Election countdown: Obama, Romney in final bid for votes

U.S. President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney will spend the final hours of the campaign in a late push to sway a closely divided electorate. FULL STORY

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  Obama, Romney make a mad dash in a final bid for votes

  By the CNN Wire Staff

  November 5, 2012 -- Updated 1221 GMT (2021 HKT)
  

  538 votes will decide the election

  STORY HIGHLIGHTS

  • NEW: "He calls his plan 'forward.' I call it forewarned," Romney says of Obama
  • Obama and Romney, or their surrogates, are set to hit Ohio and Iowa on final campaign day
  • Running mates and campaign surrogates are hitting Florida, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada
  • A CNN poll shows support for Obama and Romney tied at 49%
  (CNN) -- President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney will spend the final hours of the campaign making a mad dash through battleground states Monday in a late push to sway a closely divided electorate ahead of Tuesday's election.
  
  In a final 24 hours, Obama and Romney -- or their campaign surrogates, including their wives and the vice presidential candidates -- are scheduled to make stops in Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.
  The push comes as national polls show the race is tied.
  A new CNN poll showed 49% support for Obama and 49% for Romney.
  A Politico/George Washington University survey has it tied at 48%; an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll indicates Obama at 48% and Romney at 47%; and the latest ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll puts Obama at 49% and Romney at 48%.
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  The polling numbers are slightly different in the battleground states, where Obama holds a small edge in more states than Romney. But most of those leads are well within the polls' sampling errors.
  Early Monday, Obama wrapped up a campaign stop at a community college in Aurora, Colorado, where he addressed the death and devastation left by Superstorm Sandy.
  "Unfortunately, the people of this town understand what it means to grieve better than most," Obama said, recalling the July mass shooting at a movie theater there that left 12 dead and 58 wounded.
  "Just as you have begun to heal as a community, we are going to help our friends on the East Coast heal. We are going to walk with them every step of the way. No matter how bad a storm is, we come back. No matter how tough times are, we will thrive."
  His voice raspy from weekend campaigning, Obama painted Tuesday's vote as a choice between policies that have moved the country out of the depths of recession and ones that got it into one in the first place.
  Romney used his campaign stops Sunday to hammer at Obama's record, particularly on the economy, saying it didn't warrant returning him to Washington.
  "Throughout this campaign, using everything he can think of, President Obama has tried to convince you his last four years have been a success," Romney said at a rally in Cleveland. "So his plan for the next four years is to take all the ideas from his first term -- the borrowing, Obamacare and all the rest -- and do them all over again. He calls his plan 'forward.' I call it forewarned."
  Obama was scheduled to arrive in Madison, Wisconsin, early Monday, where he was expected to hold a rally with rocker Bruce Springsteen. He was then scheduled to fly to Columbus, Ohio, where he would be joined by Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z.
  The president will round out his day with a final campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa, before heading to Chicago, where he'll spend Election Day.
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  Romney's stops include Sanford, Florida; Lynchburg, Richmond and Fairfax, Virginia; Columbus, Ohio; and a finish in Manchester, New Hampshire, where Kid Rock is set to perform, before making the short trip to Boston, where he'll spend Election Day.
  Romney's running mate, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, is scheduled to hit Nevada, Colorado, Iowa and Ohio before flying home to Wisconsin, while Vice President Joe Biden will campaign throughout Virginia.
  On the campaign surrogate front, former President Bill Clinton is expected to campaign on behalf of Obama in Pennsylvania, where Romney made a stop Sunday and his running mate campaigned Saturday.
  Most published polls show Pennsylvania leaning Democratic. But Romney adviser Kevin Madden told reporters on the campaign plane Sunday that Obama is "under-performing" in Pennsylvania, "and it's presented us an opportunity."
  "We have a really strong volunteer infrastructure that we think could make a difference," Madden said.
  "And that's why we're traveling there with two days to go, and we have spent a lot of time in the last few weeks concentrating on expanding the map."
  While the Obama campaign has discounted Romney's chances of reclaiming Pennsylvania, which hasn't gone for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, it appeared to not be taking any chances and was dispatching Clinton to counter possible GOP gains there.
  First lady Michelle Obama is scheduled to attend rallies in Charlotte, North Carolina, and later in Orlando, Florida, before flying to Iowa to join her husband in their final campaign appearance.
  CNN's Chelsea J. Carter, Dan Lothian, Shawna Shepherd and Ashley Killough contributed to this report.COPY http://edition.cnn.com/