In the final weeks of the Democratic presidential race, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama venture into states where their ability to connect with blue-collar voters will be more important than ever.

Voting next month are hard-pressed Appalachian states like Kentucky and West Virginia. They are a far cry from New Jersey and California, where Clinton dominated, or Maryland and Virginia, where Obama took home the gold.

All seven remaining states on the primary calendar fall below the U.S. average for household income. The average in West Virginia is the second lowest in the country.

Obama -- who consistently loses white, working class voters to Clinton -- is putting particular focus on showing his down-to-earth side. He's still beating back charges of elitism that surfaced after he told a group of wealthy donors that small-town voters "cling" to religion and guns out of bitterness over economic problems.

"I think one of the things that we're going to have to do during the next several weeks is just remind people of where I come from," Obama said Friday in Indianapolis, noting that "pot roast and potatoes and Jell-O molds" were fixtures at his family's dinner table. "I was raised with far fewer advantages than either of my two remaining opponents."

After nursing a Yuengling beer at a sports bar and bowling (poorly) in central Pennsylvania before that primary, Obama played a game of pick-up hoops Friday night in Kokomo, Ind.

Donning sweat pants and a gray U.S. Marine Corps T-Shirt, Obama entered a 3-on-3 game with some local high schoolers and a WNBA player. The Illinois senator scored four baskets, including a three-pointer. His team won 15-5.

If the two candidates charge all the way to the end of the primary calendar, June 3, these scenes could become more and more frequent.

Obama is a Harvard-trained lawyer. Clinton went to Yale. Both pitch their economic message to middle America, but it's often Obama who attracts college-educated, affluent voters and Clinton who pulls the working class.

The Obama campaign has given mixed messages about its intentions for going after that voting bloc. In the Pennsylvania primary, which Obama lost, exit polls showed 54 percent of voters whose family income was less that $50,000 went with Clinton, while 46 percent went with Obama. Rural and small-city voters overwhelmingly went with Clinton, while big-city voters backed Obama.

His strategist David Axelrod told NPR on Thursday that voting bloc is practically written off for Democrats in a general election.

"The white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections going back to even to the Clinton years," he said. "And so this is not new that Democratic candidates don't rely solely on those votes."

Obama himself disputes there's a problem. He said Friday he's confident at least the white, working class Democrats will stay true to their party in November if he's the nominee, and added: "I don't think that there's a huge difference between black working class, white working class, suburban, urban, rural."

He said Wednesday in New Albany, Ind., that he's got a senior problem -- not a blue-collar problem.

"If you look at the numbers, in fact the problem has less to do with white working class voters, in fact the problem is ... to the extent there is a problem is that older voters are very loyal to Senator Clinton," he said. "And I think part of that is they've got a track record of voting for not just Senator Clinton but also her husband."

Obama did slightly better among working-class voters in Pennsylvania than Ohio. And indeed, seniors broke for Clinton in the Keystone State by a margin of 63-to-37 percent.

Obama still carries black voters by a margin of about 9-to-1, which has been a key boost for him in many elections.

Obama was swinging through Indiana industrial bastions Marion and Anderson Saturday, sounding core economic themes, and pledging to offer voters a message that transcends traditional party lines, arguing that motivated his bid for the nomination. Obama continued to emphasize soaring gas prices that are pinching working families.

As for Clinton, she's pressed her working-class pitch to voters across Indiana, which is shaping up to be the key battleground when the candidates next meet May 6. Polls show the state is a tossup, while Obama is leading handily in North Carolina, which votes the same day.

Clinton is focused in eastern Indiana along the Ohio border in industrial pockets as well, seeking to build a coalition of working-class voters similar to the one that served her well in Ohio.

Campaign aides say their strategy, at least in Indiana, is for Clinton to campaign in working-class towns while her husband hits rural areas. They say Clinton will even press in city areas like Gary and Indianapolis, which have higher black populations and are more likely to favor Obama.

Attracting some taunting from Obama, Clinton very visibly downed a shot and a beer while meeting Indiana voters a couple weeks ago.

Spokesman Jay Carson said Obama's assertion that he's better positioned in the general election with working-class voters is just wrong.

Clinton spoke Friday in Gary, Ind., about the value of the steel industry and called herself a "fighter for the American people and the American middle class."

FOX News' Aaron Bruns and Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.