President Obama held a slim advantage in national and battleground polls going into Election Day as the candidates made their last mad dashes across swing-state America and their campaigns braced for a day of intense battle — and the legal fights that may follow.
A Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll showed Obama at 50 percent to Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s 47 percent. That is Obama’s best showing since July and a reversal of the three-percentage-point edge Romney held last month.
Graphic
Explore the 2012 electoral map and view historical results and demographics
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Elsewhere, new polls showed the president up by small margins in Ohio, Virginia and New Hampshire, three states that could determine the election by themselves.
For both campaigns, Monday was filled with the hard work — and the head fakes, rumors and spun-up bravado — that are traditional on an election eve. Volunteers called numbers they’d already called. They rapped on doors they’d already knocked on.
Romney announced that he would campaign into Election Day, visiting Pennsylvania and Ohio, in a gesture of either confidence or concern.
“If anyone wants to know where the energy is — if anyone out there that’s following American politics wants to know where the energy is — just come right here in this room and you’ll see it,” the Republican told a crowd at George Mason University in Fairfax County.
Obama finished his campaign on Monday with rallies in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa. His traveling aides wore fleeces with his 2008 campaign logo and talked confidently of the president’s multiple paths to winning 270 electoral votes a second time.
In Madison, Wis., Obama rallied a crowd of 18,000 in front of the state Capitol, saying the time was nigh for his supporters to help keep him in the White House.
“If you’re willing to work with me again, and knock on some doors with me, make some phone calls for me, turn out for me, we’ll win Wisconsin,” Obama said. “We’ll win this election. We’ll finish what we started.”
In two key swing states, the parties spent Monday battling over voting procedures. In Florida, the state Democratic Party asked a judge to order an extension of early voting, after an early-voting center near Miami shut down temporarily on Sunday with a line outside.
Afterward, Florida Democrats said, election officials in South Florida made it easier to cast in-person absentee ballots. The party said officials in the heavily Democratic counties of Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade were allowing voters to cast absentee ballots Monday.
In Ohio, there were ominous signs that the election might not be settled for days. On Monday, a federal judge there set a hearing for Wednesday to decide how the state should count certain provisional ballots.
These ballots, which are issued to voters whose eligibility is in question, are set aside and counted later. If Ohio’s vote comes down to these ballots, the outcome will be delayed during a 10-day review period.
Early-voting numbers
A look at early-voting data in key swing states seems to show a Democratic advantage — although not nearly as big as the one Obama enjoyed four years ago.
A Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll showed Obama at 50 percent to Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s 47 percent. That is Obama’s best showing since July and a reversal of the three-percentage-point edge Romney held last month.
Graphic
Explore the 2012 electoral map and view historical results and demographics
More from PostPolitics
Jon Cohen, Peyton M. Craighill and Scott Clement THE FIX | Obama hits 50 percent in the final Post-ABC tracking poll before Election Day.
Glenn Kessler
It has been a long and brutish campaign. Here’s a list of the lowlights.
Aaron Blake and Chris Cillizza THE FIX | We break down all of the major races, hour by hour, so you know what to expect and when.
Your Election Day preview: See how all the major races across the country are unfolding.Elsewhere, new polls showed the president up by small margins in Ohio, Virginia and New Hampshire, three states that could determine the election by themselves.
For both campaigns, Monday was filled with the hard work — and the head fakes, rumors and spun-up bravado — that are traditional on an election eve. Volunteers called numbers they’d already called. They rapped on doors they’d already knocked on.
Romney announced that he would campaign into Election Day, visiting Pennsylvania and Ohio, in a gesture of either confidence or concern.
“If anyone wants to know where the energy is — if anyone out there that’s following American politics wants to know where the energy is — just come right here in this room and you’ll see it,” the Republican told a crowd at George Mason University in Fairfax County.
Obama finished his campaign on Monday with rallies in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa. His traveling aides wore fleeces with his 2008 campaign logo and talked confidently of the president’s multiple paths to winning 270 electoral votes a second time.
In Madison, Wis., Obama rallied a crowd of 18,000 in front of the state Capitol, saying the time was nigh for his supporters to help keep him in the White House.
“If you’re willing to work with me again, and knock on some doors with me, make some phone calls for me, turn out for me, we’ll win Wisconsin,” Obama said. “We’ll win this election. We’ll finish what we started.”
In two key swing states, the parties spent Monday battling over voting procedures. In Florida, the state Democratic Party asked a judge to order an extension of early voting, after an early-voting center near Miami shut down temporarily on Sunday with a line outside.
Afterward, Florida Democrats said, election officials in South Florida made it easier to cast in-person absentee ballots. The party said officials in the heavily Democratic counties of Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade were allowing voters to cast absentee ballots Monday.
In Ohio, there were ominous signs that the election might not be settled for days. On Monday, a federal judge there set a hearing for Wednesday to decide how the state should count certain provisional ballots.
These ballots, which are issued to voters whose eligibility is in question, are set aside and counted later. If Ohio’s vote comes down to these ballots, the outcome will be delayed during a 10-day review period.
Early-voting numbers
A look at early-voting data in key swing states seems to show a Democratic advantage — although not nearly as big as the one Obama enjoyed four years ago.