election issues in Pennsylvania, such as jobs, health care and education. Registered state voters said Kerry would do a better job than Bush in helping the middle class, 52 percent to 40 percent, and creating jobs, 50 percent to 40 percent.

But voters said they trusted Bush more to handle terrorism, 54 percent to Kerry's 38 percent; the situation in Iraq, 49 percent to 43 percent; and taxes, 47 percent to 44 percent.

Moreover, voters overwhelmingly said Bush has a clearer stand on the issues, is a strong leader and will make the country safer. But they believe Kerry will better understand their problems.

The Quinnipiac survey showed similar results, although it indicated that more voters -- 48 percent to 43 percent -- believe Bush's moral values are closer to their own than Kerry's.

Further down the Pennsylvania ballot, Republican Sen. Arlen Specter holds a commanding lead over Democratic challenger Rep. Joe Hoeffel among likely voters.

The ABC News poll put support for Specter 55 percent with 38 percent for Hoeffel. Nearly a third of Kerry's supporters indicated that they would cross party lines to vote for the moderate four-term senator, compared to 13 percent of Bush backers who support Hoeffel, the poll indicated.

Likewise, Specter leads Hoeffel in the Quinnipiac poll, 51 to 33 percent.

The Quinnipiac poll of 1,205 Pennsylvania registered voters -- including 792 likely voters -- was conducted Saturday through Tuesday. The ABC News telephone poll of 960 registered voters -- including 755 likely voters -- was conducted Sept. last Thursday through Sunday.

Both surveys have a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points among likely voters, and plus or minus 3 percentage points among registered voters.

While things were looking up for the president in Pennsylvania, the opposite was true in a nationwide poll.

The GOP convention gave Bush a double-digit lead, but the race has settled into a virtual tie with voters still worried about the economy and Iraq, according to polling by the Pew Research Center.

The first of two national polls by Pew, done Sept. 8 through Friday, reflected the president's post-convention bounce. Bush was ahead of Democrat John Kerry 52-40 among registered voters and by an even wider margin, 54-39, among likely voters, a narrower group.

By the second poll, done Saturday through Tuesday, the Bush lead had evaporated. In that poll, Bush and Kerry were knotted at 46 percent among registered voters. Among likely voters, Bush was at 47 percent and Kerry at 46 percent.

"There is a great deal of instability and uncertainty in the electorate," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. "This poll finds a lot of the positive impact Bush had in the convention remains. But Bush's vulnerabilities on Iraq and the economy continue, and these have anchored the race."

After the Republican convention and its well-orchestrated criticism of Kerry, Bush grabbed a lead ranging from 5 points to 11 points in various national polls. That lead appeared to be shrinking in some polls by late last week.

"This gives Kerry an opportunity to stay in the hunt," said Kohut. "Some of the negatives that Kerry accumulated during the Republican convention have worn away."

Kerry's unfavorable ratings increased after the GOP convention but dropped slightly between the two waves of the poll. Fewer voters in the second poll had an unfavorable view of the Democrat, said Kerry is too quick to change his mind, and believed the risk of terrorism would be higher if he were elected.

Bush continues to hold a commanding lead on who would do the best job of defending the country from terrorists by 58 percent to 31 percent. And he's seen by more as a strong leader.

But people are more likely to disapprove of Bush's handling of the economy and are evenly split on his handling of Iraq. Almost six in 10 said it's not clear what Bush will do about Iraq if he is re-elected.

Two-thirds thought Vice President Dick Cheney went too far when he suggested that if voters "make the wrong choice" on Election Day there is a danger "we'll get hit again" by terrorists.