GREENWOOD, S.C. -- John Edwards was heading home last night.

On his bus tour of the small towns of rural South Carolina, the last stop of the evening was scheduled for Seneca, the mill town where he was born -- where, he has told many audiences, his father had to borrow money to bring him home from the hospital.

"I do understand your way of life," the millionaire trial lawyer yesterday told an audience of about 600 crammed into the Lander University auditorium in Greenwood. "When the fights get tough -- and there are tough fights in front of us to do what needs to be done in this country -- when the fights get tough, you need someone who understands you and will not forget you, because you have been forgotten too often."

The former North Carolina senator, who has been campaigning for president for much of the last six years, won South Carolina's Democratic primary four years ago. But, two days before tomorrow's Democratic vote, he found himself well behind in the polls -- the chances of a victory to lift his campaign slipping away.

He had a surprisingly strong second-place showing in the 2004 Iowa caucuses and another strong second-place there earlier this month. Four years ago, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democrats' presidential nominee, chose him as his running mate. But this year, Mr. Kerry came to South Carolina to endorse his rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Mr. Edwards is a gifted stump speaker, regularly displaying the eloquence and empathy that made him wealthy as a lawyer. His second presidential campaign was built on a foundation of substantive policy proposals.

He was the first Democrat to offer a detailed plan to reform the nation's health care system. He was the first of the major Democratic contenders to propose a detailed environmental program. His outspoken wife, Elizabeth, has repeatedly contended that Mr. Edwards was driving the issues in this race, but getting little reward for it -- particularly from reporters more focused on his better-funded rivals, Mr. Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. Edwards wooed and won a large share of the labor movement with years of support for workers rights and an emphasis on the moral imperative of ending poverty in America. Ignoring the polls, the South Carolina chapter of the Communication Workers of America added their endorsement to his roster of labor support this week.

"I would say a lot of the strong Democrats are split between Obama and Clinton," Elaine Gentry, who chairs the Greenwood County Democratic Party, said of Mr. Edwards' chances in this rural region near the state's western border. "Some of the more independent types are leaning toward Edwards. But, being such an unusual thing -- a woman and an African American -- they kind of sucked all the oxygen out of the room."

Mr. Edwards has crept up in recent statewide polls, but remains a distant third. In a Zogby poll released yesterday that was conducted for Reuters News Service and C-Span cable television, Mr. Obama had the support of 39 percent of those expected to vote in the state's Democratic primary, with 24 percent for Mrs. Clinton and 19 percent for Mr. Edwards.

While not an encouraging number, Mr. Edwards' showing was actually a 4 percentage-point improvement over his standing in the previous Zogby survey.

"I recognize that I am the underdog candidate," he said yesterday. "I know that. I'm not the guy with 100-plus million dollars. I'm not the glitzy, glamorous candidate, I get that, too."

Most of the interviews in the new poll were conducted after Monday night's Democratic debate in Myrtle Beach, in which Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama clashed repeatedly, while Mr. Edwards managed to stay above the fray and won generally strong reviews. Mr. Edwards has repeatedly referred to the debate performances since then. He did again yesterday, casting himself as the "only grown-up" on the stage.

In a conference call with reporters after the debate, Mr. Edwards suggested that such forums were especially important for his flagging candidacy, because they give him an opportunity to overcome a hardening media perception that the Democratic contest has evolved into a two-person race.

Asked to cite the key to lifting his campaign to the same tier as his two rivals, he said, "The key is for me to be heard; it's really that simple."

He was heard yesterday, and by a receptive audience, but one that is dwarfed by the audiences that his two rivals are reaching with media purchases far greater than his.

His message remains a populist call to change the country by ending the disproportionate public policy voice of the wealthy and the well-connected.

"This is very personal to me. NAFTA's a trade deal that's killed the economy in South Carolina," he said. "No one has to explain that to me. I don't have to read it in a book. I saw it happen to the people who worked in the mills with my father. ... This has got to stop. We've got to stop the bleeding of American jobs."

Accompanying him on the small-town swing was James Lowe, the subject of an outraged anecdote that Mr. Edwards has recounted through Iowa, New Hampshire and other places. Mr. Lowe was not able to speak for the first 50 years of his life due to a severe cleft palate, a disability he was never able to correct, Mr. Edwards said, because he didn't have health insurance. Finally, through donated medical care, he got the operation he needed to allow him to speak.

"For 50 years? In America?" Mr. Edwards has exclaimed again and again in telling Mr. Lowe's story. "James finally got his voice back, and it's time for you to get your voice back," he told his Greenwood audience yesterday. "This is a great struggle for the middle class, a great fight and struggle to lift families who are living in low-income areas into the middle class."

Senior Edwards campaign strategist Joe Trippi echoed his candidate's contention that his greatest challenge has been news media increasingly disinclined to pay attention to him. But Mr. Trippi insisted that a defeat in South Carolina, a state once seen as fertile ground for its native son, would not mean his campaign's end. "We keep going," he said in an interview over the weekend.

Mr. Trippi said Mr. Edwards could reasonably expect to do well in a number of states including Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Virginia and West Virginia. "And we can go in and win delegates in a lot of states, including California," he said. "If this turns out to be a long race, you might see someone charging at the end."

Mr. Edwards will greet the returns tomorrow night at Jillians, a popular restaurant in Columbia's Vista district, a gentrified neighborhood of restored warehouses and railroad buildings. He celebrated in the same spot in 2004 when he won South Carolina.

Barring an implosion by one of his better-funded rivals, that night four years ago may be remembered as the high water mark of Mr. Edwards' long quest for the presidency.