WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney engaged in frantic get-out-the-vote efforts and made final pleas to voters on Monday in a sprint through battleground states that will determine who wins their agonizingly close White House race.
Both candidates
sought to generate strong turnout from supporters and to sway
independent voters to their side in the last hours of a race that polls
showed was deadlocked nationally. Obama had a slight lead in the eight
or nine battleground states that will decide the race on Tuesday's
Election Day.
The latest
Reuters/Ipsos national poll of likely voters, a daily tracking poll,
gave Obama a slight edge, with 48 percent support compared to Romney's
46 percent. The difference was within the 3.4 percentage point
credibility interval, which allows for statistical variation in
Internet-based polls.
Obama was up 4 percentage points in must-win Ohio,
50 percent to 46 percent, and held slimmer leads in Virginia and
Colorado. Romney led in Florida by 1 percentage point, the poll found.
The president, with a final day itinerary that included
stops in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa, urged voters to stick with him and
trust that his economic policies are working. Traveling with him was
rocker Bruce Springsteen."Ohio, I'm not ready to give up on the fight. I've got a whole lot of fight left in me and I hope you do too," Obama told supporters in Columbus, Ohio.
Romney's final day
included stops in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire. He pledged
that he would handle the economy better than Obama and jabbed his
opponent for blaming Republican predecessor George W. Bush for the weak
economy.
"I won't waste any
time complaining about my predecessor. And I won't spend my time trying
to pass partisan legislation rather than working to help America get
back to work," Romney said in Fairfax, Virginia.
The candidates are
seeking to piece together the 270 Electoral College votes needed for
victory in the state-by-state battle for the presidency. Despite the
close national opinion polls,
Obama has an easier path to victory: If he won the three states he was
visiting on Monday - Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa - then he would likely
carry the day.
OHIO COULD BE DECISIVE
All eyes were on the Midwestern state of Ohio, whose 18
electoral votes could be decisive. Romney, looking for any edge
possible, planned last-second visits on Tuesday to both Ohio and
Pennsylvania, aides said.Visits to the areas around Cleveland and Pittsburgh would be aimed at driving turnout. And the Pittsburgh stop could be as much about Ohio as Pennsylvania, since many in eastern Ohio watch Pittsburgh television.
Romney's path to
the White House becomes much harder should he lose Ohio. The state has
been leaning toward Obama - its unemployment rate is lower than the 7.9
percent national average and its heavy dependence on auto-related jobs
meant the bailout to auto companies that Obama pursued in 2009 is
popular.
Both campaigns
expressed confidence that their candidate would win, and there were
enough polls to bolster either view.
There were clear
signs that Obama held an edge. A CNN/ORC poll, for instance, showed him
up in Ohio by 50 percent to 47 percent.
The close margins
in state and national polls suggested the possibility of a cliffhanger
that could be decided by which side has the best turnout operation and
gets its voters to the polls.
CHALLENGES AHEAD
Whoever wins will
have a host of challenges to confront. The top priority will be the
looming "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases that would
begin with the new year.
The balance of
power in Congress also will be at stake on Tuesday, with Obama's
Democrats now expected to narrowly hold their Senate majority and
Romney's Republicans favored to retain control of the House of
Representatives.
In a race where the
two candidates and their party allies raised a combined $2 billion, the
most in U.S. history, both sides have pounded the heavily contested
battleground states with an unprecedented barrage of ads.
(Additional
reporting by Jeff Mason and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell,
Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman)
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