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Tens of millions of Americans head to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to re-elect President Barack Obama or hand the job to Republican Mitt Romney.
The voting ends a hard-fought race that began nearly two years ago and has cost more than $2 billion.
Polls will begin closing in eastern states at 19:00 EST – a winner could be known by midnight.
Polls show the race is neck and neck, although the president holds a slender polling lead in crucial swing states.
National polls by Washington Post/ABC News and the Pew Research Centre both give Barack Obama a three-point edge over his rival.
As many as 30 million voters have already cast their ballots, with more than 30 states allowing either absentee voting or in-person early voting.
On the stroke of midnight, the first votes were cast and quickly counted in the tiny village of Dixville Notch in New Hampshire. They resulted in a tie with five votes each for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Barack Obama has already voted in his adopted hometown of Chicago, becoming the first sitting presidential candidate ever to vote early. Mitt Romney is expected to cast his own ballot in Belmont, Massachusetts, later on Tuesday.
The election is decided by the electoral college. Each state is given a number of electoral votes in rough proportion to its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral votes – by prevailing in the mostly winner-take-all state contests – becomes president.
Tens of millions of Americans head to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to re-elect President Barack Obama or hand the job to Republican Mitt Romney
Also on Tuesday’s ballot are a handful of state governors, one third of the seats in the 100-member US Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
Republicans are expected to keep control of the House, while Democrats were tipped to do the same in the Senate.
The presidential candidates spent Monday frantically criss-crossing the crucial battleground states including Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Virginia, making final appeals to voters. Their task: Push their own supporters to the polls while persuading the sliver of undecided voters to back them.
In speeches, Mitt Romney kept up his attack on Barack Obama’s record, reciting a litany of statistics he says illustrate the president has failed to lift the US economy out of the worst downturn since the Great Depression that followed the stock market crash of 1929.
“If you believe we can do better, if you believe America should be on a better course, if you’re tired of being tired… then I ask you to vote for real change,” Mitt Romney told a rally in a Virginia suburb of the capital, Washington DC.
The president appeared at rallies with singer Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z. He acknowledged frustration with the still-lagging economy but told voters “our work is not done yet”.
“We’ve come too far to turn back now,” the president said in Ohio.
“We’ve come too far to let our hearts grow faint… We’ll finish what we started. We’ll renew those ties that bind us together and reaffirm the spirit that makes the United States of America the greatest nation on Earth.”
With observers anticipating a close race, both sides have readied teams of lawyers for possible legal fights, especially in the critical battleground state of Ohio.
Some analysts fear the election will not be decided on Tuesday night if the state’s vote becomes mired in legal battles.
On Tuesday Mitt Romney is to hit the campaign trail again with events in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cleveland, Ohio, before holding an election night rally in Boston.
Barack Obama will hold his own election night rally at a convention centre in Chicago.
Conservatives feared SEAL Team Six, the film about the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, was an underhanded propaganda ploy by President Barack Obama’s supporters.
But the made-for-TV movie, released two days before the elections, was a flop. When it debuted on Sunday, it was panned by TV critics as a “dim and simple-minded work of fiction” – incapable of swaying even the most ambivalent voters.
SEAL Team Six was produced by one of Barack Obama’s biggest backers in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein, who rushed it forward to ensure it debuted before November 6.
Harvey Weinstein also oversaw editing changes that played up Barack Obama’s role in ordering the May 2011 commando assault into Pakistan that killed the al-Qaeda leader.
Fact-checkers also point out several inaccuracies in the movie – including the idea that then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates opposed going after Osama bin Laden.
SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden was billed as a political game-changer – released just a two days before the dead-even election between Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, conservatives feared it would give the president free propaganda and unfairly sway voters at a critical time.
Barack Obama has campaigned on his role in the death of the 9/11 mastermind – frequently touting: “GM is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead.”
The film casts the president as an “edited-in-costar”, writes Ken Tucker, an Entertainment Weekly film critic.
Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawick panned the movie as suffering the same flaws as most made-for-TV docu-dramas – but he said the film had a clear political objective.
“<<SEAL Team Six>> feels more like propaganda at times than it does prime-time entertainment. Yet it will still leave you with a feel-good surge, if not a lump in your throat, at the end when the team returns from its mission. And that visceral response makes you want to believe even more in the heroic actions you just witnessed. One of those heroes is President Barack Obama,” he wrote.
SEAL Team Six was produced by one of Barack Obama’s biggest backers in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein, who rushed it forward to ensure it debuted before November 6
It splices in several pieces of real-life footage of the president at the time – including footage of him cracking jokes at the White House Correspondents dinner on the eve of the raid, as well as his remarks to the country after Osama bin Laden’s death.
But TV critics say the movie, which aired on National Geographic, fizzled.
“As either propaganda or realist fiction <<SEAL Team Six>> is ineffective. It’s on the level of those <<The army is just like a character-building video game!>> enlistment ads you see before movies, simple-minded and, at most, superficially rousing. Barack Obama probably isn’t wild about help this dim,” writes Willa Paskin of Salon.com.
Ken Tucker said the cheesy banter between the actors playing Navy SEALS sounded like it had been “checked out from a well-preserved World War II supply closet”.
Example: “In this world you don’t get to live free without working for it. You gotta earn it every day, and that day we did,” a commando named Cherry, played by Anson Mount, declares.
Among the other sins in the movie is its unhealthy blend of fact and fiction, critics say. It even gets several key points dead wrong.
It portrays Defense Secretary Robert Gates as opposed to the raid – a role that makes Barack Obama’s decision to attack even more heroic.
However, Robert Gates was initially skeptical of sending commandos into Pakistan because he wasn’t certain bin Laden was actually at the compound in Abbottabad. He later changed his position when it was confirmed the terrorist leader was inside.
The movie also shows a dramatic firefight in the building where Osama bin Laden was killed. Most accounts of the raid say that the only exchange was fire was in a guest house when Osama bin Laden’s courier shot at the SEALs.
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Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have spent the day before the election visiting key swing states and making final pitches to voters.
Mitt Romney went to Florida, where polls suggest he has the edge, and then to Virginia, New Hampshire and Ohio.
President Barack Obama appeared in Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio, joined at rallies by Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z.
The election will be decided in just a handful of states, with Ohio in particular seen as crucial to victory.
Barack Obama closed his re-election campaign in Des Moines, Iowa, – the city where his bid for the presidency began in early 2007.
At a late-night rally, he told the crowd that Iowa had started “a movement that spread across the country”.
Mitt Romney, meanwhile, was due to end his campaign with a late-night rally in New Hampshire but made the surprise announcement that he would extend campaigning into election day itself – visiting Ohio and Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are running almost neck-and-neck in national polls, in a campaign that has cost more than $2 billion.
But surveys of the nine or so battleground states that will determine the election show Barack Obama narrowly ahead.
On the stroke of midnight, the first votes were cast and quickly counted in the tiny village of Dixville Notch in New Hampshire. They resulted in a tie with five votes each for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
The race has been most intense in Ohio – no Republican has ever made it to the White House without winning there.
Mitt Romney would become the first Mormon president of the US if he wins on Tuesday.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have spent the day before the election visiting key swing states and making final pitches to voters
In Fairfax, Virginia just outside Washington DC, the former Massachusetts governor said the president had failed to make good on the promise of his 2008 campaign and it was time for a new direction.
“Look at the record,” he exhorted supporters.
“Talk is cheap, but a record is real and it’s earned with effort. When the president promised change, you can look and see what happened. Four years ago then-candidate Obama promised to do so very much but he’s done so very little.”
He summed up his pitch to voters: “Do you want four more years like the last four years? Or do you want real change?”
In Ohio, Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z helped warm up a crowd for Barack Obama before the president appeared.
“I’ve got a lot of fight left in me and I hope you do,” Barack Obama told the rally, his voice hoarse from nearly non-stop campaigning.
“The folks at the very top in Washington don’t need another champion. They’ll always have a seat at the table. The people who need a champion are the people whose letters I read every day.
“We’ve come too far to turn back now. We’ve come too far to let our hearts grow faint.”
Thirty million Americans have already cast their ballot through early voting across 34 states. In the 2008 presidential election, 130 million people voted.
With the election expected to be decided by a razor-thin margin, both sides are readying teams of lawyers for legal fights.
Democrats in Florida have filed a legal case demanding an extension of time available for early voting, citing unprecedented demand after voters reportedly queued up for hours on Sunday,
In Ohio, Republican election officials were going to court on Monday to defend an 11th-hour directive to local election officials that tightens requirements needed for provisional ballots to be counted.
In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed an order allowing residents to vote at any polling place, not just the one to which they had been assigned.
The city and surrounding areas were devastated by super-storm Sandy last week. Many residents remain without power and many polling places were damaged.
Activists have been stepping up efforts across the crucial swing states.
In Wisconsin, student volunteers have been putting in 14-hour days in an effort to deliver the state for Barack Obama.
Average of national opinion polls shows Barack Obama heading into election day with a single-point lead among likely voters, 49% to 48%.
Mitt Romney remains favored among whites, older people and evangelical Christians; Barack Obama among women, non-whites and young adults.
In the crucial swing state of Ohio, a RealClearPolitics.com average of polls shows Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney 49.6% to 46.6%.
The election is decided by the electoral college. Each state is given a number of electoral votes in rough proportion to its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral votes becomes president.
A handful of governors, the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate are also up for election on Tuesday.
Republicans are expected to keep control of the House, while Democrats were tipped to do the same in the Senate.
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A poll of more than 570,000 people across the globe has revealed non-Americans want Barack Obama to remain President of the United States.
The research, conducted across 36 countries outside the US, revealed 81% were in favor of Barack Obama spending another four years in office.
And only 19% preferred his Republican challenger Mitt Romney, according to the findings from MSN.
Interestingly, the only country that would prefer Mitt Romney as the next President was China – with 52% voting in his favor.
A poll of more than 570,000 people across the globe has revealed non-Americans want Barack Obama to remain President of the United States
Argentina: 83 % Obama, 17 % Romney
Austria: 93 % Obama, 7 % Romney
Belgium: 93 % Obama, 7 % Romney
Brazil: 90 % Obama, 10 % Romney
Canada: 83 % Obama, 17 % Romney
Chile: 80 % Obama, 20 % Romney
China: 48 % Obama, 52 % Romney
Colombia: 77 % Obama, 23 % Romney
Costa Rica: 83 % Obama, 17 % Romney
Finland: 93 % Obama, 7 % Romney
France: 88 % Obama, 12 % Romney
Germany: 92 % Obama, 8 % Romney
Greece: 82 % Obama, 18 % Romney
Hong Kong: 85 % Obama, 15 % Romney
India: 64 % Obama, 36 % Romney
Indonesia: 87 % Obama, 13 % Romney
Ireland: 86 % Obama, 14 % Romney
Italy: 87 % Obama, 13 % Romney
Japan: 75 % Obama, 25 % Romney
Latin America: 79 % Obama, 21 % Romney
Mexico: 88 % Obama, 12 % Romney
Middle East: 79 % Obama, 21 % Romney
Peru: 75 % Obama, 25 % Romney
Philippines: 62 % Obama, 38 % Romney
Poland: 64 % Obama, 36 % Romney
Portugal: 94 % Obama, 6 % Romney
Russia: 73 % Obama, 27 % Romney
Singapore: 82 % Obama, 18 % Romney
South Africa: 68 % Obama, 32 % Romney
Spain: 82 % Obama, 18 % Romney
Sweden: 90 % Obama, 10 % Romney
Taiwan: 69 % Obama, 31 % Romney
Thailand: 65 % Obama, 35 % Romney
Turkey: 73 % Obama, 27 % Romney
UK: 85 % Obama, 15 % Romney
Venezuela: 77 % Obama, 23 % Romney
Mitt Romney’s chances of winning presidential election were boosted today by two polls which gave him a slender lead over Barack Obama.
Polls by Gallup and Rasmussen both gave Mitt Romney 49% of the national vote, ahead of Barack Obama on 48%, flying in the face of other polls which had appeared to show the President in the driving seat over the weekend.
The slim advantage could allow Mitt Romney to snatch victory in the key swing states which he needs to win in order to carry him to the White House.
The odds had appeared to be stacking up against Mitt Romney winning on Tuesday. Among political journalists, campaign reporters and most pollsters, there was a congealing conventional wisdom that President Barack Obama was about to be re-elected, particularly after Hurricane Sandy.
On Sunday, a raft of new national polls from Pew put Barack Obama up three, and NBC/Wall Street Journal, which gave him a one-point advantage. Fox, GWU/Politico and ABC/Washington Post found a tie nationally.
Rasmussen poll released on Monday
The Gallup poll, released at lunchtime on Monday, was the first since the firm suspended operations during Sandy, and showed a small swing to Obama. Its last poll before the hurricane gave Mitt Romney 51% of the vote with the President on 46%.
Both candidates were plunged into frantic activity on the last full day of campaigning before Tuesday’s election.
Gallup poll released on Monday
Barack Obama scheduled appearances in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa alongside A-list celebrities including Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z, while Romney planned a whistle-stop tour of four different swing states – Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire.
The fact that both men included Ohio on their itineraries shows the crucial importance of the state, which both campaigns consider almost indispensable to their victory hopes.
Barack Obama is counting on former President Bill Clinton and Bruce Springsteen, top surrogates for his campaign, to carry his message.
But he also has enlisted an army of A-list performers and public figures – from Lady Gaga to Billie Jean King, from Jay-Z to Crosby, Stills and Nash – to promote his re-election.
The Obama campaign provided a who’s-who of 181 actors, musicians, authors, athletes, mayors, Congress members, and more that fit any and all demographic groups in the president’s target zone.
All are being deployed to carry his message to television and radio in the waning days of a nip-and-tuck campaign.
On Saturday, Stevie Wonder played an unannounced concert for voters waiting in line to vote early in Cleveland.
Stevie Wonder opened a rally for Barack Obama by rocking the arena at the University of Cincinnati with a rendition of Keep on Running.
Stevie Wonder opened a rally for Barack Obama by rocking the arena at the University of Cincinnati with a rendition of Keep on Running
Songwriter John Legend, actor Laurence Fishburne, and congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis from Georgia were among those who went to Ohio to lead a Souls to the Polls effort with local churches.
The list includes some of Hollywood’s big names – Samuel L. Jackson, Anne Hathaway, and Scarlett Johansson – who were talking to Top 40 radio stations.
Samuel L. Jackson and comedian Chris Rock were on stations with primarily African American audiences urging voters to go to the polls Tuesday.
Danny DeVito and members of the FX sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia have canvassed neighborhoods in Wisconsin, made phone calls and visited colleges in the state.
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A national poll of more than 36,000 voters in 27 states forecasts that Barack Obama will win re-election by two percentage points and 303 electoral college votes to Mitt Romney’s 235.
In what it bills as “one of the most extensive polls ever conducted”, British-based YouGov conducted its survey via the internet between October 31stand November 3rd.
The survey included all the battleground states along with the largest states such as New York, California and Texas.
The figures are much more optimistic for Barack Obama than other polls conducted over the weekend.
ABC/Washington Post, Rasmussen, George Washington University/Politico, and Fox News polls all found the race as tied. NBC/Wall Street Journal gave Barack Obama a one-point advantage.
YouGov projects that Barack Obama will win 18 states comfortably, giving him a base of 237 electoral college votes, 33 short of his target. Mitt Romney is projected to win 24 base states, giving him 191 electoral college votes, 79 short of victory.
There are 110 electoral college votes up for grabs in the remaining nine states, with Barack Obama needing to win just under a third of them and Mitt Romney needing almost three-quarters of them.
But Peter Kellner, president of YouGov, hedged his bets by saying that “while the President looks set for re-election, a Romney victory cannot be ruled out”.
Such an outcome, however, “would need YouGov’s figures – and those of almost all other pollsters – to be systematically wrong”.
Latest national poll shows Barack Obama will win re-election by 2 percentage points and 303 electoral college votes to Mitt Romney’s 235
YouGov identified the following as sources of possible error: a late swing towards Mitt Romney; different turnout to what the pollsters predicted; inaccurate methodology; or response rates that over-represent Barack Obama’s support.
Peter Kelner said: “We are predicting that Obama is going to hang on to the presidency, but by a smaller margin than in 2008. It’s even possible that Obama will narrowly lose the nationwide popular vote and still win the electoral college.
“Mitt Romney could win one million more votes than Obama across American and still lose the election. There have been elections when the winner of the popular vote has lost the Electoral College, most recently in 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote, but still lost the election to George W Bush.
“In such a tight race, no doubt the Democrats are not only concerned about losing the White House, but are also worried about the cloud that could hang over Obama’s second term if he does not win the popular vote. Whatever happens tomorrow, this will undeniably be an historic election.”
Barack Obama maintains a polling edge in all-important Ohio with a 2.8% lead in the RealClearPolitics average. Mitt Romney leads by 1.4% and 0.3% in Florida and Virginia respectively – two swing states he must win if he is to oust Barack Obama.
But the Romney campaign remains strikingly confident that a surge in Republican turnout and a swing among late-deciding voters will put them over the top.
Rich Beeson, Mitt Romney’s political director, told Fox News on Sunday: “There’s an intensity factor out there on the side of the Republicans, that is a significant gap and we see it out on the ground.
“We see it when people are knocking on the doors, we see it when people are making the phone calls and again, it gets back to the simple fact that Governor Romney is out there talking about big things and big change, not about small things.”
There were “two numbers to keep in mind” he said.
“One is independents. Independents are going decide this race in all of these states. Governor Romney consistently leads among independents because they have seen his message, for creating 12 million jobs, real recovery and strengthening the middle class.
“The second number is you’ve got an incumbent president who has been running for this job for the last four years since the day he got elected, will have raised and spent over $1 billion and he is stuck well below 50, at 48, 47, 46, in all of these polls.
“When you’re an incumbent under 50, and well under 50, that’s a bad place to be.”
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie defended his praise for President Barack Obama’s support after Hurricane Sandy, but said he would stick with his Republican ticket and vote for Mitt Romney in this Tuesday’s election.
“The fact of the matter is what New Jerseyans expect from their governor is to work for them, not to work for any particular political party,” Chris Christie told Israel’s Channel 2 television in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
“I’m a Republican and I have endorsed Mitt Romney, I support him and I intend to vote for him on Tuesday,” said Chris Christie, interviewed in his home state by a visiting Israeli television reporter.
Chris Christie, a popular governor widely seen as a possible Republican contender in 2016, had frustrated some in the Romney campaign who feared he had given what could be a critical boost to Barack Obama, a Democrat.
He referred to Barack Obama’s pledge of federal aid during a visit to help New Jersey recover from the storm that knocked out power to some 2.4 million of its residents and said: “If the president of United States comes here and he’s willing to help my people and he does it then I’m gonna say nice things about him because he’s earned it.”
Barack Obama “provided help to my people at one of the worst crises that this state has ever faced”, Chris Christie added.
“When somebody does a good job, they deserve credit.”
“Anybody who is upset in the Republican Party about this, they haven’t been to New Jersey. Come see the destruction, come see the loss.”
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said he would stick with his Republican ticket and vote for Mitt Romney
Chris Christie’s reaffirmation of support for Mitt Romney comes after the typically-brash governor spent a significant amount of time this week praising the President for his handling of the Hurricane Sandy aftermath.
Barack Obama visited New Jersey on Wednesday, taking a helicopter tour of the damaged areas with Christie before walking around the town of Brigantine and talking to survivors.
“I want to thank the president for coming here today [Wednesday, October 31st]. It’s really important to have the president of the United States acknowledge all the suffering that’s going on here in New Jersey and I appreciate it very much.”
Barack Obama returned the kind words, telling the crowds of beleaguered New Jersey residents who had gathered that their Republican governor was “working overtime to make sure that as soon as possible everybody can get back to normal”.
Governor Chris Christie changed his partisan tune after the storm, regularly singing President Barack Obama’s praises in relation to the federal aid given toward disaster relief support.
“The president has been outstanding in this and so have the folks at FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency],” Chris Christie told the Today Show on Tuesday.
He later told news anchor Soledad O’Brien that President Barack Obama “has been incredibly supportive and helpful to our state, and not once did he bring up the election”.
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VP Joe Biden, who has previously misremembered what state and what century he was in, now seems to have forgotten that Barack Obama is the president.
Speaking to a crowd of 1,200 people at a high school in Lakewood, Ohio, Joe Biden was slamming a “pernicious” Mitt Romney ad claiming that Jeep will move jobs out of Ohio to China.
The vice-president said that the ad claimed that “President Clinton bankrupted Chrysler so that Italians could buy it to ship jobs overseas to China”.
Bill Clinton was the 42nd president of the U.S. and left office in January 2001. Barack Obama became the 44th president in January 2009 and for the past nearly 4 years Joe Biden has served as his vice-president.
In Joe Biden’s defence, there was perhaps a Freudian element to the slip. Bill Clinton, who previously enjoyed testy relations with Barack Obama, has been mobilized by the current president to be his most prominent campaigner and the two men made joint appearances in Virginia on Saturday and New Hampshire on Sunday.
Joe Biden’s gaffes are numerous and legendary in political circles. He recently referred to Tim Kaine, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and the current Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Virginia, as “Tom”.
VP Joe Biden, who has previously misremembered what state and what century he was in, now seems to have forgotten that Barack Obama is the president
On a previous stop in Ohio, Joe Biden complained to an audience in the town of Marion about television ads “here in Iowa”. In Danville, Virginia, he declared: “We can win North Carolina!”
In August, Joe Biden asked a Blacksburg, Virginia crowd: “Folks, where’s it written we cannot lead the world in the 20th Century in making automobiles?”
The 20th Century ended on December 31st 1999, nearly 27 years after Joe Biden first took his seat in the U.S. Senate and almost 9 years before he became vice-president.
Last week, Joe Biden joked about his gaffes while at the same time putting a slightly more favorable gloss on his mixing up Ohio and Iowa.
Speaking to campaign volunteers in Davenport, Iowa, Joe Biden said: “I’ve been living in Ohio like I used to live in Iowa. As a matter of fact, I got in trouble [with] the press, which never points out any mistake I make. I was in Ohio talking about it and saying <<it’s good to be here in Ohio>> and then I said <<and in Iowa>>.”
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If President Barack Obama will be out of a job in 48 hours, First Lady Michelle Obama could step into a new career as a chat show host.
TV executives believe Michelle Obama would be a natural to become a talk show host.
Michelle Obama has even been compared to Oprah Winfrey, the queen of chat show hosts and one of the most recognizable names in show business.
“Personally I would like to see her in the White House,” said Hilary Estey McLoughlin., president of syndication company behind the Ellen DeGeneres show.
“But if she were not going to be in the White House, I’d love to see her as the host of a show. She’s amazing.”
And former CNN president Jon Klein agreed that Michelle Obama would be snapped up by TV chiefs if her husband does not win a second term in office.
“Daytime syndicators are desperate for a new voice and she is tailor made for it,” he told TV Guide magazine.
“She’s thoughtful. She’s committed. She’s a working mom. She’d be a strong voice on issues important to her.”
If President Barack Obama will be out of a job in 48 hours, First Lady Michelle Obama could step into a new career as a chat show host
Since moving into the White House Michelle Obama has been one of the most visible of First Ladies with more TV appearances than any other.
Michelle Obama has regularly appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Even The View has been graced by Michelle Obama while her appearance on the Dr. Oz show helped her promote her campaign for healthy eating.
Michelle Obama became the first president’s wife to appear on a reality show when she took part in the Iron Chef series with ingredients from the White House garden being used in food preparation.
Hilary Estey McLoughlin, whose Telepictures Productions syndicates the Ellen DeGeneres show, even talks about Michelle Obama as someone to take over Oprah Winfrey’s crown as chat show queen.
“She reminds me of Oprah Winfrey as someone who has the ability to make people understand complex things in a simple way.”
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The odds appear to be stacking up against Mitt Romney winning the 2012 presidential election on Tuesday.
Among political journalists, campaign reporters and most pollsters, there’s a congealing conventional wisdom that President Barack Obama is about to be re-elected.
On Sunday, new national polls from Pew put Barack Obama up three, and NBC/Wall Street Journal, which gave him a one-point advantage. Fox, Rasmussen, GWU/Politico and ABC/Washington Post finds a tie nationally.
More worrying for Mitt Romney is the state polls, particularly in Ohio, where the RealClearPolitics average has Barack Obama with a lead of 2.8%.
If everything goes Mitt Romney’s way on election day it is possible he could achieve out a victory that would stun Democrats and turn the polling world upside down.
Based on conversations with the Romney campaign, including a frank discussion with a senior Mitt Romney adviser, here’s how they see the Republican nominee winning.
Of course, campaign aides spin reporters because they want their optimistic scenarios to become part of a media narrative that helps drive voters. They are also part of a self-reinforcing campaign bubble in which belief in eventual victory is a prerequisite of getting through grueling days.
But the adviser quoted here, for what it is worth, correctly identified to me weeks beforehand that the first debate would be a game-changing moment for Mitt Romney, has always predicted a very close race and is honest enough to identify states such as Nevada which Romney probably won’t win.
If we look at the 2008 electoral college map, when Barack Obama beat Senator John McCain by an electoral college landslide of 365 to 173 (and seven percentage points in the popular vote), we can view the terrain on which the 2012 contest is being fought.
The distribution of electoral college votes (which are based on congressional districts and U.S. Senate seats) has changed slightly in 2012 to produce this map. Because of the changes, Barack Obama’s advantage has shrunk to 359 to 179 in the electoral college. The winner needs 270 votes. So for Mitt Romney to win, he needs to take 91 electoral college votes from the states that Barack Obama won in 2008.
We can immediately give one vote in Nebraska (based on winning a congressional district) and 11 in Indiana to Mitt Romney. Barack Obama is not campaigning for those. Next up is 15 in North Carolina. Barack Obama won it by just 14,000 votes in 2008 and early voting patterns indicate he’s probably going to lose there.
Then we have Florida – its 29 votes are a huge prize. The latest Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald poll has Barack Obama being crushed by six points there. That’s the next state Mitt Romney needs. The Romney adviser was very confident, saying: “North Carolina’s baked. Florida’s baked.”
From there, it gets more difficult. Virginia, with 13 votes, is tighter than Florida but, again, early voting patterns suggest Mitt Romney will win it, though not by much. The Romney adviser said that “Virginia’s baked” though he added that it was “much closer than Florida”.
At this point, the Obama campaign would be really sweating. But so too would Mitt Romney’s team. We’d be down to Ohio, just as President George W. Bush was in 2004. This year, it has 18 electoral college votes.
If Mitt Romney bags Ohio, he’s on 266 electoral college votes and has multiple opportunities to get the four more he needs. Colorado’s nine, New Hampshire’s four, Iowa’s six and Wisconsin’s 10 look most likely. It’s very hard to see Mitt Romney winning Florida, Virginia and Ohio and Barack Obama keeping the White House.
Mitt Romney’s aides seem very bullish about Iowa – more so, even, than Colorado, where they say he took a hit in their internal polling with women independents after Barack Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy. The latest Des Moines Register poll gives Barack Obama a five-point advantage. But the Romney campaigns that the same poll put Barack Obama up 17 in 2008 and he won the state by 10 points.
How Mitt Romney can still win US presidential election
Privately, the Romney campaign has effectively conceded Nevada, which has six votes.
“Nevada, we’ll probably fall short,” said the Romney adviser.
“That’s just tough.”
Mitt Romney hasn’t travelled there since October 24th, just as Barack Obama has stayed away from North Carolina.
More remarkably, the adviser said that Minnesota, 10 votes, and Pennsylvania, 20 votes, were distinct possibilities. He even predicted a possible win in Minnesota.
Pennsylvania is intriguing. There’s a Susquehanna poll that puts the two candidates dead level. Barack Obama has to be a heavy favorite – no Republican presidential candidate has won there since George H.W. Bush in 1988
But the Obama campaign has sent Bill Clinton to do four events in Pennsylvania on the eve of Election Day. After Barack Obama himself – and perhaps even ahead of Obama – Clinton is their most valuable campaign resource. There is clearly some worry there.
So that’s the electoral college arithmetic. There is not too much difference between the way the two campaigns view it.
The more difficult case to make is how Mitt Romney’s vote is lifted so that on the spectrum of Barack Obama states to capture (the order in terms of confidence seems to be Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Nevada and Michigan) it is a tide that rises above the Ohio threshold.
For that, several things have to happen: the battleground polls have to be wrong; undecideds have to vote for Mitt Romney; Romney’s turnout has to be very high; Barack Obama’s vote has to be depressed.
Can so many polls be wrong? The short answer is yes. It is worth remembering that in January 2008 virtually no one in the political world believed that Hillary Clinton could win the New Hampshire primary over Barack Obama, fresh off his Iowa victory. But win it she did.
This year, apart from Gallup and Rasmussen, pollsters have consistently over-sampled Democrats compared to Republicans.
The Romney adviser said: “The samples that they’re using are geared towards 2008 results. So you get Democrats plus four on Pew, you’ve got Democrats plus eight on PPP.
“It’s going to be a Republican plus one or Republicans plus two election. It’s not 2008, it’s not 2004, it’s not 2000. It’s a new election. It’s 2012 and a completely different dynamic. Every election we re-write history on turnout.
“Gallup looked at it a week ago and decided it was going to be a more Republican electorate and they had it right.”
The closer you get to an election, the more likely undecideds are to break against the incumbent. Mitt Romney will also have voter enthusiasm on his side. Whether that’s enough, remains an open question but the Romney campaign thinks so.
“What’s going on here is when you have intensity and momentum,” said the Romney adviser.
“You ask voters who they’re voting for and they say 48, 47 points Obama. And then you look at the people who are eight, nine,10 on the intensity scale, Republicans have a high single digits to low double digits advantage.
“That’s what you see in the early voting. We keep narrowing the gap of the early vote advantage in some of these states. That trend line goes right into election day when you just don’t want to get in the way of a Republican heading into the polls.”
Certainly, in Florida, North Carolina and Colorado, the early voting evidence is encouraging for Mitt Romney supporters. In Ohio, the picture is more mixed. The Romney adviser predicted a win in Ohio by as little at 20,000 votes. In 2004, George W. Bush won it by 119,00 votes and in 2008 Barack Obama won it by 262,000.
It appears that Mitt Romney was damaged by Hurricane Sandy – he was virtually absent from the television screens for four days, the discussion turned away from jobs and the economy and Barack Obama’s double act with Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey burnished his bipartisan credentials.
But the Romney adviser said that this has been turned around.
“Sandy didn’t flip us with independents but it narrowed. Then on Friday we got back in business with the <<revenge>> ad. Finally, we got back into business.
“Then Mitt just hit it in speech after speech and it got people back, particularly independents. Again saw Obama as divisive, petty, the negative partisan guy that they’d been seeing since the November 2nd debate.”
Can the Romney campaign envisage Barack Obama winning? The adviser responded: “I don’t see it. But his easiest path to that would be Ohio.
“He takes Ohio because Democratic men, hardworking lower middle class men, we don’t get the margin we think we’re getting. He somehow ekes it out. He gets Nevada, he gets Colorado, he gets New Hampshire. That’s probably the scenario.”
The Obama campaign believes that is indeed the scenario that will deliver them the White House. On Tuesday, we will know which of the two very different versions – almost parallel universes – of this race presented by the two campaign worlds will be the one that represents reality.
Rivals Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are approaching the final day of their election battle in a frantic fight for swing state votes.
Each of them spent Sunday addressing crowds across the country, with Mitt Romney speaking in Pennsylvania, a state his aides insist he can now win on Tuesday.
Barack Obama held rallies in New Hampshire and Florida and carried on to Ohio and Colorado in the evening.
Analysts say the election will come down to a handful of swing states.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are running almost neck-and-neck in national polls, but polls of many key battlegrounds show Obama narrowly ahead.
However, neither camp is exuding absolute confidence.
The campaign has been most intense in Ohio, which no Republican has ever lost and still made it to the White House.
On Monday morning, Barack Obama is scheduled to appear in Madison, Wisconsin, accompanied by Bruce Springsteen, before going on to Iowa and Ohio.
Mitt Romney is due in Florida – where polls suggest he is ahead – in Virginia, New Hampshire and Ohio.
A final poll published on Sunday by Ohio’s Columbus Dispatch gave Barack Obama a 2% lead – 50% to 48% – over his rival, within the margin of error.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are approaching the final day of their election battle in a frantic fight for swing state votes
Both candidates visited the Buckeye State on Sunday, with Mitt Romney telling crowds in Cleveland that Barack Obama has failed in his pledge to be a “post-partisan” president and criticizing his record.
“He’s been divisive, blaming, attacking, dividing and – by the way – it’s not only Republicans that he refused to listen to, he also refused to listen to independent voices.”
Later on Sunday he spoke in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, his first visit there in the final stages of the campaign. Democrats say the Romney team’s last-minute decision to campaign in the state is a sign of desperation, but polls do show a tightening race.
“The people of America understand we’re taking back the White House because we’re going to win Pennsylvania,” Mitt Romney told the crowd in Morrisville.
Barack Obama made another appearance in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Stevie Wonder opened a huge evening rally.
Earlier in the day at a rally in Concord, New Hampshire, Barack Obama said: “We have come too far to turn back now.”
He said he would work across party lines to break the political gridlock in Washington, but would not compromise on priorities such as healthcare and college financial aid.
Activists have been stepping up efforts across the crucial swing states.
In Wisconsin, student volunteers have been putting in 14-hour days in an effort to deliver the state for Barack Obama.
An opinion poll on Sunday for ABC News and the Washington Post put the two candidates at 48%, with even voters who term themselves independents split evenly on 46%.
Mitt Romney remains favored among whites, seniors and evangelical Christians; Barack Obama among women, non-whites and young adults.
The president also remains slightly ahead in most of the nine-or-so swing states that will determine the election.
Opinion polls published on Saturday showed him well-placed in Iowa, Nevada and Ohio, but most remain within the polls’ own margins of error.
The election is run using an electoral college. Each state is given a number of votes based on its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral college votes becomes president.
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Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are heading into the final two days of campaigning with the outcome still too close to call.
Republican Mitt Romney will campaign in Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, while Barack Obama heads for New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio and Colorado.
Both candidates addressed large rallies on Saturday in key swing states.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post survey suggests the pair are level with 48% of support.
Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are showing signs of exhaustion as they continue their daily, multiple-state visits to attract any undecided voters in the marginal battleground states that will determine the winner.
Former President Bill Clinton was also suffering as he joined Barack Obama in Virginia, addressing the rally in hoarse tones, saying he had “given my voice in the service of my president”.
Barack Obama told the 24,000 people in Bristow, Virginia, that the planning and organization of his campaign now no longer mattered.
“The power is not with us anymore, the planning, everything we do, it doesn’t matter. It’s all up to you, it’s up to the volunteers… you have got the power. That’s how democracy is supposed to be.”
At Barack Obama’s rally in Milwaukee, pop star Katy Perry, wearing a dress emblazoned with the Democratic slogan “Forward”, helped warm up a 20,000 crowd.
Barack Obama told them not to allow Mitt Romney to return the US to a time when Wall St had “free rein to do whatever” it liked.
Campaigning in New Hampshire on Saturday, Mitt Romney criticized Barack Obama for saying that voting would be their “best revenge” on the Republicans.
“Vote for revenge? Let me tell you what I’d like to tell you: Vote for love of country. It is time we lead America to a better place.”
The latest ABC News-Washington Post survey suggests Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are both level with 48 percent of support
Later, in Colorado Springs, the Republican challenger told supporters that Tuesday’s election would be “a moment to look into the future, and imagine what we can do to put the past four years behind us”.
“We’re that close right now,” he said.
“The door to a brighter future is there.”
The campaigning there has been at its fiercest. No Republican has ever been elected president without first winning Ohio.
But when there has been so much pressure on people to vote early and when all but a tiny fraction of likely voters have made up their mind, how much difference will all this frantic last-minute campaigning have?
An opinion poll on Sunday for ABC News and the Washington Post put the two candidates at 48%, with even voters who term themselves independents split evenly on 46%.
Mitt Romney remains favored in the whites, seniors and evangelical groups; Barack Obama in women, non-whites and young adults.
Barack Obama remains slightly ahead in most of the nine-or-so swing states that will determine the election.
Opinion polls published on Saturday showed him well-placed in Iowa, Nevada and Ohio, but most remain within the polls’ own margins of error.
The election is run using an electoral college. Each state is given a number of votes based on its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral college votes becomes president.
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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was Mitt Romney’s first choice as a running mate before he had a sudden change of heart and dumped him for Paul Ryan.
Chris Christie was miffed by Mitt Romney’s decision, particularly because he was led to believe in the weeks leading up to Paul Ryan’s introduction that he would be joining Romney on the Republican presidential ticket, Politico reported, citing conversations with “campaign insiders”.
Now Republican party bosses suspect Chris Christie’s momentary embrace of Barack Obama during the President’s tour of devastated New Jersey this week was a deliberate snub to Mitt Romney.
Chris Christie was vetted so hard by the Romney campaign in July that even some of Mitt Romney’s top advisers believed the New Jersey governor was the final choice as the Republican vice presidential candidate.
But Mitt Romney changed his mind over the course of two weeks this summer, advisers told Politico, and instead offered the job to Paul Ryan, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin.
Mitt Romney was attracted to Chris Christie for his unfiltered style that has helped turn him into rising star – albeit a controversial one – within the Republican Party.
Chris Christie has a propensity toward swearing, making him a bit of a liability for Mitt Romney, but he also has a knack for appealing to middle class voters, with whom Romney has had a hard time connecting.
Republican party bosses suspect Chris Christie’s momentary embrace of Barack Obama during the President’s tour of devastated New Jersey this week was a deliberate snub to Mitt Romney
At a campaign event for Mitt Romney in Iowa last December, Chris Christie bullied “Occupy” protestors out of a rally, leading Romney supporters to start chanting Christie’s name as they cheered with approval.
“You know what, we’re used to dealing with jokers like this in New Jersey all the time,” Chris Christie shouted at the protesters as they were led out of the rally by Mitt Romney staffers.
“So you guys go all out and chant and do what it is that you want to do.You are so angry, aren’t ya?” Chris Christie badgered.
“It’s so terrible… Oh work it out. Work it all out for yourselves. Work it all out for yourselves.”
In the end, it wasn’t Chris Christie’s bombast that drove Mitt Romney away: It was his disregard for Romney as the man at the top of ticket.
Chris Christie would consistently arrive late at campaign events that he was attending on behalf of Mitt Romney and he would spend the majority of his speaking time on himself, not the Republican presidential candidate.
Mitt Romney advisers began to think that Chris Christie wouldn’t know how to be a “number two” and they suddenly stopped vetting him without explanation just before Romney’s trip to Europe over the summer.
When Mitt Romney returned, he offered the job to Paul Ryan and waited another week to let Chris Christie know, just shortly before announcing his pick publicly.
Chris Christie has since been quietly retaliating against the Romney campaign for his sudden fall from favor, political analysts say.
He made news for his scarce mentions of Mitt Romney during his speech at the Republican National Convention.
“His view was, <<They saw the speech before I gave it. They vetted it. They said it was fine>>,” a Mitt Romney adviser told Politico.
“And the campaign’s view was, <<We told him that we thought there were more opportunities for him to put in stuff about Mitt, and he didn’t take the hint>>. There was a lot of agitation that led to a lot of sarcasm and the kind of comments that people don’t mean, but they kind of do.”
Chris Christie heaped praise on Barack Obama after he was invited onto Air Force One to tour the wreckage left behind by the storm.
“This was as comfortable and relaxed an interaction as I’ve had with the president since I’ve known him,” Chris Christie said.
“And I think it’s ’cause we’re both doing what we wanted to do, which is to get things done.”
Chris Christie said he expected to be criticized for complimenting the president.
“But you know what, I speak the truth,” he said.
“That’s what I always do. Sometimes you guys like it, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes politicians like it, sometimes they don’t. But I say what I feel and what I believe.
“And I’m just doing the same thing with the president of the United States. So, I do pinch myself every day. You know, like when I got on Marine One? I’m pinching myself, believe me.”
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President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney have begun a crucial swing through key battleground states that will determine who wins Tuesday’s vote.
Barack Obama campaigns in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Virginia on Saturday, while Mitt Romney targets New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado.
Both candidates will visit the Iowa town of Dubuque within hours.
Opinion polls suggest the rivals are almost tied, although Barack Obama is slightly ahead in most swing states.
Barack Obama, addressing crowds of Democratic supporters in Mentor, Ohio, said the election was a choice “about two different visions for America: the top down vision that crashed the economy, or a future built on a strong and growing middle class”.
Republican MItt Romney, opening his three-state campaign day in New Hampshire, said: “Let me tell you what I’d like to tell you: Vote for love of country. It is time we lead America to a better place.”
These frantic last days mark a punishing sprint at the end of a long marathon.
On the eve of the election, the pendulum appears to be moving towards Barack Obama, as the opinion polls are not shifting in Mitt Romney’s favor in enough battleground states.
Barack Obama has arguably had the better of the past week, given Friday’s moderately good news on the employment front and the wide praise of his handling of the aftermath of Storm Sandy. He also won the endorsement of independent New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney target key swing states as latest polls suggest they are almost tied
Correspondents say Mitt Romney has the tougher task for victory on Tuesday, as he must win a majority of the nine most keenly contested states.
But Barack Obama’s opinion poll lead in all the swing states is within the margin of error and Tuesday’s vote is likely to be close.
The election is run using an electoral college. Each state is given a number of votes based on its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral college votes becomes president.
Ohio is proving to be a tough battle and, with 18 college votes, could prove a tipping point.
Barack Obama began his Saturday campaigning in the Ohio town of Mentor, while Mitt Romney staged his biggest rally of the campaign so far – 18,000 people – in West Chester on Friday.
Mitt Romney was joined by former primary rivals Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, as well as the defeated 2008 presidential candidate John McCain.
He said: “We’re almost home. One final push will get us there. The door to a brighter future is there, it’s open, it’s waiting for us.”
The Republican, whose main manifesto pledges are lower taxes and a $500 billion federal budget cut by 2012, said Friday’s jobs report was actually a “sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill”.
Barack Obama has held mid-range rallies so far but plans to increase the size over the weekend, when he will be joined by former President Bill Clinton in Virginia on Saturday and in New Hampshire on Sunday.
The president campaigned hard in Ohio on Friday, highlighting his decision to bail out indebted US car makers in 2009, a move that was politically unpopular but which he says helped restore the industry.
Barack Obama’s manifesto sets out tax rises for the wealthy and more funding for job creation.
Mitt Romney has tried to make inroads into Pennsylvania, where opinion polls suggest the Democrats lead by four to five points but which would be a crucial boost to his chances if he could secure its 20 college votes.
The Republican challenger has also wooed Michigan and Minnesota, forcing the Democrats into late advertising there.
Early voting has been a key focus of this presidential election – some 25 million voters have already cast ballots in 34 states and the District of Columbia.
Some states have released the affiliation of early voters, giving Barack Obama an edge in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio, while Mitt Romney is favored in Colorado.
However, the figures suggest Barack Obama does not have the lead he had over John McCain four years ago.
Nevertheless, the Obama team has released data showing that two-thirds of those who have voted early are women, young people, blacks and Hispanics – demographics the Democrats say favor them.
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In an effort to protect the state’s dwindling fuel reserves, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has issued an order restricting motorists in 12 northern counties to buying gas every other day.
Chris Christie says he wants to ease long lines and extended wait times at gas stations and prevent a fuel shortage in the state hard-hit by Superstorm Sandy. Some gas stations closed because of a lack of electricity or gasoline, causing those open to be overburdened with customers.
Prices at the pump have remained steady despite the shortages, AAA said, averaging just below $4 a gallon in New York City, 2 cents lower than last week. However, on Long Island, where only a third of all stations were working, average gasoline prices jumped 5 cents from a day earlier.
But online, Craigslist users started offering gasoline for as much as $15 a gallon to motorists and homeowners not wishing to brave the lines.
It was also revealed that a third day of gasoline “panic buying” among storm-stricken New York area motorists prompted authorities on Friday to tap strategic oil reserves and waive shipping regulations even as limited deliveries resumed in the battered region.
The U.S. government said it will loan 2 million gallons of diesel from the Northeast emergency heating oil reserve to the military for recovery efforts, and waived rules barring foreign-flagged vessels from carrying fuel between U.S. ports in a bid to boost supplies.
Drivers with license plates ending in an even number will be able to buy gas on even-numbered days, and those with plates ending in an odd number can make gas purchases on odd-numbered days.
A Gov. Chris Christie spokesman tells the Star-Ledger newspaper in Newark that there currently are no restrictions on filling gas containers.
New Jersey Gov Chris Christie has issued an order restricting motorists in 12 northern counties to buying gas every other day
Chris Christie’s order comes as President Barack Obama announced buying 22 million gallons of gas to help get residents of some of the areas worst affected by Hurricane Sandy back on the road.
The administration has purchased up to 12 million gallons of unleaded fuel and up to 10 million gallons of diesel fuel that will be distributed in New York and New Jersey to supplement private sector efforts.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday that another 28 million gallons of fuel will be delivered over the next few days.
The Department of Defense will also set up mobile fuel stations around the New York metro area to distribute gasoline, offering only 10 gallons per-person but free of charge.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said on Friday that the President had directed the Defense Logistics Agency to handle the purchase of the fuel.
It will be transported by tanker trucks and distributed throughout the two states and other communities impacted by the storm.
FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said the fuel purchase is part of efforts by governments, private organizations and others to help the region recover from the Superstorm, which left residents queuing at gas stations for a diminishing supply of fuel.
This purchase is in addition to an emergency diesel fuel loan from the Energy Department’s Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve.
Large parts of the tri-state area were left without power for five days after the storm struck and fuel shortages have become even more dire, prompting some opportunist convenience store owners to charge as much as $6 a gallon.
Becoming ever more desperate for fuel, residents have been bickering over their place in the queue at gas stations and even brandishing firearms to get what they need.
Along the New Jersey turnpike cars have lined up for miles in the hope of getting fuel, but gas stations in many outer-borough areas are sealed off with yellow tape.
As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo promises that fuel-starved areas will be getting relief and “people will see it quickly”, these motorists want gas and they want answers.
Earl Lucas, 72, had seen something like it before – in the Seventies when, he said, there was “a real gas shortage”.
He added: “People are angry because the gas is there they just can’t get it. Do you know how to get it? Can you use your influence to get some?
“There were five trucks came in here from a Catholic charity and they got straight through and filled up. Some people can get it.”
A source from the Coast Guard told DNAInfo that two million barrels of petrol were being unloaded in surrounding ports, and tankers are heading into New York Harbor.
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President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney have embarked on a final frenzy of campaigning, four days before the general election.
Barack Obama, the Democratic incumbent, spoke at three events in Ohio, a state that could be decisive in his bid to be elected for a second term.
Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, appeared in Wisconsin before moving on to two events in hotly fought Ohio.
Opinion polls show the two rivals neck and neck on the final stretch.
On Friday, the US Department of Labor said 171,000 new jobs were created in October, which was better than expected.
The figures, the last major economic data to be released before the election, also showed the unemployment rate rose slightly to 7.9% from 7.8%.
On the campaign trail, the candidates framed the race for the White House as a choice between two different visions of America.
“We know what change looks like, and what the governor is offering ain’t it,” Barack Obama told supporters in Ohio.
Speaking soon after the jobs figures were released, Barack Obama added: “We’ve made real progress, but we’ve got more work to do.”
However, Mitt Romney told supporters the report was a “sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill”.
“Candidate Obama promised change, but he couldn’t deliver it. I promise change, but I have a record of achieving it,” the former Massachusetts governor said.
“[Barack Obama] has never led, never worked across the aisle, never truly understood how jobs are created in the economy.”
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have embarked on a final frenzy of campaigning
The vice-presidential candidates were also on the trail.
Democrat Vice-President Joe Biden spent the day campaigning in Wisconsin, while Republican running mate Paul Ryan made stops in Colorado and Iowa before joining Mitt Romney at an event in Ohio.
First Lady Michelle Obama was also on the stump on her husband’s behalf in Virginia.
The frantic pace of campaigning is set to continue over the weekend, with the president scheduled to visit four battleground states – Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin and Virginia – on Saturday alone.
He is then due to appear in New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio and Colorado on Sunday, the penultimate day of canvassing.
Mitt Romney, meanwhile, is heading to New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado on Saturday – three states that his opponent carried in 2008.
The wealthy former businessman finishes his weekend tour with stops in Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania on Sunday.
Correspondents say the fate of the election boils down to what happens in a small handful of states that either candidate could win.
Ohio, with 20 electoral college votes, has been seen by many as the single most critical state of them all.
An opinion poll released on Friday by Rasmussen Reports said the candidates were tied there.
But the RealClearPolitics.com average of Ohio surveys put Barack Obama 2.4 points ahead.
The White House hopefuls were also urging key groups of voters to back them at the ballot box on Tuesday, as a report from the Pew Hispanic Center suggested that about 70% of Latino voters support Barack Obama, over about 20% for Mitt Romney.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama has been urging his supporters to head to their polling stations early.
Last week, the president himself took a break from the campaign trail to cast an early ballot in his hometown of Chicago.
It is estimated about 24 million people have already voted.
Official figures from the Labor Department show the US economy added 171,000 new jobs in October, which was much more than had been expected.
However, the official figures showed that the unemployment rate still rose to 7.9%, having fallen to 7.8% in September, as more workers resumed the search for jobs.
Only people who are currently looking for a job count as unemployed.
Unemployment is one of the key issues ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election.
The figures were the last major set of economic data scheduled before the election and the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, has made the state of the jobs market one of the central planks of his campaign.
“Today’s increase in the unemployment rate is a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill,” Mitt Romney said.
“The jobless rate is higher than it was when President Obama took office, and there are still 23 million Americans struggling for work.”
The number of jobs created in the previous two months was revised upwards, with an extra 34,000 jobs added in September and 50,000 added in August.
Despite the new jobs, Barack Obama will still go to the polls with the highest rate of unemployment of any president seeking re-election since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
But the rise in the rate of unemployment may be seen as a sign of confidence in the economy, because it was caused by people who had given up looking for work returning to the job market, analysts say.
The total workforce, which is the number of people either working or looking for jobs, rose 578,000 in October.
“While more work remains to be done, today’s employment report provides further evidence that the US economy is continuing to heal from the wounds inflicted by the worst downturn since the Great Depression,” said Alan Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in a statement from the White House.
“It is critical that we continue the policies that are building an economy that works for the middle class as we dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession that began in December 2007.”
The Labor Department said in its release that Hurricane Sandy, which hit the East Coast of the US on 29 October, had had “no discernible effect” on the employment data.
The number of involuntary part-time workers, who would prefer to be working full-time, fell 269,000 to 8.3 million, having risen by 582,000 in September.
Kathy Jones from Charles Schwab said they were good numbers, but warned that: “We’re way short of where we need to be to bring down the unemployment rate to where the Federal Reserve would like to see, closer to 6% than 8%.”
“We would need to see twice as many jobs as we’re seeing, but the direction has improved.”
The average number of jobs added per month so far in 2012 has been 157,000, which is slightly ahead of the average of 153,000 in 2011.
The category adding the most jobs in October was professional and business services, followed by healthcare and retailing.
There was also a small increase in employment in the construction sector, which has been helped by a pick-up in house building.
The average working week was 34.4 hours for the fourth month in a row, while the average hourly wage was down one cent at $23.58.
Despite there being signs of momentum in the jobs market, there is great concern in the US about what 2013 will bring.
Whoever wins the presidential election will have to reach a budget agreement with legislators by the end of the year, to prevent $600 billion of tax increases and spending cuts kicking in automatically in 2013.
The measures, known as the fiscal cliff, could take the US back into recession.
There is also some uncertainty about the coming months as a result of Hurricane Sandy.
Many businesses will have their work interrupted by effects of the storms. On the other hand, reconstruction on the East Coast is likely to increase employment in the construction sector.
In New York, the Dow Jones was up 1% in early trading.
Fuel shortages and difficulties in restoring power are hampering efforts to restore normality to parts of the US north-east in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
Fights broke out at petrol stations in New York and New Jersey, and power suppliers warned some areas might not have electricity until November 11th.
Anger is also rising in New York’s Staten Island, with some residents saying they had been forgotten.
More than 90 deaths in the US have now been blamed on Hurricane Sandy.
The cost of the storm to the US is now put at about $50 billion.
Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has endorsed President Barack Obama for next week’s presidential election, saying Storm Sandy had highlighted climate change, and that only one candidate saw this as an “urgent problem”.
Residents and workers of areas affected by Storm Sandy will wake on Friday to continued problems of transportation, lack of electricity and a dearth of fuel.
At many petrol stations there have been long lines of cars and of people carrying jerry cans.
One owner of a fuel station in New Jersey told the New York Times he had been pumping petrol for 36 hours and had to call the police and turn off the pumps temporarily as tempers among customers rose.
There were reports of sharp price increases by some suppliers.
Fuel shortages and difficulties in restoring power are hampering efforts to restore normality to parts of the US north-east in the wake of Hurricane Sandy
Well over half of petrol stations in New Jersey and in New York City remain closed.
Power officials hope to restore electricity to all of Manhattan and more areas on Brooklyn by Saturday, with more underground lines opening.
Train fares remain free on Friday and a ban on cars with fewer than three people inside will stay in place in Manhattan on Friday.
But Consolidated Edison, the power company serving New York, warned that some areas of the city would be blacked out until 11 November.
Almost 45% of customers in New Jersey and some 15% in New York State remain without electricity.
New York West Village resident Rosemarie Zurlo told Associated Press she was abandoning her flat temporarily and heading to Brooklyn: “I’m leaving because I’m freezing. My apartment is ice cold. Everybody’s tired of it.”
Some 19 people are now known to have died in the south-western New York City borough of Staten Island.
The storm swamped the low-lying district with tidal surges, lifting whole houses off their foundations.
Anger is rising there at the delay in bringing aid, with litter piling up and residents poring through the debris of storm-ravaged homes.
James Molinaro, the borough’s president, complained the American Red Cross was “nowhere to be found”.
He said: “We have hundreds of people in shelters. Many of them, when the shelters close, have nowhere to go because their homes are destroyed. These are not homeless people. They’re homeless now.”
One resident, Theresa Connor, told Reuters her neighborhood had been “annihilated”.
“They forgot about us… And Bloomberg said New York is fine. The marathon is on.”
New York City councilman James Oddo said: “If they take one first responder from Staten Island to cover this marathon, I will scream.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and a senior Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official, Richard Serino, will visit the borough on Friday.
Michael Bloomberg defended the decision to hold the race, saying: “This city is a city where we have to go on.”
National Guardsmen and community groups are being deployed in New York and New Jersey amid mounting fears for elderly residents stranded in their homes.
Aid worker Monique George told AP: “In some cases, they hadn’t talked to folks in a few days. They haven’t even seen anybody because the neighbors evacuated.”
In Hoboken, New Jersey, some 20,000 people are still trapped in their homes as floodwaters slowly recede.
Officials warned residents not to walk in water polluted with sewage and chemicals.
Hurricane Sandy arrived on the US Atlantic coast on Monday night, bringing hurricane-strength winds, flooding and blackouts.
The number of dead in the US now exceeds the toll from the Caribbean, where 69 people were killed by Sandy.
Meanwhile, campaigning for Tuesday’s US presidential election – suspended earlier in the week – has fully resumed.
Barack Obama received a boost with the endorsement of Michael Bloomberg.
Of the two candidates, the New York mayor said, “one sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not”.
“I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics.”
Both candidates are now awaiting the final key economic figures to be released before Tuesday’s election.
The US Labor Department will announce the latest job figures at 12:30 GMT, and they may play a key role in the final days of campaigning
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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg – a political independent who has played a prominent role in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy – has delivered a big boost to President Barack Obama by endorsing him for re-election.
Michael Bloomberg, a Democrat who became a Republican to run for Big Apple mayor in 2001 and ran as an Independent for re-election in 2009, said that Hurricane Sandy had helped reshape his thinking about the presidential campaign.
He had been pointedly critical of both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, saying that both men had failed to address properly the problems afflicting the nation.
But Michael Bloomberg said in recent days he had decided that Barack Obama was the best candidate to tackle climate change, which the mayor cited as a contributory factor to the violent storm that took the lives of at least 38 New Yorkers and brought carnage costing billions of dollars.
“The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast – in lost lives, lost homes and lost business – brought the stakes of next Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief,” Michael Bloomberg wrote in an article for his own website Bloomberg View.
“Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it may be – given the devastation it is wreaking – should be enough to compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.”
NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg has delivered a big boost to Barack Obama by endorsing him for re-election
The timing of the endorsement is unexpected because Michael Bloomberg this week publicly called on Barack Obama to resist visiting New York this week because the city was too busy dealing with the disaster.
But his backing is the latest indication that Hurricane Sandy could be a big factor in Tuesday’s election.
Barack Obama has already used it to burnish his bipartisan credentials and a Washington Post/ABC poll found that 80 per cent of voters viewed his actions favorably.
Republicans dismissed the endorsement saying that Michael Bloomberg, as the epitome of the monied east coast elite, would hardly sway voters in the mid-West battleground states.
But there is little doubt that the Romney campaign would dearly have loved to have had the New York mayor’s backing.
Barack Obama said in a statement: “I am honored to have Mayor Bloomberg’s endorsement. I deeply respect him for his leadership in business, philanthropy and government, and appreciate the extraordinary job he’s doing right now, leading New York City through these difficult days.”
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Ten of lesser-spotted things about American presidential politics and about 2012 campaign.
1. Why is Election Day always a Tuesday?
Even though America’s voter turnout is among the lowest in mature democracies and more than a quarter of people who do not vote claim they are too busy, efforts to move elections to weekends have failed.
The Tuesday after the first Monday in November was set as presidential Election Day in 1845.
In the mid-19th Century, the US was an agrarian nation and it simply took a lot of time for farmers to drive the horse and buggy to the nearest polling place.
Saturday was a workday on the farm, travel on Sunday was out, and Wednesday was a market day. That left Tuesday.
2. The sunglasses thing
Politicians are almost never photographed wearing sunglasses, especially during election campaigns and even at leisure.
Barack Obama plays golf with the sun glaring in his eyes, and this summer, Mitt Romney was photographed on the back of a jet ski on a lake in New Hampshire, bare-eyed though his wife Ann wore sunglasses.
If a person’s eyes are hidden, people trust them less, says Parker Geiger, an Atlanta executive image consultant.
“You just don’t get a sense of the individual,” he says.
“There’s no eye contact – that’s how you build trust. Sunglasses put a barrier between you and the other person. They say eyes are the windows of the soul, and if I can’t see your soul how can I trust you?”
3. In Nevada, you can vote for “none of the above”
The US state of Nevada allows voters to mark “None of these candidates” on the ballot.
The option has been on the ballot since 1976 and plenty of voters have used it.
In 2010 after a particularly brutish campaign for a US Senate seat, 2.25% of voters chose “None” rather than pick incumbent Democrat Harry Reid or Republican challenger Sharon Angle. Harry Reid won.
4. Thumb jab
Featured in the three presidential debates were Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and… Obama’s thumb.
At the debates, the president frequently jabbed his hand, with his thumb resting atop a loosely curled fist, to emphasize a point.
The gesture – which might appear unnatural in normal communication – was probably coached into Barack Obama to make him appear more forceful, says body language expert Patti Wood.
“It’s a symbolic weapon,” says Patti Wood, author of Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma.
“Speakers are coached to do it to look strong and mighty and to grab the attention of their audience, and in a political speech to emphasize strong points and to look like you are powerful.”
And on a subconscious level it’s phallic, she says. “It’s sexually male. Men put out their thumb and it says <<I am a man>>.”
Ten of lesser-spotted things about American presidential politics and about 2012 campaign
5. Job titles are for life
Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts for four years – and he left office almost six years ago. Yet he is still addressed as Governor Mitt Romney, as if that were a title of nobility rather than a political office.
The US has only one president at a time, but Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are always referred to as President Clinton and President Bush – even in the same sentence as Barack Obama.
And during the Republican primary campaign, Newt Gingrich was routinely referred to as Mr. Speaker – even though he was the Speaker of the House for four years and left that post nearly 14 years ago.
As odd as it sounds to hear “Presidents Clinton and Obama” from a news presenter’s mouth, the perma-title is acceptable, traditional and appropriate, says Daniel Post Senning, author and spokesman for etiquette arbiter Emily Post Institute.
“It really shows the esteem that we hold those offices in – that this is a democracy, and those are such important positions that it becomes like a professional title,” he says.
“I liken it to when a judge or a doctor retires. They’ve invested a lot in their professional identity and many retain the use of their professional title.”
6. Election loser can still win the White House
Four times in American history, the candidate with fewer votes has wound up with the presidency.
That is because the winner of the presidential election needs to capture a majority of electoral votes, which are apportioned to the states by population and for the most part awarded in winner-take-all state contests.
The national presidential election is effectively 51 separate contests (50 states and Washington DC), with the winner of 270 electoral votes taking the presidency.
Most recently, in 2000 George Bush won half a million votes less than Al Gore but took 271 electoral votes for the victory.
It is entirely conceivable that the person sworn into the White House in January will once again be the man with fewer votes.
One scenario envisioned by analysts – Barack Obama could piece together enough states to win the electoral college and hence the presidency, while Mitt Romney wins populous conservative states like Texas and Georgia by a wide enough margin to take the national popular vote.
7. It could be a dead-heat – with a President Mitt Romney and VP Joe Biden
American politics is at its most partisan and polarized in more than a century, many analysts say. But it could get much, much worse – Mitt Romney could be elected president and Joe Biden re-elected vice-president.
Under the US constitution, if the electoral college (the sum of delegates from each state – 270 and you’re president) ends in a tie – and there are several scenarios under which this could occur – the election is sent to the 435-member House of Representatives.
This is currently Republican-controlled and is unlikely to change hands, so they would choose Mitt Romney.
But under the same clause, the Democrat-led Senate would choose the vice-president – Joe Biden.
Joe Biden might then be tempted to undermine Mitt Romney at every turn.
“A historic tie, which would spur demonstrations that would make the healthcare battle look like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, seems a logical conclusion of the bitter partisan paralysis here and the bottom-feeding campaign,” wrote New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd on Tuesday.
8. Why the obsession with “folks”?
“Folks here in Iowa understand this – you cannot grow this economy from the top down”- Barack Obama, 17 October.
“I know that a lot of folks are struggling” – Mitt Romney, 10 October
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney use the word “folks” far more often than the word is typically heard from the lips of men with their socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.
The word, which finds its origins in the Old English, is in the US historically associated with the South. That’s a stereotypically less-pretentious region that neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney are from.
The word used as such is roughly the same as “people”, but warmer and more inclusive, says Grant Barrett, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang.
“American politics is a southerner’s game,” says Grant Barrett.
“It’s a talker’s game and Southerners are talkers. At the national level we have often been dominated by Southerners.”
9. Only a third of the US matters
On 6 November, the election will effectively be decided by less than a third of the US population.
Most of the states in America, including four of the five most populous, are so solid in their support for the Republicans or the Democrats that the candidates do not bother campaigning there.
Instead, each side chalks up those safe states in their tally and fights over the remaining handful of swing states on their path to 270 electoral votes.
The election is thus decided by the roughly 30% of the US population which lives in the swing states.
For the 70% of Americans who live in California, Texas, Georgia, New York, Illinois and the 35 other safe states, their votes count toward the electoral college total, but they cannot be said to be relevant in deciding the election.
10. In North Dakota, you can vote without registering to vote
The only state where it is not necessary to register in order to vote is North Dakota.
Although it was one of the first states to adopt voter registration in the 19th Century, it abolished it in 1951. The North Dakota State Government website says the move can be explained by the state’s close-knit, rural communities.
“North Dakota’s system of voting, and lack of voter registration, is rooted in its rural character by providing small precincts.
“Establishing relatively small precincts is intended to ensure that election boards know the voters who come to the polls to vote on Election Day and can easily detect those who should not be voting in the precinct.”
People coming to vote must be US citizens over the age of 18, who have lived in the precinct for at least 30 days, says Al Jaeger, the North Dakota Secretary of State. And people still need to produce identification, if they are not known to officials.
“I don’t see any difference with any other states, except that we don’t have voter registration, but it’s the same result. It might be an oddity but it has the same purpose. Our elections have a great deal of integrity.”
President Barack Obama is to resume election campaign which was suspended in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
Barack Obama visited areas of New Jersey struck by the storm on Wednesday.
His Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, has been holding rallies after halting his campaign earlier in the week.
Superstorm Sandy left at least 64 people dead in the US, cut power from millions of homes and paralyzed transport on much of the eastern US seaboard.
The hurricane made landfall on Monday night in New Jersey, where some 20,000 people remain trapped in their homes by sewage-contaminated floodwater.
In New York City, the storm brought a record tidal surge that swamped the subway system and caused widespread blackouts.
Earlier, it killed nearly 70 people in the Caribbean and caused extensive crop destruction in impoverished Haiti.
Barack Obama has planned campaign stops on Thursday in Nevada, Colorado and Wisconsin.
On Wednesday, he toured parts of New Jersey struck by the storm with Republican Governor Chris Christie.
“You guys are in my thoughts and prayers,” the president said during a visit to an emergency shelter in Atlantic City.
“We are going to be here for the long haul.”
Barack Obama toured parts of New Jersey struck by the storm with Republican Governor Chris Christie
Of more than six million homes and businesses across the north-east that still have no electricity, a third of them are in New Jersey.
In the New Jersey city of Hoboken, across the Hudson River from New York City, the National Guard has arrived to evacuate about 20,000 people and distribute meals.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, usually one of barack Obama’s fiercest critics, spoke of his “great working relationship” with the Democratic president.
“I cannot thank the president enough for his personal concern and compassion for the people of our state,” said Chris Christie.
Mitt Romney held two rallies in Florida on Wednesday, where his campaign said he tried to strike a “positive tone”.
Election Day is on 6 November, and polls suggest the candidates are running neck and neck.
Eight out of ten voters in a Washington Post/ABC poll gave Barack Obama an “excellent” or “good” rating for his handling of the emergency.
New York began a slow recovery from the storm on Wednesday.
The New York Stock Exchange reopened on generator power after two days of closure, along with the Nasdaq.
But New York City’s Bellevue Hospital had to order the evacuation of some 500 patients after back-up electricity failed.
A partial subway service is due to begin on Thursday. Many bus services are already back on the roads, and most of the city’s bridges have reopened.
The Holland Tunnel, connecting New Jersey and New York City, remains flooded.
Flights have now resumed at JFK and Newark Liberty airports, though the city’s LaGuardia airport remains closed. Nearly 20,000 flights were grounded by Sandy.
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President Barack Obama is visiting the state of New Jersey, to survey the devastation two days after Hurricane Sandy made landfall nearby.
With Republican Governor Chris Christie, he is to meet rescue workers and residents in Atlantic City.
The massive cyclone killed at least 50 people across the north-eastern US and millions are still without power.
Some businesses and services reopened after a two-day forced closure, and Wall Street is trading again.
President Barack Obama has put campaigning on hold for a third day ahead of next Tuesday’s US election, as he directs the federal response to the storm.
Initial estimates suggest the cost of clearing up after the storm could total as much as $30-40 billion.
New Jersey’s Republican governor has lavishly praised the Democratic president for his leadership.
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney cancelled campaign events during the height of the disaster, but was back on the trail on Wednesday in the crucial swing state of Florida.
Across the north-east, 6.2 million homes and businesses are without power because of the storm, says the US Department of Energy.
New York, which is also counting the cost of Sandy’s trail of destruction, is slowly getting on the move again.
Hurricane Sandy brought a record storm surge of almost 14 ft (4.2 m) to central Manhattan, well above the previous record of 10ft during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the National Weather Service said.
The unprecedented water levels brought blackouts across lower Manhattan and other parts of the city.
President Barack Obama is visiting the state of New Jersey, to survey the devastation two days after Hurricane Sandy made landfall nearby
The New York Stock Exchange reopened on Wednesday, albeit on running on generator power. The Nasdaq was also back in business after two days’ closure.
Partial subway service is due to begin running on Thursday in New York City, which was paralyzed by chronic traffic gridlock in Wednesday’s rush hour.
Many bus services have already resumed, and most of the city’s bridges have re-opened.
Flights started arriving at JFK and Newark Liberty airports on Wednesday morning, but the city’s LaGuardia airport remains closed.
In New York City alone, at least 22 people were killed by the storm. Among those who died were:
- Artur Kasprzak, 28, an off-duty police officer who was moving his relatives, including a 15-month-old baby, to the attic of their home in Staten Island. He died in the basement of his home as water flooded in
- Lauren Abraham, 23, caught fire and burned to death after a live wire touched her as she tried to take pictures of a damaged power line outside her house in Queens
- Jessie Streich-Kest, 24, and her friend Jacob Vogelman, 23, were killed by a falling tree as they walked Jessie’s dog, Max, in a Brooklyn park
In all, storm Sandy has claimed some 120 lives, after killing nearly 70 people as it hit the Caribbean.
Impoverished Haiti is facing severe food shortages after 70% of crops were destroyed by the storm, officials said.
Hurricane Sandy’s impact on US, in figures:
- 50+ people killed
- 6.2 million left without power
- 139 mph – highest gust of wind – Mt Washington, New Hampshire
- 12.55 in (31.88 cm) rainfall, Easton, Maryland
- 13.88 feet (4.23 m) storm surge, Lower Manhattan
- 7,000 reports of trees down in NY City
- 29 hospitals lost power in New Jersey
Sources: New York Times, AP
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Donald Trump launched into a self-serving attack on President Barack Obama just hours after devastating Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast.
And as the city struggled to recover from a blackout, Donald Trump, 66, lashed out as he accused the President of using Sandy to win votes for next week’s election.
Donald Trump tweeted: “Not only giving out money, but Obama will be seen today standing in water and rain like he is a real President – don’t fall for it.
“Hurricane is good luck for Obama again- he will buy the election by handing out billions of dollars.”
After offering $5 million to charity in a bid to get Barack Obama to produce his college records and passport application in a desperate publicity stunt, Donald Trump today said he was extending the deadline until midday on Thursday due to the hurricane.
He tweeted: “Another great cause Obama could send my $5M donation to is a charity for 9/11 First Responders. They are American heroes.
“Don’t let Obama buy the election by handing out unlimited free money to states.”
He added: “Remember this: Obama wants to raise taxes, @MittRomney wants to lower taxes – need I say more.”
Donald Trump launched into a self-serving attack on President Barack Obama just hours after devastating Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast
Donald Trump also boasted that Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in Manhattan had stayed open last night during the storm, saying: “We are taking care of hundreds of people in the Trump Tower atrium – they are seeking refuge. Free coffee and food.”
And posting a picture on Facebook, he wrote: “People having a great time in the Trump Tower atrium – unlike others, I stayed open.”
He then boasted: “The Trump Tower atrium is such a great place & kept thousands of people warm & safe during the storm – thanks, staff.”
As a broken crane continues to dangle 90 stories above a luxury building on West 57th street, Donald Trump even found time to gripe: “I am the best builder but if that were my building with the crane mishap, I would have been lambasted from coast to coast.”
Even Donald Trump’s good friend Barbara Walters has made a plea for him to stop.
On The View last week, Donald Trump begged: “You and I have known each other for many years.
“And you know that I am your friend, and I think you are a brilliant businessman, and you are great on television, and you have a fascinating personality. Donald, you’re making a fool of yourself.
“You’re not hurting Obama. You’re hurting Donald, and that hurts me because you’re a decent man.
“Stop it. Get off it, Donald.”
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama last week joked that Donald Trump’s issue with him stemmed from a childhood feud in Kenya.
Donald Trump’s outpouring was met by general disdain from New Yorkers – including by model Chrissy Teigen, the fiancée of singer John Legend.
The stunning brunette tweeted today: “Finally unfollowed donald trump. my blood pressure skyrockets when he tweets and I will not allow him to have the pleasure any longer.”
Donald Trump was keen not to stop as he continued with his onslaught of tweets, writing: “The election is trending towards @MittRomney. Americans know we can’t afford another 4 years of the Obama economic decline.
“These last 4 years have not had a single quarter over 4% GDP. Obama has overseen the weakest economic recovery in American history.”
To add insult to injury, Donald Trump will inflict his views on the rest of America tonight when he appears on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.
One week before a close election, Superstorm Sandy has confounded the presidential race, halted early voting in many areas and led some to ponder whether the election might even be postponed.
It could take days to restore electricity to more than 8 million homes and businesses that lost power when the storm pummeled the East Coast – leading experts to question whether the election can be put back from November 6th.
While the answer is of course yes in theory, the probability of the choice between Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama being postponed is unlikely despite the devastating effect Hurricane Sandy had on 60 million people across the north-east, or one-sixth of the population.
But as the storm left its trail of destruction behind, even some of those intimately involved in the election seemed in the dark about what options are available to cope with the storm.
Asked Monday whether President Barack Obama had the power to reschedule the election, White House press secretary Jay Carney said he wasn’t sure.
However, constitutionally, the President doesn’t set the date for the election, Congress does.
Congress could act within the next week to change the date, but that would be tough because lawmakers are on recess and back home in their districts campaigning for re-election.
Plus, it’s likely that would mean changing the date for the entire country, not just those affected by the storm.
What’s more, Congress only selects the date for federal elections, so changing the date would wreak havoc for state and local elections also scheduled for November 6th.
Election Day could be postponed due to Hurricane Sandy
“For those states that don’t already have an election emergency process in place, any departure from the established election process could easily give rise to court challenges about the legitimacy of the election,” said Steven Huefner, professor at Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law to ABC News.
“Even states with an emergency plan might find themselves facing litigation over specific ways in which they’ve implemented their emergency plan.”
Some have asked if it is likely for the election to go ahead but to allow New Jersey and New York to vote at a different time afterwards.
That is possible, but the legal issues get tricky. States, by and large, are in charge of their own elections.
Each state has its own laws dealing with what to do if an emergency jeopardizes voting and who can make the call.
Federal law says that if a state fails to conduct an election for federal races on the day Congress chooses, the state legislature can pick a later date.
Nevertheless, experts told ABC News that even minor contingency arrangements, like keeping polls open longer in some precincts or moving polling locations, will probably lead to legal challenges and more provisional voting, which can delay election results.
But state and federal laws don’t always jive perfectly. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has said his state’s laws don’t grant him authority to reschedule the presidential election.
Despite no presidential election ever being postponed, some are pointing to past precedents where voting has been delayed.
New York City was holding its mayoral primary when terrorists struck on September 11, 2001, and the city rescheduled the election.
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Louisiana’s governor postponed municipal elections in New Orleans after elections officials said polling places wouldn’t be ready.
However, what is most likely is a compromise for those affected by the havoc caused by the storm.
Voting hours could be extended at various locations and in places where electronic voting machines are in use, paper ballots could be used instead.
Some areas also might choose to move polling locations if existing ones are damaged, inaccessible or won’t have power on Election Day.
But even amending Election Day to accommodate the affected would create problems in themselves.
If poll hours are extended, under a 2002 law passed by Congress in response to the disputed 2000 presidential election, any voters who show up outside of regular hours must use provisional ballots, which are counted later and could be challenged.
Hurricane Sandy’s impact was felt in some of the most competitive states in the presidential race, including Virginia and Ohio.
The more provisional ballots that are cast, the greater the chances are that the winner won’t be known until days or even weeks after the election.
There’s another issue if poll hours are extended in some areas – such as counties with the worst storm damage – and not in others.
That could prompt lawsuits under the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, said Edward Foley, an election law expert at The Ohio State University.
Relocating polling places is also risky because it could drive down turnout, said Neil Malhotra, a political economist at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
“If you disrupt their routine and the polling place they’ve always been going to, even if you don’t move it very far, they vote less,” he said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator, Craig Fugate, said Monday he anticipated the storm’s impact could linger into next week and affect the election.
He said FEMA would look at what support it could provide to states before the election.
“This will be led by the states,” Craig Fugate said.
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