Obama and Romney will each visit several key battleground states; latest polls show Obama leading in many of them.
The latest state-level polls have not been encouraging for Romney: They show Obama leading key battlegrounds [Reuters]
US president Barack Obama and his Republican
challenger Mitt Romney launched into their final day of campaigning on
Monday, hours ahead of a close election which polls nonetheless suggest
will tip in Obama's favour.Both candidates planned to barnstorm through a handful of key "swing states," as they have for the past few weeks.
Romney started his day in the central Florida city of Sanford, and planned to stop in Virginia and Ohio before a final rally in New Hampshire.
"Tomorrow we begin a new tomorrow," Romney said at his Florida rally. "This nation is going to begin to change for the better tomorrow. Your work is making a difference."
Obama's first appearance was a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, a college town and liberal stronghold. From there he would travel to Iowa, and then to a final event in Ohio.
The two men both enlisted some celebrities for their final performances: Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z will headline Obama's event, while Romney's will feature Kid Rock and the Marshall Tucker Band, a country music group.
Both campaigns held a total of 14 events yesterday across eight states, nearly half of them in Ohio.
Obama leading in key states
The last round of national polls were good news for the president. A Pew Research Center poll showed him leading Romney by three points, 48 per cent to 45 per cent. The same poll had them tied last week.
Two other polls showed a closer race: A Washington Post-ABC News poll had Obama leading by one point, 49 per cent to 48 per cent; and a CNN poll had the candidates tied with 49 per cent of the vote.
All three of those results were within the polls' margins of error.
But the popular vote will not decide the outcome. States are apportioned a number of electoral votes based on their population, and the candidate who wins a majority - 270 - becomes president. And the final state polls showed the president leading in most of the crucial swing states.
Surveys in Ohio had him leading by anywhere from three to five points. A victory there would force Romney to win at least six of the remaining eight battleground states, which seems unlikely: Obama led every poll conducted in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Virginia and Wisconsin; Romney's lone bright spot was North Carolina, where he looks poised to win by a narrow margin.
The other two battlegrounds, Colorado and Florida, seem too close to predict, with polls showing a range of possible outcomes.
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