President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney both set out on four-state campaign marathons Sunday morning, as a batch of new polls showed Obama holding on to slim leads in a handful of states that could swing the election.
Obama left Washington on Sunday morning for the last time before election day. His itinerary for the second-to-last day of a seemingly endless campaign: New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio, Colorado.
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Your Election Day preview: See how all the major races across the country are unfolding.
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THE FIX | Strategists in both parties say the contest is moving in Obama’s direction.
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That’s on track to top figures from four years ago, and the secretary of state said voting has gone “smoothly.”
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Officials in affected states are scrambling to adjust Election Day logistics.
In Concord, N.H., Obama appeared with former President Bill Clinton before a crowd of 14,000 at the state capitol. Obama took the stage after Clinton, and told the crowd that during Clinton’s presidency “a Senate candidate named Mitt Romney said Bill Clinton’s plan would hurt the economy and kill jobs,” Obama said.
“Turns out his math was as bad then as it is now,” Obama said.
Romney’s Sunday swing will take him to Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The challenger held his first event Sunday morning in Des Moines, returning to a state where Romney has campaigned heavily in two election cycles, but has always remained just out of his reach.
“Talk is cheap, but a record is real and it’s earned with real effort,” Romney told a boisterous crowd of 4,000 at the Hy-Vee Hall in downtown Des Moines. He reprised a common stump-speech appeal, asking his supporters to reach out to friends and neighbors who may still be undecided. “You can’t measure change in speeches. You measure change in achievements,” Romney said.
With the election looming on Tuesday, new polls seemed to reinforce the consensus that while the country at large remains evenly divided between the two men, Obama holds an advantage in the states that could shift the Electoral College.
In Iowa, the state that Romney was courting, a Des Moines Register poll released Saturday gave Obama a five-point edge, 47 percent to 42 percent. That mirrored a different poll from Thursday, that showed Obama leading in Iowa, 50 to 44 percent.
In Ohio—the most battled-over swing state of them all—the Columbus Dispatch newspaper released a mail survey conducted over the past fortnight, which showed Obama at 50 percent and Romney at 48.
Three other independent polls released in the past week found Obama ahead by two to six points in Ohio. In two of those cases, however, his lead was within the poll’s margin of error.
There was better news for Romney out of New Hampshire, where a WMUR Granite State Poll released Saturday found Obama and Romney tied. The same poll showed Obama with a nine-point lead in October.
And in Florida, there was good news for both sides--and confusing news for anybody else trying to make sense of the state’s political leanings.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Saturday showed Obama with a statistically insignificant 49 to 47 advantage over Romney. But a Mason Dixon poll conducted at the same time found Romney edging Obama 51 to 45 percent. The two polls use different methods to contact voters, and disagreed with each in October as well.
Overall, the news was still good for Obama, who probably needs just a handful of key swing states to win: Ohio, Iowa and New Hampshire. Or just Ohio and Wisconsin. Or just Florida, and none of the rest.
“We think we’re closing with strong momentum,” Obama adviser David Plouffe said Sunday morning on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “I‘m confident, two days from now, the president will be reelected. We have the support to win this election.”
But senior Romney adviser Ed Gillespie, on the same show, said that Romney was working to expand the electoral map at this late hour. That would mean making up for Obama’s success in battleground states by creating new battlegrounds, in states like Pennsylvania, that had seemed solidly for Obama.
“When you look at where this map has gone, it reflects the change in the direction and the momentum toward Governor Romney. And the fact is that, a state like Pennsylvania being in play.
Obama left Washington on Sunday morning for the last time before election day. His itinerary for the second-to-last day of a seemingly endless campaign: New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio, Colorado.
Graphic
Explore the 2012 electoral map and view historical results and demographics
More from PostPolitics
Your Election Day preview: See how all the major races across the country are unfolding.Chris Cillizza THE FIX | Strategists in both parties say the contest is moving in Obama’s direction.
Ed O'Keefe That’s on track to top figures from four years ago, and the secretary of state said voting has gone “smoothly.”
Natalie Jennings Officials in affected states are scrambling to adjust Election Day logistics.
In Concord, N.H., Obama appeared with former President Bill Clinton before a crowd of 14,000 at the state capitol. Obama took the stage after Clinton, and told the crowd that during Clinton’s presidency “a Senate candidate named Mitt Romney said Bill Clinton’s plan would hurt the economy and kill jobs,” Obama said.
“Turns out his math was as bad then as it is now,” Obama said.
Romney’s Sunday swing will take him to Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The challenger held his first event Sunday morning in Des Moines, returning to a state where Romney has campaigned heavily in two election cycles, but has always remained just out of his reach.
“Talk is cheap, but a record is real and it’s earned with real effort,” Romney told a boisterous crowd of 4,000 at the Hy-Vee Hall in downtown Des Moines. He reprised a common stump-speech appeal, asking his supporters to reach out to friends and neighbors who may still be undecided. “You can’t measure change in speeches. You measure change in achievements,” Romney said.
With the election looming on Tuesday, new polls seemed to reinforce the consensus that while the country at large remains evenly divided between the two men, Obama holds an advantage in the states that could shift the Electoral College.
In Iowa, the state that Romney was courting, a Des Moines Register poll released Saturday gave Obama a five-point edge, 47 percent to 42 percent. That mirrored a different poll from Thursday, that showed Obama leading in Iowa, 50 to 44 percent.
In Ohio—the most battled-over swing state of them all—the Columbus Dispatch newspaper released a mail survey conducted over the past fortnight, which showed Obama at 50 percent and Romney at 48.
Three other independent polls released in the past week found Obama ahead by two to six points in Ohio. In two of those cases, however, his lead was within the poll’s margin of error.
There was better news for Romney out of New Hampshire, where a WMUR Granite State Poll released Saturday found Obama and Romney tied. The same poll showed Obama with a nine-point lead in October.
And in Florida, there was good news for both sides--and confusing news for anybody else trying to make sense of the state’s political leanings.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Saturday showed Obama with a statistically insignificant 49 to 47 advantage over Romney. But a Mason Dixon poll conducted at the same time found Romney edging Obama 51 to 45 percent. The two polls use different methods to contact voters, and disagreed with each in October as well.
Overall, the news was still good for Obama, who probably needs just a handful of key swing states to win: Ohio, Iowa and New Hampshire. Or just Ohio and Wisconsin. Or just Florida, and none of the rest.
“We think we’re closing with strong momentum,” Obama adviser David Plouffe said Sunday morning on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “I‘m confident, two days from now, the president will be reelected. We have the support to win this election.”
But senior Romney adviser Ed Gillespie, on the same show, said that Romney was working to expand the electoral map at this late hour. That would mean making up for Obama’s success in battleground states by creating new battlegrounds, in states like Pennsylvania, that had seemed solidly for Obama.
“When you look at where this map has gone, it reflects the change in the direction and the momentum toward Governor Romney. And the fact is that, a state like Pennsylvania being in play.